The Jewelry Lessons website, run by Eni Oken and friends, is sponsoring a new contest called "Overcoming the Economic Crisis". The idea behind the contest is to allow participants to use whatever materials they have on-hand to make a beautiful piece of jewelry and enter it without having to purchase any additional materials or pay an entry fee. The winners will receive their choice of jewelry making tutorials from Eni's website, Jewelry Lessons.com.

The deadline for entries is January 31, 2010, so you have plenty of time to create your entry. To enter, follow the directions on the website to simply upload a good photograph of your entry into the contest gallery. Entries posted to the contest gallery will also be available to view in the main gallery.

I think this is a great way to challenge yourself and maybe win a cool tutorial in the process! It's just one of many great ways to stretch your beading budget.

Have you started your holiday beading yet? Don't worry, neither have I! The holidays can really sneak up on you, especially if you have a family with small children like I do. I've got a few great patterns in the works for next week, but until then, if you want to get started, here are some great free beading patterns for the holidays:

Tiny Beaded Candy Canes - These little candy canes work up super quick and are great for earrings or to add as a final touch to gift wrap.

Christmoose - This is a free beading pattern from Jeanette Shannigan, author of "Beaded Adornment".

Holiday Earring Patterns - These patterns cover Christmas, Chanukah and Kwanza with angels, santas, candles and a Dreidel.

Beaded Pointsetta Ornament - This lovely ornament will also make a wonderful holiday pendant.

Winter Steeples - A beautiful charted peyote stitch pattern by Suzanne Cooper to get you into winter.

Winter Storm Necklace - A simple strung necklace that sparkles like a winter storm.

For me, the holidays mean the start of my favorite season - winter - when snuggling up with my beads and my family next to a roaring fire is just about as good as it gets. Happy beading!

Bead Star 2009 is the second year of this unique publication which is made up entirely of prize-winning designs. This year, the cover piece, "Silver Icicles", was designed and created by Sue Sater. Sue's prize package included a $1,000 gift certificate to Fire Mountain Gems and Beads and an all-expense paid three-day trip to Bead Fest Santa Fe. Congratulations, Sue!

Bead Star will be on sale at newsstands everywhere on December 8, or you can order your own copy directly from the publisher's website, Interweave Press. Bead Star projects are made with simple stringing, crimping and wire work techniques, and the projects appeal to beaders of all skill levels.

Check back on the Bead Star website around December 16 - they will be announcing the contest guidelines for the 2010 Bead Star Contest.

If you're not the type to brave the crazy crowds at the malls and the department stores, what better way than to spend the weekend reading through some great beadweaving blogs?

BeadedBear's Nonsense and Complete Waste of Time - Sig Wynne-Evans talks about what's really important during the holiday season.

Mad Designs - Marcia DeCoster shows us some incredible earrings and some itty bitty beaded knitting.

Etsy Beadweaver's Team - the November Challenge has a winner!

Good River Gallery - Hanna Rosner is offering some new peyote stitch bracelet tutorials on her website.

Beadlust - Robin Atkins shows us photos of her brother's newly finished Global Warming Quilt.

Tapestry Beads - Jill Wiseman has some gorgeous new "glamor shots" of her beadwork on her blog as well as some musing about Thanksgiving.

Artisan Clay - Kristie Roeder is promoting her annual holiday sale with some great new pendants, donuts and beads.

Ramblings on Jewelry-Making and Life - Jean Campbell has some great new steampunk jewelry to share with us.

Contemporary Beadwork by Kerrie Slade - Kerrie has a beautiful new piece of beaded jewelry for us to see called "Dark Faerie".

Color for Bead Artists - Margie Deeb had a great class in Toronto with the Toronto Bead Society.

Happy beading and reading, and to all the U.S. readers, happy Thanksgiving!

These incredible ceramic donuts by Olivia Dowdy caught my eye at Bead Fest Philadelphia this past August. Each one is incredibly unique in the way that the light catches the colors of the raku finish and the textures of each one. Many of the pieces have nature themes - trees, leaves, dragonflies and flowers. They come in both a matte, satiny finish as well as a glossy finish. Both types are stunning.

This large donut was a splurge for me, and I have absolutely no idea what to do with it yet. For now, I enjoy just taking it out of it's wrapping and looking at different colors of seed beads to see which pick up the subtle hues of purple, maroon and blue. It's fun to simply hold it in my hand and feel the textures under my fingertips. And each time I tilt it back and forth in the light, the colors shift and make me want to choose a brand new set of seed beads to go with it.

If you'd like to see more of these incredible pieces and purchase your own fabulous focal from Olivia, go to her Etsy shop, Odddesignsnc. You'll also find a wonderful selection of finished jewelry made with her wonderful raku pieces - earrings, bracelets, shawl pins, brooches and more.

One of the things that I most enjoy about being a beadwork artist, and being an artist in general, is the seemingly endless supply of inspiration that surrounds me. Once I was able to tap into that part of my mind that I refer to as my "artist brain", I found it easy to find inspiration for beadwork in pretty much anything that I see.

The bracelet and earring set in this photo is a recent creation of mine, inspired by one of my many sessions perusing the online catalogs for the big auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's. Many of the jewelry collections include works by well-known jewelers as well as wonderful folk and antique jewelry. The challenge in using these pieces as inspiration for my own beaded creations comes when I see a piece of jewelry that makes me think, "How can I recreate that using just seed beads?"

