Sweet Dreams and Bead Blogging Linky Love

I have to apologize - yesterday's post was a complete mess. I ended up revising it about ten times. Ultimately, I decided that tying in the koi pendant giveaway to voting in the Bead Star contest was an invidious thing to do, so I've just turned it into a straight giveaway. You will have to email me to enter this time. (Scroll down to the previous post for details.) I was worried that people might be reluctant to provide email addresses to enter (although I swear up and down that I don't spam, I don't sell addresses, and I won't even keep the addresses past the contest deadline), but people have been entering, so I thank you for that! If you don't blog, you may not realize how much someone puts their ego on the line when putting together a giveaway like this. There's always the fear that no one will be interested enough to enter! I hope everyone who reads this (whether you know me personally or not) will feel free contact me about the giveaway, if you like the koi.

As far as the Bead Star contest is concerned, I was also worried about whether I could legitimately identify my piece and ask people to vote for it. Well, I noticed today that a lot of finalists have been mentioning their pieces on their blogs and in forums, so I decided "What the heck." (Of course, there was that little comment in my mother's voice - "If the other kids jumped off a cliff, would you jump, too?" - but I've decided that I've reached that age of maturity that I can ignore it. Er, don't tell the Short One I said so, though. Come to think of it, don't tell my Mom.) So, I revised the post to identify my piece as No. 17 in the pearls category, and I am now shamelessly asking for people to vote (see the sidebar)! The link I have provided will take you directly to the pearls page, where you can, ahem, vote, if you feel moved to do so. And that's all I'm going to say about that!

Right, on to more enlightening topics. Here are a couple new word charms I made recently. I made them specifically to go with these cute beads I bought from Rachel Place. The colors on these turned out a little closer to what I intended than the first batch - a little more pastel-y. I have one more set of word charms I'd like to make (to go with some Jangles beads, this time), then I intend to move onto some new designs.

Finally, I've been invited to join a group of talented bead and jewelry artists, called Bead Bloggers. I'm really honored to be a member! This is my first post on behalf of the group. So, here's some linky love to get you through the weekend:

About.com Jewelry Making
Learn to wire wrap your beads and add an extra little something to your jewelry designs.

Art Bead Scene
Wondering what's "in?" Trek on over to ABS to check out the trends!

BeadStyle Magazine
What did Cathy see and do at the Bead&Button show? Read about it and let us know what you bought there.

Jennifer Jangles Blog
Things are growing around here...

Katie's Beading Blog

Take a peek inside Katie's shopping bag!

Naughty Secretary Club
Brand new website, but no sales? Jen helps out a friend by bestowing a bit of the knowledge she has picked up from running her jewelry website Naughty Secretary Club as her full time job for over 5 years.

Snap out of it, Jean! There's beadng to be done!
Jean saw a dragonfly striking a pose and made a necklace in its honor!

Strands of Beads
Melissa visits the New York branch of Japanese bead store Toho Shoji.

Have a great weekend!