My beading kit, published in Beadwork magazine!

Several months ago, I submitted my own beading kit for consideration of publication in Beadwork magazine's 'Challenge' department--and they accepted it! The editors told me when it would be published, but I'd thought it would be in the fall end of September. Imagine my elation when as I paged through the August/September issue, I turned the page and saw my very own kit!
The kit includes a strand of 4mm teal glass rounds, a medium Griffin purple shimmerstone, a bag of blue/aqua bead mix (with a bit of purple thrown in), 10 violet pearl drops, 1 strand of bright purple silk, and a silver wire bangle. I had to send in 4 identical kits for the editors to use in the department, and they advised me to have a few extra available upon publication, because readers often request the same kit upon seeing it in the magazine. The kit IS available in my shop, just click the top picture, or the highlighted references to the kit.

In the spirit of the Challenge, here is my first attempt at bead embroidery, using some of the blue and purple seed beads and incorporating a small mirror tile. Turquoise and purple are two colours I didn't used to think of pairing, but one day I saw them next to each other and something in my mind clicked. Here, the colours are set off by shiny black seed beads, embroidered onto stiffened felt and backed with black leather. The two layers are stitched together with black edge beads.