Photos are Appreciated!

One of the winners of my recent giveaway made my day by emailing me a photo of herself wearing the prize. Isn't this a great photo? She makes the necklace really pop by pairing it with that lovely print jacket and top and that GORGEOUS hair!! Thank you so much for sending it to me.

I have to confess here that I often find it difficult to wear the jewelry that I make, because my wardrobe these days is completely Suburban Mom circa 2002 (which is odd, because the Short One wasn't around in 2002). The best I can usually manage on the fly (really all of the time I get from the SO - he's strangely impatient about issues such as wearing clothes) is a pair of jeans with a plain tee shirt and leather running shoes. In fact, a good friend of mine who knew me from my dressier days was visiting last year and commented tactfully one morning that she would be happy to look after the Short One for a few minutes, if I wanted to go and change before we left the house. The look of horror she gave me when I explained that I was already dressed to go out was suitably veiled, but she spent an hour after that, dragging me around the boutiques to try to pick out some new clothes and shoes. Anyway, I hardly ever have the opportunity to see my jewelry in a stylish setting, so the photo was a special treat in that regard.

While no one who owns one of my pieces should feel pressured to send in photos, if you are interested in doing so, I would definitely love to see them. (Oh, and I won't post anything that's sent to me on the blog, unless I have explicit permission to do so.) My email is strandsofbeads@yahoo.com.

Oh, one other bit of news to report, here. Regular readers of my blog may remember back in December that I was a little down after packing up some of my beads (that I pulled from the Etsy store and one of which actually came from a necklace I was forced to cut apart) to send in to a magazine. A friend had sent me a copy of the call for entries just a couple days before the deadline, and I had had no time really to prepare anything new for it and felt my chances of getting in were slim to none. After hearing nothing from the magazine for almost two months, I was convinced that I'd been rejected. Much to my surprise, I found out yesterday that all three types of beads I submitted have been accepted for publication. The name of the magazine is BEADS2008 - it's an annual publication put out by BEADWORK magazine that's designed to be a resource guide for new beads and beading products. It will be out on the stands on April 22d. I am extremely excited about this - I own last year's issue, BEADS2007, and it's a great publication, with lots of photos of beautiful art beads by wonderful artists in it. Thanks again, so much, to my friend who originally alerted me to the call for entries - you are a very generous person!

Thanks for visiting! See you tomorrow.

ps. Happy Valentine's Day!