My favorite source, which I don't get to tap into too often, are museums and art galleries. While I love living in the mountains, my distance from major art museums and collections means that a visit is something that happens only once or twice a year. But when I'm there, I've got my camera, sketchbook and colored pencils handy. I've found ideas for beadwork in the illuminated manuscripts of a 14th-century European family at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles as well as the baroque style furniture on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. An exhibit of ancient glass from Greece and Rome at the Getty Villa in Malibu, California still inspires me when I am at my lampwork torch as well as when I am looking for a new beading project.

Of course, one of the greatest inspirations for my work is the view out my studio window. There is nothing quite like a mountain range through the four seasons to provide me with ideas for color, shape and texture as I watch the sun rise and set, the trees turn green and then lose their leaves, and the snowstorms and spring rains that come over the ridge. These colors, shapes and textures weave their way into my little beads and result in some surprising and beautiful beaded art.

Where do you find inspiration? Is it in a particular style of jewelry? An era in history? Nature? A color? Share your ideas here!

Ever since I started learning the art of making glass beads, there are a few lampwork artists whose work has fascinated me. Ofilia Cinta is one of those lampwork artists, and this past summer, I got to meet her and purchase one of her incredible glass fish beads.

Ofilia's glasswork is inspired by her rich heritage and her memories of childhood trips to Mexico and Texas. When you look at her richly colored hollow glass fish, her signature creation, you find unexpected depth in the layers of glass and light. Sometimes she includes small patches of dichroic glass or copper mesh to give texture and sparkle. Each fish is one-of-a-kind, and in choosing one for myself, I had to look at them closely to figure out their unique personalities.

You can see more of Ofilia's work and read her complete bio on her website, Ofilia Art Glass.

Some great weekend reading for you in the world of beads and blogs:

Tapestry Beads - Jill Wiseman is gearing up for her last show of a very busy year.

Beadazzled of Oregon - Dini Alves shows off some incredible new beaded chevrons.

Beadedbear's Nonsense and Complete Waste of Time - Sig Wynne-Evans has a day off from her day job and gets ready for BABE.

Etsy Beadweaver's Team - the November challenge entries are in and are open for voting. Some beautiful work based on the theme "Beauty of the Flower".

Ramblings on Jewelry Making and Life - Jean Campbell talks about reinforcing your beadwork to make beautiful pieces that will stand the test of time.

Contemporary Beadwork by Kerrie Slade - Kerrie shows us some gorgeous new pieces that placed second in the British Bead Awards.

MAD Designs - Marcia DeCoster talks about her upcoming book signing and shares some of her current knitting projects.

Artisan Clay - Kristie Roeder has a fantastic giveaway going on to celebrate her 300th sale on Etsy and has just listed some very cool assorted packs of ceramic beads.

SandFibers - Carol Dean Sharpe shares some of the gorgeous treasuries on Etsy that include her work, as well as the work of some other very talented Etsy beadweavers.

A Word From Claudia - Claudia Chase of Mirrix Looms talks about using color in beadwork. This is a wonderful post that explores many aspects of using color, from the obvious to the subconscious and is a real treat to read.

I'll return next week with some more posts about my favorite fabulous focals and some thoughts on finding inspiration for your beadwork. Until then, happy reading and beading!

While I was at Bead Fest Philadelphia this past summer, I treated myself to a number of beautiful focal artist beads, something that I haven't done since I went to the first Bead Fest in 2003. For the next few days, I will be featuring each of the artists from whom I bought a focal bead with a little information about the artist and links to where you can buy your own miniature work of art.

Kristie Roeder of Artisan Clay creates beautiful, one of a kind hand-thrown ceramic beads, pendants and donuts. At Bead Fest, I bought two of her glass and stoneware cabochons and a smoke-fired donut.

Imagine my delight when I saw on the Artisan Clay Etsy shop that she had started creating ceramic donuts in one of my favorite colors - copper luster!

Kristie is now having a giveaway to help celebrate the 300th sale in her Etsy store. In addition to getting a free copper luster bead for every item you purchase from her store, she is also offering a chance to win a smoke, copper or sagger colored bead or donut from her current inventory. You can find all the details on the Artisan Clay blog.

In addition to the many, many other things that I have going on this week, I am finishing up my entry for Scarlet Lanson's Use the Muse III competition. Here is a sneak peek:

That's all I can show you right now! The space in the center between the two flowers is where the Muse component will be placed. If you like the flowers, you can try your hand at making your own Russian style netted flowers.

I'm very happy with the warm colors I chose to use in this project. All of the beads came from my shopping spree at the Beyond Beadery booth at Bead Fest Philadelphia this past August. (Can you even call it a booth? It's more like a portable seed bead and Swarovski crystal store!)

Scarlet was nice enough to extend the deadline so that the international participants in the competition would have enough time to complete their entries, and that worked well for me, since the extra time allowed me to meet my other deadlines and still have time to finish my design.

Since I'm not allowed to reveal the beautiful Muse component that is the focal point of the design, you'll just have to wait until The Big Reveal on Scarlet's website, The Beader's Muse, when she announces the winners of the competition.

I hope Scarlet has a fourth Use the Muse competition - check her website often for updates!