October 24, 2006

I am a Co-Finalist in Eni Oken's B&B Challenge

Wow!!! What an honor!!! I was chosen as one of the two co-finalists in Eni Oken's Progression Challenge on the Bead & Button forum. This was one of the first challenges/contests that I have ever entered and I am thrilled to be picked with Denise as one of the two co-finalists by Eni Oken.

The purpose of Eni's challenge was to create a piece using one of her tutorials. Then you create progressions from that piece, i.e., you continue making the same piece, but, change one element each time to see if you can come up with an entirely new style. This is an awesome challenge as it helps you to think outside of the box and come up with new ideas that you can incoroprate into your future designs.

Here are my progression pieces with explanations:

My first piece, the Mosaic Pendant (mixture of Botswana Agate, Silver Leaf Jasper, Autumn Leaf Jasper, Scapolite, Leopardskin Jasper and Karen Hill Tribe Silver beads:

For my second piece, I changed the shape from teardrop to rectangle (a mix of different shaped Peridot beads and Karen Hill Tribe Silver):

With my third piece, I seperated the rectangle into two square sections (A mix of Amethyst, Fluorite, Lepidolite, Purple Jasper and Karen Hill Tribe Silver beads:

For my fourth piece, I added a third square section (three different colors of Sapphire rondelles and Karen Hill Tribe Silver beads):

And for my final piece, I added square sections and created a bracelet (Rhodonite, Rhodocrosite, Strawberry Jasper, Pink Tourmaline, Rose Quartz and Karen Hill Tribe Silver beads):

You can see the rest of the participants pieces and read Eni's comments, here: http://www.beadandbutton.com/bnb/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=31007

This challenge was an amazing opportunity for me and I am so grateful to Eni for the change to be able to participate. The rest of the participants and I all had such fun learning with each other and encouraging each other throughout the entire process.

And, yes, there were prizes awarded in this challenge, in case you were wondering! LOL Originally Eni offered one of her pieces of jewelry for the prize, which, if you've ever seen any of her jewelry, you know that that is a pretty amazing prize!!! Since Eni declared both of us finalists she offered copies of all her tutorials as prizes instead. I am absolutely thrilled because I consider her tutorials priceless when I think about how they have helped me to expand and refine my wire-working skills.

The bracelet is available for sale on my website www.jennifercasady.com. The remaining pieces will be available for sale on my website soon. If you are interested immediately in one of the pendants, please email me at info@jennifercasady.com.