Love, Support, and Awesomeness

I don't know about you, yes you the beautiful soul reading this right now!!

This week thus far has been amazing. I've seen such an outpouring of love and support. First let's start with the wonderful Melinda Orr, a talented well known artist among the jewelry community (she also makes artisan components that will knock your socks off), you see her brother Mark was recently diagnosed with cancer. And in order to help his family with the offset of medical bills, and whatnot she started an event where she was going to post her jewelry and such for sale in order to raise funds.
Well I think she wasn't expecting what happened next and this my friends is the true meaning of love and support. You see love isn't just given to those we have known thru out our lives such as parents, siblings, grandparents, extended family and friends. .. oh no my dear ones it goes even above and beyond that. You see Melinda recieved an overwhelming and beautiful gift of this love and support for her brother from mostly strangers. Now I say strangers in the sense that though many of us in the jewelry community are friends ,many of us have never met in person (omg I think the world would pause the moment we all got together at one time in real life) but I can tell you the amazing amount of love that I witnessed during this event. Everyone, even artists such as myself that she doesn't know very well ,have donated items to auction off, have shared, bid, purchased, and well it was amazing I don't think anything was left.
So if you were a part of that in any way from the bottom of my heart thank you. On behalf of Melinda and her brother thank you!!

Oh wait I'm not done....

I myself have recently been the recipient of love and support,  not for such reasons as above. But in a different sense. Many of you reading this know I schedule alot of trunk shows, I frequently list my goodies in various auction groups, I'm in alot of jewelry chat rooms. I've been testing some theories on how to engage people during shows, how to keep them interested,  and getting to know them as well as them getting to know me. I've tried many different things the last few months.

I've been keeping a list and checking things off, making notes. And out of the blue a few very well respected artisans whom I admire greatly (and who I have recently been told are stalking my auctions in a very good way not in a creeper way) have messaged me with some amazing feedback and totally noted what I was doing that was making a difference, things even that they wanted to implement into their shows. I was totally thrown off guard in a good way. See although I've been creating jewelry for quite sometime I'm still the newbie among the community lol They are the artisans who have opened my eyes and the doors to explore so many new things. Their talents are a magnificent beauty in this world. And their love and support have totally pulled at my heart strings.

In addition to the amazingly incredible feedback , I also was announced the winner of the BNB challenge, Pachyderms on Parade hosted by the amazingly talented Kelly Hosford Patterson of Pyxeestix Traveling Sideshow.  You can read her blog at
Travelingsideshow.blogspot.com to see what inspired her to chose this theme.

This morning I woke up to the sweetest post on Lampwork Bead Addicts Galleria. An amazing group of artists that bring you such talented and creative jewelry. As well as lampwork beads. Normally each day or so one of the awesome admins will put a collage of goodies that are on the page and share it, almost always they speak about inspiration, and the color pallets used. This morning however one of the admins, whom I don't know very well displayed all four of my designs by themselves with the sweetest words about my wirework. And man that started my morning on the brightside. Thank you so much for that! !!

You see I'm not sure what I have done recently ,call it good karma, call it life, call it luck, call it what you will, but this week it chose me. And I can't begin to even explain how it makes me feel inside, it's as if someone just handed me the most amazing gift in the world,  the same gift in a sense that Melinda recieved. An outpouring of love and support. 

Many get tired of my constant chatter on a daily basis, but it's because most people think us artists a wee bit insane and well we are the entire lot of us are a bit insane!! However being  part of such a large community of people changes your life, touches your soul, pushes you to grow, picks you up when you fall, sprinkles you in glitter when you need it, they become such an amazingly large part of your life. It's like you found your tribe, your lost family, your squad, your cheerleaders etc.

So I wanted you all to know how much it's appreciated. How much that love and support means, and to always remember I have that same love for all of you!!!!

This week has been a part of my journey that I shall always remeber, that of I could bottle up the love and wear it I would!!! 

This has been a novel of a blog post.  So once again THANK YOU not only to the artisan community at large but to all of you, this is but one of the many many many reasons I am in love with what I do. It's what drives that passion to create!!
So as always my friends go forth and color the world!!!!
Have an amazing day my friends!!!!!!

-The Beadwench