Hi, just wanted to check back in after a few weeks… I had my adorable baby girl, Pearl, on May 6 and have had such a great time getting to hang out with her! So I’ve been a bit distracted lately, but wanted to mention a few cool things going on in the jewelry-making realm:

I was recently interviewed about beading for Seventeen magazine and the article (with lots of tips and resources) is up on their site if you want to check it out. I started making jewelry in high school so I was really pleased to pass on some ideas for getting started beading and re-styling your own stuff. Thank you to Neha Gandhi for the great piece!

I’m doing a short segment on AM Northwest this morning (on KATU 2) showing how to make jewelry from Bead Simple! If you are in Portland or anywhere nearby and want to tune in, I’ll be on at 9:40 am making the Pink Floral Ribbon Choker and showing some other projects and techniques from the book, too. Hope to have a video segment to share soon — I’ll keep you posted!

photo by Burcu Avsar and Zach DeSart

And I’m also looking forward to the CRAFT: magazine release party Diane and I are hosting this upcoming Sunday, June 1 for my official re-entry into the crafty world! If you are in Portland, I hope you can make it by to say hello and make a jewelry project with us. It is at the marvelous Twisted again (like last time), and we’ll have some fun door prizes, a fully stocked project table, discounted magazine subscriptions, snacks, and free crafty giveaways, too.

The project we’re teaching this time will be my Cute as a Button Bracelet from Bead Simple, which CRAFT: was kind enough to excerpt in this issue! We’ll have all the supplies for you to make your own bracelet to wear home, and Diane and I will be handing out prizes every hour on the hour, too. More on those later — but we’ll be giving away books from Chronicle and Taunton (including Bead Simple) and some of my new jewelry kits plus some fun surprises.

photo by Burcu Avsar and Zach DeSart

Hope to see you!