I tore myself away from quilting for a bit to make a couple of necklaces with some beautiful Hand Blown Glass Beads.  These are simple, but elegant necklaces strung on Bead Smith Flex-Rite Beading Wire.  Other beads include Seed Beads and Swarovski Crystals for some sparkle.

Beading is a great hobby; you can have so much fun with color and texture.  And, look, I have combined my quilting with the beading here by using some of my batiks as a backgrounds in my photos.

I have not done any beading in quite a while, but I remember the trial and error of finding just the right materials for jewelry making.  I always had good luck with Rio Grande tools and findings and I loved looking for vintage beads on eBay.  I  found inspiration from beading magazines and books.  200 Beading Tips, Techniques & Trade Secrets is a book available from Amazon.com that looks like it gives an excellent overview of the tools and techniques for someone just getting started with this hobby.  Also, Interweave publishes many excellent beading magazines and books, including several free e-books.

And, you might enjoy browsing around my Bead Stringing Site.  I started this back in 2001 when I took an HTML class at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.  Yes, the site is all hand written code.  No page generating tools were used for that site!  I have not added any content to  the site in years, but the site still gets a fair amount of traffic.  Using Word Press to publish blog posts is much more convenient, but knowing how to tweak things with HTML still comes in handy now and then!