- The Art of Beadwork -

Don't you love it when those boxes from Amazon start showing up on your doorstep? I recently ordered several book on beading, and my hands-down favorite is Valerie Hector's The Art of Beadwork: Historic Inspiration, Contemporary Design (ISBN 0-8320-0307-8).
The book looks at a number of ethnic and historical beadwork traditions, from Indonesia to Peru and from ancient Egypt to 20th-century Vienna and offers projects by contemporary bead artists based on each of these traditions.
I like the excellent photographs and illustrations. A fascinating book to rummage around in and get inspired by!


Cyberbeader
http://www.lovebeadsunlimited.com

- Not Quite the Real Thing -

I have been playing around with the Virtual Beadbord at the Fire Mountain Gems website and must say, I am somewhat disappointed. In theory, it all sounds so great - select beads from the Fire Mountains catalog and arrange them on the virtual beadboard to try out new designs. No mess, no beads rolling on to the carpet, nothing to clean up. You can even calculate costs and order the beads and findings right there.
However, the whole thing reminds me of the garden.com website, back during the height of the dot.com boom. You had a virtual garden layout in which you could place various plants. I guess it is the lack of physical solidity, the flatness of the objects that made the virtual playground less than satisfactory.
In addition, the Fire Mountain beadboard was also at times very slow (though its companion, the Italian Charm Bracelet Designer worked without delays), and waiting for items to load does not exactly spark the creative process.
Nice try, but I would guess that most people prefer handling actual beads.

So much for today,
Cyberbeader
http://www.lovebeadsunlimited.com