FUN, New "Challenge" & Bead Blogger Happenings

What's the word for a situation where one person or entity selects a bead or group of beads for another to use for making a jewelry project? Is it a challenge, a competition, a contest or even a throwdown? :)

I'm not sure it is any of the above. It is certainly a situation that calls for creativity and imagination. During the design process, there is an element of excitement as well as one of wanting to please the other individual by creating something interesting or unique.

As part of the Rings & Things blog partners team, I have enjoyed this experience on several occassions. During a recent online conversation with R&T's Web Optimizer, Dave Robertson, he agreed to allow the blog partners team to turn the table a bit. So, here we go..... I am passing along an invitation to all other blog partners as well as those interested in becoming blog partners to make a suggestion for a bead or beads you would like to see used in a piece of jewelry designed by the Rings & Things staff.

We'll leave the details up to Dave once he and his team have compiled the list of suggestions received over the next week. If you are interested in making a suggestion from the Rings & Things catalog, send it to Dave by next Sunday (7/19/09) via Twitter. You can visit Dave's page or just enter a tweet using @Rings_Things in the text.

If you are not on Twitter, send me an email and I'll get it to Dave.

My suggestion has to do with sweet sounding gemstones from the fruit family: cherry quartz (above), pineapple quartz & blueberry quartz. Yummy!!
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Now, I hope you will join me in checking out what some of our fellow beaders have been up to over the last few days!! Have a GREAT week!

About.com Jewelry Making School's out for summer, but is it really? Nope, not when you can take one of these free jewelry making e-courses.

Snap out of it, Jean! There's beading to be done! Jean reviews a different, colorful, and inspiring book called Glass, by Marlene Blessing and Jamie Hogsett.

Strands of Beads Melissa talks about where to find reliable information on copyrights - the U.S. Copyright Office, of course!

The Writing and Art of Andrew Thornton Challenging himself with a smaller scale, Andrew tackles doll jewelry. Check out five new designs with dolls in mind!

Cindy Gimbrone aka The Lampwork Diva Cindy shows off some new chain and realizes one should never shop for jeans on her lunch hour.

Humblebeads Check out the 2009 Bead Cruise design contest winners!

Jean Campbell Jean Campbell finished off her new LeTemps Necklace design which marries bling to grunge. Hurray!

Lorelei's Blog: Inside the Studio Lorelei has busted out of the studio and into the Museum of Art for a trunk show.

Beading Arts Wonderful wonderful wonderful new CopprClay! Cyndi is so excited about this new material that she can't stop playing with it!

Carmi's Art/Life World Carmi attempts to create a necklace after a resin pouring disaster.

Art Bead Scene Art Bead Scene's monthly challenge painting for July is the Lascaux Cave Paintings. Get your stash of beads out in ivory, red and brown to match the color palette of these ancient drawings.