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Free Project: Color spectrum crystal bracelet!

Inspired by nature’s palette (think golden meadows, ocean waves, fall harvest), three crystal colors blend for a beautiful bracelet. Choosing related hues unifies this bracelet, while the three-hole spacer bars divide the strands into distinct gradated sections.

Tell us what you think – and win!

Have you read the February issue of Bead&Button? We'd love to know what you thought of it. Take our survey and, while you're at it, enter to win this collection of beads. You’ll receive a 30 mm focal button, seed beads, MiniDuos, fire-polished beads, and more! Total retail value is approximately $25, and no purchase is necessary to win.

Announcing the February Design Challenge!

This month, allow the arctic tundra to speak to you. Will your work incorporate the sharp edges of stones and the smoothness of an impenetrable frozen surface? Maybe your piece will harness the sensation of solitude accompanying an expansive landscape. Or perhaps  you’ll take the playful route; a pair of baby polar bears wrestling, a hawk soaring overhead, a penguin stumbling on its way to a snack. They say only the toughest plants and animals survive the harsh elements of an arctic tundra. Will you r work make it through?

Bead Buzz

Voting for the January Design Challenge extended!

Due to some weather-related difficulties in getting some entries approved last week, we’ve decided to extend the voting period for our Reader’s Choice award until midnight Central time on Friday, Feb. 8. How fitting that THE TROPICS content gets interrupted by a foot of snow and bitter cold!

Warm us up with your designs→

Winners of November/December Design Challenge

For the SPARKLING SILVER Challenge, we asked our readership to reflect on your memories with the Bead&Button magazine, currently celebrating its 25th anniversary! Shall we see what color our readers chose for their "silver lining"? Argentium, zinc, nickel silver, or tin? Shades of stormy grey or misty clouds? Beadwork, actual silver, silver wire, silver-colored clay, resin, and so many other artistic interpretations were sent our way!

Check out the photos→

Publish with us!

Do you design your own beadwork patterns and beaded jewelry? If so, we’d love to hear from you. Bead&Button is always on the lookout for original designs to showcase in the magazine and in our digital supplement, B&B Extra. We accept a broad range of bead-stitching techniques and projects, and we compensate designers for accepted submissions.

Check out our newly revised submission guidelines →

Free project: One Good Turn Dutch spiral necklace

Stitch up this necklace using seed beads in a variety of sizes and shapes! It has the look and feel of tubular peyote, but it is enhanced with the simple increases and decreases in the Dutch spiral stitch. An undulating wave of color completely transforms a sleek peyote tube into an entirely different animal!

The February birthstone

February is unusually short -- it can be gone in the blink of an eye. For us here in Wisconsin, it is also a particularly cold, dreary, and dismal month! These reasons make this month’s birthstone that much more powerful, a beacon of purple light in an otherwise gray landscape. A layered cuff more suitable for the royal halls of the Queen? A glamorous necklace for an evening out? So many different ways to wear amethyst!

BeadDreams applications are live!

Now in its 20th year, BeadDreams is our annual juried competition showcasing exceptional bead and jewelry artistry from around the world. The pieces continue to inspire awe and amazement every year at the Bead&Button Show exhibit in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Thanks to our generous sponsors, finalists will compete not only for bragging rights, but they will also vie for some really amazing prizes!