Birthday Cake, free samples, sneak peak

I finally listed my Birthday Cake cuff tonight.  Some of you may remember that at some point this summer, I posted a sneak peak of the Birthday Cake bead mix.  I shot the original pictures before I made my light box so I decided to retake them over the weekend.

I generally have a difficult time naming my pieces.  If I do name them, I almost always do it partway through the creation process or afterward.  This name just came to me, though, as soon as I started putting the bead mix together.  I still think that it's very fitting.  And I really love this button.  It ties everything together nicely.  I made another bracelet with this same seed bead mix but no other embellishment that I'm going to list at some point, too.

Shannon (beadsandbabble) was so pleased with my inclusion of her chocolate dagger beads in my random feature earlier this month that she offered to send me some free sample beads!  Of course I wasn't going to say no to that!  They arrived in the mail today, and I certainly wasn't disappointed.

Some of these beads fit into my Art Beads fall blogging piece perfectly.  I've been planning some simple jade pieces for a while as while.  The neutral/metallic seed beads on the right will coordinate well with that green.  Thanks again Shannon!

Some accepted another Alchemy request today so I'll be working on that custom request this week.  I picked out the beads tonight.

I'll leave your imaginations open on that for now.  And no, it's not anything Christmas related even though it is that color scheme. :)

Finally, I got confirmation today that I will have a piece published in Bead Trends February 2011!