Beadwork's 15th Anniversary Beaded Bead Contest: Seeing Stars

Beadwork Magazine is celebrating their 15th Anniversary with a contest on my favorite beading subject, none other than beaded beads! The magazine will publish a total of five beaded bead projects in each of their 2012 issues. To enter the contest, create a piece of jewelry that incorporates all five beaded bead designs, and submit a picture of your piece to Beading Daily by October 26, 2012. More details about the official entry rules are available on the Beading Daily website.

I'm honored to be contributing a design to this series, which will be published in the October/November issue later this year. While I can't enter the contest myself, I'll still be playing along by making at least one beaded bead from each design in the series. The first beaded bead, "Seeing Stars" by Beadwork editor Melinda Barta, was published in the February/March issue.

This design uses 15° or 11° seed beads to create eight little stars over a round or roundelle core bead. I decided to weave this one with silver- and gold-plated seed beads over a round red bead.

I made another one of these beads in a different color pattern, using metallic green and silver-plated beads. The stars in this color pattern are less distinguished, but the coloring is more uniform over the entire beaded bead:

I must admit that I'm very intrigued by the symmetry of this design; many star- or pentagon-faced beaded bead designs use the symmetry of the 12-sided dodecahedron, however this more economical design uses only eight stars instead of 12.

That being said, I'm sure a dodecahedral version of this beaded bead is possible. Will you be the one to create this variation?

The Seeing Stars beaded bead pattern can be found in the February/March issue of Beadwork Magazine. More information about the 15th Anniversary Beaded Bead Contest is available on the Beading Daily website. I hope that you'll decide to enter!