Rachel Nelson-Smith's Bead Riffs - and a Giveaway!

Okay, so first off, I just want to say: this book is a masterpiece. Being a musician myself, I totally related to how Rachel drew comparisons between music (in her case, jazz) and the art and craft of beadweaving. I loved the way she used names from her favorite jazz standards as names for her beaded creations. I loved the way she used Swarovski crystals - instead of over-the-top bling (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just something I'm not personally fond of) she uses them as accents, undertones to the rich colors of seed beads that take center stage.

The materials that Rachel chooses for these projects are relatively easy to find, too. For most of the projects, you probably have the necessary seed beads and findings already in your stash. (The only things I really need to purchase are the rose montees and the chaton montees.) Seed beads in various colors? Check. Loads of Swarovski bicones? Check. Loads of Swarovski Rivolis? Double check. I'm pretty much ready to roll!


The book itself is visually striking. Lark does such an amazing job of layouts and photographs and formatting, you will want to read this book over and over.

And speaking of reading this book over and over...

After the first look-through, I felt this desire to make every single project in it. And I've been watching the movie "Julie/Julia" a lot lately. So why not, I thought, bead my way through every project in this book and blog about it? Rachel is such a pioneer in creative beadweaving that it would be an amazing learning experience to actually make all 23 projects in this book. I realized what a truly brilliant artist Rachel was while I was working my way through a series of kits for the projects in her first book, Seed Bead Fusion. If I worked my way through every project in this book, I would learn a heck of a lot.

So I'm going to do it. The first thing that I did was to set up a database that had a list of all the materials needed for each project and sources for them. (And if anyone has a good source for those rose montees and chaton montees, please share!)

Rondo Neckpiece from Rachel Nelson-Smith's Bead Riffs. If anyone has a good online source for those sparkly rose montees, PLEASE share it with me!

I'm giving myself a year to complete all the projects, which I think should be plenty of time, considering everything else that needs to get done on a daily basis around here. That breaks down to two projects per month, approximately. For some of the more intricate projects, I'll probably have to multi-task and work on more than one project at a time. We'll see how that works out!

At any rate, in my haste to get my copy of Rachel's new book, I wound up with two copies of Seed Bead Riffs. Guess what that means? I'm giving one of them away! Here ya go: leave a comment on this post, along with an email where I can contact you. Tell me what you love the most about beads and beadweaving, and on Monday, September 12, I'll randomly pick a winner. If you want more than once chance to win, spread the love: share this link on Facebook, Twitter or your own blog and come back and leave a comment telling me where you shared it with the link.

Have you ever enjoyed a good beading challenge? What kind of project was it? How did you do?