Month in Review: December 2013 and Reviews of Bead Supply Sources

I did a lot of writing and art-related stuff this month in my free time, even though a good deal of my time was spent actually working for actual money. My everyday routine has changed, however, now that my position as a cashier at Academy Sports + Outdoors has come to an untimely end. I will now have more time to do art and work on my writing. I also have more time to spend with family. As a result, I've been having a great Christmas vacation with family and friends, so it's been a great week.

When I wasn't spending time with them this week, I did some beadwork in the form of a magnesite necklace pendant. I've been taking photos as I create the pendant, which I've never done before, and I'll be posting a behind-the-scenes photo journal of the process.

In early December, I finally finished writing the first draft of the climactic scene of my latest novel, a scene I have been struggling with for months. The novel is still unnamed, but it is set in the same universe as my other unpublished mermaid novel, Daughter of the Foam. The epilogue still needs to be written, but all other scenes and chapters are in various stages of editing. I've done an itsy bit of line edits this week, and I'll do more of that in the days and weeks to come.

This month, I made some changes to my web site, danielleducrest1.angelfire.com. While the layout is the same (and the ads, unfortunately, are still as annoying as ever), I made some aesthetic changes by removing some of the background graphics and replacing them with new images.

In December, I also found some online silamide thread shops with great customer service. I'd run out of a lot of Silamide beadstring colors that I liked to use, and so, I turned to the internet for some new thread. At an Etsy shop called furbabiesgallery, I found a spool of 350 yards of dark green silamide. Compared to other shops on Etsy and a few sellers on eBay, furbabiesgallery offered the best cost-per-yardage for that particular color, so I placed my order. I was not disappointed with my choice. I'd missed a coupon offer available at the shop that week, and the shop owner, Debbie Hunter, was kind enough to point this out in a message she sent to me. Since I'd placed my order and it was too late to apply the coupon code, she sent me a free gift instead--a 40 yard card of wine silamide and a 40 yard card of light pink silamide thread, which were just wonderful. I'll definitely find a use for both of those. I hope furbabiesgallery offers more 350 yard spools in the future.

A few days later, with the help of a Google search, I found BeadCreative.com. I'm always weary of online stores that I've never used before, so I hesitantly placed an order for seven 100-yard spools in aqua, royal blue, kelly green, dusty rose, lilac, dark brown and purple. Each spool cost $3, and there was a flat US shipping fee of $5, which was awesome and amounted to the best prices for thread I'd found for those colors. The site owner, Nancy Eha, contacted me the day I placed my order. She apologized because she'd run out of 100-yard dark brown spools. She offered to send me three dark brown 40-yard cards instead at no extra cost, and I happily accepted. My order arrived a few days later. I'll definitely be ordering more thread from that site.

I also ordered several strands of beads from my favorite online wholesale bead site, firemountaingems.com. Firemountaingems.com has several semi-annual clearance sales and other sales, and I've taken advantage of those deals before. My orders always arrive 7 days after I place them. I always buy many strands of semi-precious stone beads from them.

It's been a fun month. In January, I will continue to do artwork and write and edit my novel. I'll also be looking for a new job and working on my pitch for my literary agent query letters.