Woo Hoo Ladies!

I just finished a new piece that I am really proud of. It's for the Etsy Beadweaver team's February Challenge, theme being royalty throughout time.

Well, I like to keep my efforts off the beaten path, and so I decided to dedicate this piece to Vlad Tepes' (Dracula) first wife Eshbeta.
Read more here.

The more time I spend beading the more I see that I have a good sense of color and design due to panting for years, but then I look at work like this lady's and I find that I better eat a slice of humble pie because I have a lot to learn about different techniques and how being spontaneous is good, but preparing for the wildfire caused by the creative spark is even better.

Anyhow, I present You with Eshbeta's necklace. I hope You enjoy it.

Also, with this necklace I wanted to celebrate all the different shapes and colors and sizes we ladies come in. My model here is my good friend Brooke and I feel like she really rocked this necklace.

I don't have a good camera and so my pics lack a certain finesse, but what I was trying to achieve here is a realistic picture of a real woman who has curves and is not afraid to show them and looks absolutely wonderful with this necklace on.

While I feel like this piece is a breakthrough in my (hardly existent ) carrier as a jewelry artist, I feel like I am gaining some momentum and there will be interesting things to follow this, but it will take some time, as I do have a day job as a shoe sales person (oh yeah, come see me any time at Pedestrian Shops in Boulder) and bead embroidery is a time consuming business.

Unfortunately I could not get lovely Samantha Regina to model this piece as her neck is really thick and I won't even attempt to assault her with the brass cuff that gives this necklace it's shape. But even without our favorite doggie model , this piece is pretty ok.
There is room for improvement, but I am getting somewhere.

There will be a voting for the best in this challenge and I will post the link to the side when it starts. Please feel free to vote for anyone else, there will be some really neat things. My favorite so far is this.

I was thinking a lot lately about inspiration and where it comes from . I will soon do a post about what inspires me.