OHOW Giveaway - Winner Announced

What an amazing experience this has been. My thanks to Lisa for hosting the OHOW giveaway. It is such fun visiting so many blogs, and seeing the variety of work produced by artists throughout the world.

I have a winner, and amazingly, the Random Number Generator chose #1 - the lucky woman who was first on my comments list is:

Theresa, of Faerie Moon Creations.

I will notify Theresa on her blog, and send the necklace off to her as soon as I receive her mailing address.

I hope to spend this coming year visiting all the bloggers who entered the OHOW giveaway.

Thank you to all of you that entered.

Terry

For those who would like to see how the random number generator works, I've included the results at the bottom of this post.

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

1

Timestamp: 2010-02-15 19:29:17 UTC

I am a part of the 2010 One World - One Heart Giveaway. This is a unique experience where artists from all over the world participate through their blogs. This is the 4th year of this amazing event and I participated last year and it was a wonderful experience connecting with so many other bloggers who use their blogs for creative expression.

How it works is that if you want a chance to win my donated piece of handmade jewelry, you need to leave a comment on this blog entry, including your email address so that I can inform you if you win. This giveaway is open to everyone!

If you click the One World - One Heart Logo at the top of this post, you can learn more about this amazing venture, and if you want, you can also sign on.

The giveaway will end on February 15th and the winner will be notified on the same day. I will use a random number generator to pick the winning number. This event is international and all can choose to be involved. I hope that you will go to the website to see the huge number of artists worldwide who are taking part in this venture. We are a vast community of artists. Sign on to as many as you want.

Now about the giveaway:

I call this necklace Honey Gold Goddess!

Magic is in the air! The contrasts in this necklace make it a standout. There are beautiful Citrine chunks offset with smooth Onyx beads leading to a handmade dichroic glass pendant of a Goddess figure. This necklace is 22" long and finished with an unusual sterling silver toggle clasp.

If you are interested in winning this wonderful piece of jewelry, make sure you comment on this post, and include your email address. Otherwise I have no way to let you know if you win.

Good luck!

Website & Blog Issues

I've been having some serious problems with my Wordpress blog and website - seems that open source sites are being hit with a virus and I have a not so friendly worm floating around my site. I've invested so much in having my website and blog hosted together, and here I sit back to square one. As a result, I've decided to join the One World One Heart Giveaway from my old faithful Blogspot blog. I couldn't miss being involved in this incredible experience. This will be my second year. Last year I felt such a connection to so many artists worldwide. I love the sense of community which feeds me. Please get involved. The Giveaway begins Monday January 25, 2010. My necklace that I am giving away, and instructions will be posted tomorrow.

Moving Blog to Wordpress

Hi all, I'm in the process of moving my website and my blog to magicalbeadstalk.com/blog which is on Wordpress rather than Blogspot. I realize that it is better to have my blog linked to my website rather than Google (which owns Blogspot). So.....My blog is up and running on Worpress and I would love those of you who follow me here on Blogsppot to follow me there. Instead of a list of followers, on Wordpress you can click the RSS icon at the bottom left of the page and subscribe through Google reader or Google homepage. My next goal is to move my website onto Wordpress as well. Up until now I have been using a template through a web hosting company and I want more flexibility than I currently have. I believe that with Wordpress and the fabulous designer Carey Baker, this will happen. I will keep you up-to-date on the changes.

Happy Labor Day Weekend

This has been a wonderful long weekend here in Easthampton, MA. The weather has been perfect - mid 70's with no humidity and no rain. Glorious. I sometimes think how great it would be if the weather was like this all the time. But really, I think I would tire of it, missing the seasons changing, which is so wonderful in New England.

I have been spending my time changing all my tags on my jewelry to reflect that Magical Beadstalk is now a shared business of Terry & Sheryl's. I have a lot of jewelry and changing all the tags turned out to be a very big job. In between playing with Alya, who seems to be growing and changing on a daily basis, shopping for things for Alya, and checking out a lot of tag sales for great buys for Alya, I have been spending my time getting all my jewelry ready for the start of craft shows, which begins in two weeks.

I thought the summer would be a time for me to create lots of new pieces, learn and practice new techniques, and having lots of new creations photographed and up on the website. But really the summer has been about my granddaughter, Winde and Elaine, with the added pleasure of having my niece Lindsay coming for a visit. Glad to have had the time with no pressure of shows to get ready for.

It always seems to be more fun to go places when people are visiting. Lindsay's friend Mark is a basketball fanatic so we went to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA. He had a blast. I was glad to go because Cold Stone Ice Cream is sold next door. We went to Yankee Candle, and Magic Wings which is like Butterfly World in Florida. The butterflies are all around and it's a beautiful place to see - the plants and flowers are lush and if you're lucky the butterflies land on you!

Fall is just around the corner, and it is my favorite time of year.

Wishing everyone a great weekend.

New Business Partner for Magical Beadstalk

Seems to be a time of great change for me. I feel my life has been forever changed with the birth of my first grandchild, Alya. It's amazing for me to notice how priorities can shift and change in ways that are not expected. I love how Alya's arrival into my family has brought Elaine, Winde and me to such a great place. What an amazing addition to my world.

I also made a big decision to bring a partner into my business. Sheryl Machat has been my beading buddy for quite some time and we work so well together that we decided to join forces. Her work is very different from mine, lots of bead weaving, and creative uses of wire, and her work complements mine well. She has now joined Magical Beadstalk and if you go to our website you will see some of her work. We haven't gotten much up as of yet, but more is to come shortly.

It's a great benefit to me, who has worked mostly in isolation, to have someone to talk things out with, problem solve with, and share costs of shows and supplies with. I am sure there will be some kinks to work out, but so far it's been a breeze!

It is a difficult time for jewelry artists. I know some have continued to do well, and bravo to them for their incredible marketing skills. But for many of us, a slow economy has meant less sales. As well, more artists are trying the craft show route, and the competition for jewelry spots has gotten even tighter.

I welcome Sheryl into my world and look forward to gaining from her creativity, and having someone as committed as I am to the art of jewelry making, and the development of a small business that we both believe in.

Here are a few pieces of Sheryl's work:

New Logo - The Importance of Branding

I finally bit the bullet and hired a graphic designer (Allison Biggs, http://www.amdesignworks.com) to design a logo for my business. I've used different elements over the years - some I liked, some not - and I finally came to understand the importance of "branding". What I mean by branding is that all the printed material I use from now on will have the same logo and colors, including business cards, earrings cards, sales tags, letterhead, and mailing labels. Allison did the blog header here, which I think looks amazing. I want it to be that my logo will appear on everything related to my business so that it will come to be recognized as Magical Beadstalk in and of itself.

I think that it's taken me five years to figure this out which seems like a very long time. I went from purchasing a template for my website which was very "cutesy" to having someone redesign it to make it look more polished and professional looking. That led to wanting to change my business card to match the site. Turns out the person who did the website disappeared and I didn't have access to her. So I played around with my limited ability in Photoshop to make decent business cards, but of course they didn't match anything.

Next was to tackle the banner on my Etsy site. I hired someone through Etsy who made a banner for me, which I loved, so then I hired her to design my business card as well. I found myself using the banner design, shrinking and stretching it as needed.

Brings me to today. Now I have a logo - based on the Bodhi Tree leaf, which is an image that speaks to me. I am planning on using this logo in everything I use from this point onward.

I am also planning on starting another business providing Reiki now that I've completed my training and have become a Reiki Master. I will use the same logo but in purple. How cool is that?

Here are some of the great designs: