Simply Unique

  Curated By: TheBeadDoodler

ArtFire.com

Unique Gifts

Black Friday to Cyber Monday Sales

ArtFire is sponsoring a huge Black Friday 2010 deals promotion. I went to ArtFire to see what the Beaded Jewelry artists were doing. Typed "beaded jewelry" into the search box and got 1245 pages of deals, mostly stringing and wirework. Typed in "beadwoven jewelry" and got 10 pages.

That gave me a big clue as to niche key words for my ArtFire shop. All of mine have beaded, jewelry in the tags, but not all had beadwoven. I'm finding this SEO really hard to grasp, but occasionally I see the light here and there.

Speaking of Black Friday, BeadPatternsBoutique is having a huge buy 2 get one free sale on bead patterns Friday, November 26th through Monday, November 29th. Twelve designers are participating in this sale so you can find a wide variety of patterns. Read all the details in the BeadPatternsBoutique Shop Blog. This is definitely not a sale you want to pass up. We've had this type of sale occasionally, but this one has the largest participation among the designers.

I hope all my US friends are having a very happy, safe Thanksgiving Day, and to the rest of you I hope you're warm/cool (depending on your location) and safe for the weekend.

Colors of Fall

I love autumn! Nature seems to explode in a riot of colors as berries, fruit, nuts and grain ripen and leaves erupt in a flash of changing colors just before trees and shrubs go to sleep for the winter.

Swarovski Crystals not only capture these colors of fall, but their sparkle resembles morning sunlight on nature's dew-kissed bounty.



ArtBeads.com's blogging for beads theme is Colors of Fall, and they graciously supplied me with these gorgeous fall colored Swarovski Crystals and the antique gold Bali style ring and toggle clasp.

I chose 4mm bicones in 5 colors.  Moca, hyacinth, fire opal, citrine, and olivine.  The moca wasn't available in the new 5328 Xillion cut, so I took a 5301 in the moca.  I found that is is just a little bit shorter than the Xillion cut.  It worked well with the other colors in the modified apache leaf pattern shown in the first picture, but not too well in the double flat spiral shown in the second picture.  I used just the last four colors in that one and closed it with a round floral copper box clasp.

This is the first time I've tried to design with colored Swarovski Crystals.  I usually use the crystal AB in more elegant and formal designs.  I find the brilliance and depth of color in these beads striking.  They made up into beautiful, sparkling, casual, fun bracelets.

I like the new Xillion cuts better every time I use them.  They don't have the sharp edges around the holes so you really don't have to buffer them with seed beads if you don't want to and their sparkle and shine is just amazing.

This blog post is my honest evaluation of the supplies I received from ArtBeads.com.  They do not pay me to blog about their store, but  occasionally supply the materials free of charge for evaluation.