Handcrafted jewelry by Cindy Wimmer

Recently I had the fantastic good fortune of winning the Bead Box from Becky Caldwell of The Gritty Bird.    I received the box last weekend and enjoyed every minute of excavating through it….there were jewelry tutorials, art beads, stone beads, beading magazines, and so much more packed inside.  I might add that Becky did a great job reorganizing the box and embellishing the accompanying journal in such a nice way.

For those of you that may be stopping and by and the “traveling bead box” is something foreign, I’d love to share with you a link to the original post!  It was fun to go back and see how this traveling phenomenon all began.  Beginning with a studio destash, Heather Powers set this creative Give Away in motion.  Heather boxed up all sorts of beads and placed them in a small flat-rate box, ready to travel around the U.S.  The box has grown and now warrants a medium flat rate box.   When the Sister received the box, she simply selected beads and then replaced them with beads from her own stash that were of comparable value. I was happy to join the Sisterhood as the 11th bead box recipient.  Here’s a look at where the box has been so far (thank you, Becky for compiling this):

1. ? The Founding Sister ? Heather Powers of Humble Beads- San Antonio, TX.

2. Mikki Ferrugiaro of MFD Beadwork Originals- UT.

3. Nancy Dale of NED Bead -Vermont.

4. Hanna Rosner of Good River Gallery- NM

5. Chris Neit of Good Quill Hunting-Maine

6. Sandy Spivey of Sandy’s Treasure- California

7. Katie Nelson of Katie’s Creations- TX

8. Kristie Roeder of Artisan Clay- PA

9. Lorelei Eurto of Lorelei Eurto Jewelry- New York State

10. Becky Caldwell of The Gritty Bird- North Carolina

11.  Cindy Wimmer of sweet bead studio – Virginia

Here is a glimpse of the beads that I found I couldn’t live without:

I was happy to see there were still some Humblebeads left from Heather’s original give away.  And oh, just look at the handmade beads and pendants!  I chose some gorgeous polymer clay beads from Christine Damm, a one-of-a-kind pendant from  Mary Harding, and some sweet Gritty Beads by Becky Caldwell.

There are many treasures awaiting you, should you be the next Sister of the Traveling Bead Box!  Here is a peek of what is inside the box now…and I have more to add before it goes out!

You will find these gorgeous focals/pendants by Jangles, Artisan Clay and Gaea among others….

The giveaway: The entire box of goodies, NOW WELL over $400 worth of beads.

The stipulations: Must have an online forum to host the next giveaway. Must be living within the United States to enter and be willing to pay for shipping: $15.00 for flat rate priority mail billed via Paypal.

The rules: You’ll take what you want from the box, add in items of equal value from your own bead stash to replace the items you took and then do the same giveaway on your blog. We’ll keep the beads traveling for as long as we can.

To enter: Leave a comment below, be sure to include your email.

Bonus Entry: Blog, facebook or twitter about it to enter more than once. Leave another comment letting me know how you helped spread the word.

Deadline To Enter: Comments will be accepted until Wednesday, December 15th, at 6pm (eastern time).

UPDATE (by Becky Caldwell)

I wanted to quickly share why it is that artists who do not have blogs, journals or Facebook cannot enter the give-away as this is being asked of me as well as commented on… This Give-away was started with the intention that the box would travel around the states and in order to do that the winners/sisters need to have some sort of online forum to host the give-away on instead of just passing it along to friends.

I hope that this is something understandable as it is not meant to leave any one out. We just want the box to travel as long as it can and to cross as many states as it can.

Those without blogs, journals, or Facebook pages may consider using this idea to create a more local or private community traveling bead box of their very own….. 🙂

I already have my own Sisterhood story to share.  The other night when I checked on the kids while they were sleeping, I noticed something around my 8 year old’s neck.  Worried about him sleeping with a chain on, I took off the necklace to find that he was the first -in this house- to make something with a Traveling Bead box component!  I let him pick one thing from the box earlier, and he chose a glass heart pendant.  He created his own bail out of out of wire, and added the heart and a religious medal.

‘Here’s hoping YOU will be the next to join the Sisterhood. Good Luck!

{ 78 comments }