Beadnik

First post to new blog: I intend to try and keep track of work I'm doing this year during the year of the Bead Journal Project, a year long effort begun by the noted beadworker, Robin Atkins . My first links will be to pics of Bead Artist Trading cards that I'm making for a swap organized by Beki from the All About Beads Forum .
The swap is organized in a one for one format, with participants sending in multiples of 5 cards...I'm planning on doing 4 different sets of 5 cards, and have already finished 2 sets. Wonderful for me, since I'm usually unable to do well with deadlines, and the deadline here isn't til September. (better not get too satisfied too early, though). I'm going to post one of each set here, and will later add all 5 of each set to a page on my website and will link to them later.
First set is Calaveras (skull for the Mexican Day of the Dead celebration):




















The second is a stamped horse, a simple card, but I love the colors:




The rules for the swap are simply to make an ATC with at least one bead on it. Simple no? Well, certainly fun, if not simple. I'm having a good time doing these this time, I did the swap two years ago and had a terrible time with it, wasn't used to working in such a restricted format and I wasn't really familiar with the ATC world at that time. Since then I've been privileged to take a mini course in mixed media ATC construction from Mary Tafoya, aka seriousbeader, aka Aunt Molly, and I feel much more in control of the process now.