Sunday, February 1, 2009

The Blu Print - the official newsletter of Blue Morning Expressions

Thar be pirates! Skull Choker pattern ©09 j.cleveland

Volume 6 Issue 2 February 2009

What's New in February?

The beginning of a new year is always an exciting time. I always like to start with a clean slate and begin new projects that maybe I just hadn't had time to get around to or they got lost in the shuffle of the holidays.

Keeping in mind that a lot of folks are more interested in the DIY scene, I am focusing more on that this year than I have in previous years. When I was out on the show circuit, the rules would not allow me to offer supplies or kits, so my inventory was focused on the finished product. But since I am no longer doing shows, I am free to begin to develope my kits and supply groups. My bead buyers are only a few of those folks I will be concentrating on.

One of the biggies on my list of things to do for several years now (since 1998) has been to take all my years of graphic design and my sketches and transform them into bead patterns for jewelry and tapestries. I am excited to announce that I have completed two pattern books of 10 bracelets and over a dozen tapestries and 2 chokers.

It looks like the dust has settled on the ebay scene and a new site has arisen out of the ruins and more and more sellers of unique and individual items are moving over to www.bonanzle.com. We set up a presence there as well and diversified out a bit more than we had in the past. You can still find our cool gifts there but we also put together a very large polymer clay bead store.
The site offers the ability to give freebies away and we put over 15 sets of Natasha beads up there as freebies for purchasing with us. YAY for you!

Since I have been working on my bead tapestries and such, I have rather neglected the cane side of my obessions. I will get back to them and to the other pillow beads that I want to
create as soon as I can move a couple of special order products out of the way.

I will be putting together the lanyard and eyechain kits within the next few weeks. I need to move the extra beads and goodies into packages and put them in their place instead of all over
my work bench.

I added an Easter bunny dog tag to my bonanzle site. It's priced just right and I may or may not get around to creating more of them. I seem to be able to only to so many things at
once, imagine that!

I am working on finishing my own Lucky Clover loomed choker and I am almost done with it. When I finish it up and do the embellishments on it, I will post it on my website.

I did get 5 new flower canes up this month even though I am behind on my cane work.

Thank you so much for all the input and emails. I enjoy all the encouragement that you send my way.

Until next month,
Julie