Baptism by fire (polished beads) :-)

I owe a debt of gratitude to the beadweaving blogosphere.  Since April 2010, I saw some beautiful beadwork done by artists who share their work via the web, and I was instantly hooked on beading.  I wanted to learn all that I could to make a wide variety of seed bead pieces.  I have been learning from beading artists like Mortira from Inspirational beading, and I have been inspired by Jean from Totally Twisted Beads.  I haven't contributed to the beading blogosphere yet, because I told myself, "I'm only just learning, what do I have to offer that these artists haven't already given the beading community?"  Well, I am beginning to change my mind because I am getting better in my techniques, and I plan on starting a real-life beading community at an after- school program, so I need to start giving back to the art world.  This blog will help me to start giving back.  I plan to use this blog to network with other beading artists, to ask questions to the greater beading community about beading ethics, to share my work, and to hopefully, present a few tutorials of my own. 
The DIY beading community has been very generous in sharing tutorials, techniques, ideas for materials, and images of work.  As a visual learner, I have found that these ways of learning techniques have been very effective, and that I have come a long way this summer.  Among many other techniques, I have learned how to make a dutch spiral, peyote, two-drop peyote, spiral, how to bevel rivolis, and I even made a loom out of a cardboard box and two plastic combs.  I created a pretty decent piece using such a simple and inexpensive loom.  I am planning on sharing that with the kids. 
More to come in the near future.  I am looking forward to sharing my work with the community, and also I am interested in your beliefs about beading ethics.