And if that isn’t enough to get your design juices flowing, Anne at On A String recently returned from a bead buying trip. She brought back more than 2000 new strands of beads and dozens of new chain styles! That’s right…I said 2000!! I just love this shop.

We’ll bring our brown bag bead challenge pieces to the June Meetup. (We’ll also be doing an exercise to help us hone our design styles. More on that later.) Hope to see you at On A String on the 22nd! (Not a member of the Beadaholics? No problem. Join Us!)

Fashion Trendsetter has a fabulous color trends section. I love the Lenzing Textile & Color Trends Autumn/Winter 2010/11 booklet you can download (look for the pdf download on the right). It’s color trend heaven. I’m also using the Interfilière Fashion & Color Trends Summer 2010. I took the forecasts with me to several bead shows to help keep me on track. It can be overwhelming to try to pull together colors on the spur of the moment. A little color prep goes a long way.

Several sites make the Pantone color forecasts available. Fire Mountain Gems has lovely pages for the Fall/Winter 2009-2010 and the Spring/Summer 2010 colors posted. They also offer the Color Association of the United States color forecasts. You can download pdf files for each of these.

If you print a color forecast, be aware of the differences that can occur if you don’t have decent ink in your printer. I sometimes have to run a test sheet to get the ink flowing properly because I don’t print that often. Luckily, I have a little Canon printer that does a pretty good job with color.

You should really check out all of these sites (and look for more) to determine what color palettes work for you. You may not want to be a slave to color trends but you should know what they are. It’s also educational to read the descriptions of and inspirations behind the trends.

The group is planning a day trip to go bead shopping in Asheville, NC. I would love to go but it’s the same weekend I have family in town. Hopefully, they’ll plan another trip later this year. Can’t wait to see what everyone comes back from Asheville with.

We got together at Expressive Impressions. It’s a Charlotte bead shop that generously donates their workspace to the Beadaholics for meetups. The workspace is just amazing. It’s feels like you’re in a jewelry artist’s studio. Of course, that could be because they regularly hold jewelry classes there. They also sell a myriad of beads, findings and all sorts of supplies.

So who are these Beadaholics? Well let you tell you, this is one lively group of  women. (Not sure why there aren’t any men at the meetup. Where are the Charlotte male beaders? There must be a few out there.)  The Beadaholics have a wide array of interests, skills and design styles. This makes it fun because someone always seems to have something to share that you’ve never heard of or seen before. The Beadaholics are more than happy to help you out with a project, design or technical issue. There’s a genuine  love for beading (whatever form it may take) in the room. Members bring projects to work on, books to pass around, beads to trade and pieces they already made for the rest of us to admire. I love that last part. It’s inspiring and a lot of fun to see what other people have created.

Last month, I made the earrings in the photo above at the meetup. This time, I think I talked more than I worked on my project. No harm done. I can finish that piece any old time. It was more important to take advantage of the opportunity to gush, have a few laughs and learn more about jewelry making.