Published and lost

This will be long and boring, but I had patience enough and deserve to steam off a little.
Let me start by saying how deeply I respect the work of anybody and that I am always extremely polite when addressing people, no matter what. I know what it means to work in customers care, and I would never be a nasty, angry, rude customer.

Last June I was contacted by a magazine to publish my Red Lady necklace in an article related to the amazing Bead Soup.

I was so happy! Couldn't believe it!
I didn't want to part from my necklace, but I was going to leave in a couple of days and didn't have time to take proper pictures as they wanted. So I sent it.
I didn't receive any news from them for almost 2 months, as they went on vacation in august. I was kind of resigned that my necklace was lost, but nope: it had arrived safely!
The magazine was due on 5th october and I couldn't wait to receive my copy.
I was sent an e-mail that I had actually been published (yeah!!!) and I was going to receive a copy and my necklace in my hands within a couple of weeks.

Weeks passed by and no sign of any package behind my door.
I wrote to the magazine and was answered, after 6 days, that the necklace had been sent to my address...I look at it and it says n.16 instead of 14...
What? SERIOUSLY??!?!?

Rules are you need to write down your address almost everywhere, on the box, envelope, on a card tied to the piece of jewelry. No way I could have written 16 in any of these places.

Also, it was too late to go nextdoor (that's where n.16 was) and ask to people if they could pay attention to any mail they would receive with my name on. It was already lost or going back to the magazine.
Well, after one more month I can say it never went back to the magazine.

The nasty thing is, the mail wasn't trackable since day one, when it still was in the USA. Tracking number didn't work - I don't know why, they didn't know why.
They left me with promises of sorting things out for me, but they obviously didn't.

How should I feel now???
Devastated. Especially because the raw materials were a precious gift from what has become a dear friend.
So I only have 2 pics of the magazine, my BF took them yesterday night with his phone so you need quite a lot of imagination....

Looks gorgeous and can't wait to have in my hands.
It's a bittersweet triumph for me.
I am thankful for being published but I am so sad now. And I miss my beads so much.

Cross stitch from the outer space

I can finally show you why I haven't been beading much lately.
This

is the reason. It took me 2 weeks!
It is a little gift for my BF who turns 30 today!
We are both Star Wars big fans and are going to have a SW marathon today.
He still hasn't seen it...
The pattern is from Iotacons.com, please check this amazing website 'cause you'll find all the best series cross stitched!
I just had to invent a couple of charachters and to modify Jabba from another pattern.
Hope the BF will like it!

7th Bead Soup Blog Party® contest

I am truly honored (and pretty confused since it's 2 am here) to announce that my Red Lady necklace is one of the winners of the 7th Bead Soup Blog Party contest!!!

The fact that I was chosen by Nina Design together with another amazing artist as Malin de Koning, who I absolutely adore, is already a big prize for me.

Please take a moment to look at ALL the winners here, there are 46 of them and all are astonishing creations!

I would like to thank someone before I pass out asleep:

-first of all Lori McDaniel Anderson, the mind and body behind the Bead Soup Blog Party - because it takes a whole lot of energy and physical strength to do all that's required for such a big event with more than 500 partecipants, and she made all of this despite a lot of problems. She's a warrior and we all appreciated her big efforts to make this party such an amazing experience for all of us.

-Nina Design, one of the jurors who chose my piece, a huge honor I wasn't expecting at all!

-my partner Dorota, who sent me that amazing cabochon which led me to bead embroidery in the first place, and a lot of other goodies that stimulated my creativity. Knowing you was a big pleasure dear Dorota, you are such a nice, creative and generous person!

-last but not least, my wonderful boyfriend.
He often makes fun of me saying "I'm going to throw away all your beads!" but actually always pushes me to explore my creativity and bears the presence of all these tiny little things everywhere. I've become much more tidier with time and we don't find beads in our meals or bed anymore, but still he hears me swearing whenever I accidentally pour beads on the floor, and he still loves me.

Thanks for visiting everybody and for taking the time to write kind, thoughtful comments!

BSBP 4th item: The Indian Flower necklace

If you are still hopping on the BSBP second reveal, here is the link . I'm showing my BSBP pieces one by one all over the week, here is the 4th one.

This necklace has been an ever changing project until the very last minute. This beautiful clasp is not so simple to use, and those freshwater pearls were great to match it, but other than this I didn't know what to do with them.

I was making a multistring bracelet, when I found 2 beautiful ceramic green flowers in my stash. They have the same size and shape of the clasp, so I decided to make some sort of big leaves with these flowers in the centre.

I wanted to put the toggle between them, so it would have been on the frontal part.
But the leaves were too big and I didn't like the first one, the second I liked more but wasn't sure about the shape...
I was confused, until I decided to make 2 small leaves and use the clasp as focal. Something simple.

But then I cut the big leaf making it a big flower shape, and decided to use THAT as focal.

I like this color combo with green and fuchsia/purple, which is by the way the color combo I offered my partner.
Finally I needed something to put in between the pearls, which have a semi-spherical shape. I added some green crystal to mix together the 2 main colors and voilà:

I'm still looking at those leaves, can't realize I actually made them. I won my fear of bead embroidery pretty fast!

BSBP 1st item: Red Lady Necklace

If you are still hopping on the BSBP second reveal, here is the link . I'm showing my BSBP pieces one by one all over the week, here is the first one.

When I first opened the box from Dorota, my Bead Soup partner, the first item I saw (and the biggest) was this amazing embroidered focal.

I fell in love with it instantly and I decided I needed something big to celebrate this gift and my partner's ability.
So i decided to give a serious chance to bead embroidery.
I had bought some bead backing almost 2 years ago from Nicole Campanella, and was eager to use it.
I had some old orange cabochons, looking like rivolis, I started bezelling them using the beads Dorota provided me with (gorgeous, and a lot of them). She also sent those little red pearls she had used on the focal.

I started with some round, floral motif using the orange freshwater pearls on the first rounds and some old golden pearls I had bought 5 years ago on the second.
And then, I got blocked.
I didn't know how to go on. After 10 days working on other pieces, I decided to connect what I had made with the focal using the little yellow seed beads.
Then I thought about going on with the same motif without the rivoli. How to do so? I tried some beaded donut and made 2 with the same beads from the 2nd floral motif. Then I made 2 more donuts, only very small to have a fading effect. I decided for a simple magnetic toggle because I have a sensitive neck and just used 2 red agate beads to embellish it.

How do I look?

Embroidery frenzy

Since I can't show my soup progress, here's something else I did last night just to make practice with bead embroidery

Not perfect but still it is a big step for me - and the back is clean too! Just not in the right color...should buy more ultrasuede in the future.
I have already glued several stones on the bead backing and hope to actually finish everything on time. Too many projects, so little time...