How To Find Beading Competitions
So, you’ve decided you would like a bit of a challenge. Maybe you fancy winning a great beading prize. It’s time to enter a competition! But, do you know how to find beading competitions? Well, I’m here to give you a few tips.
How to find beading competitions
The first question to ask yourself is what kind of competition are you looking for?
Some beading competitions require you to bead a project. Some require you to create your own unique design. Others don’t require any actual beading at all. They may be prize draws, quizzes, or giveaways.
So, what are you looking for?
Then comes the question of how to find beading competitions. Typically, you will find three types of competition organiser…
- Beading magazines
- Designers
- Shop owners
So, let’s take a look at what each has to offer you.
Beading Magazines
The bead magazines tend to organise the big international competitions that you see at bead shows. I’m thinking of things like Bead Dreams at the Bead and Button show. These huge events usually run every year. So, you can mark them in your beading calendar and start preparing early. I’ve put together a list of the main events at this link.
They may also have prize draws and giveaways in their magazine. Beading competitions like this will be run and publicised within the magazine.
So, the easiest way to find these competitions is to subscribe to the magazines.
Designers and Shop Owners
I’m going to talk about the other two groups together. Both beading designers and also bead shops frequently run their own competitions.
Now, these can vary hugely in scope. Again, some may be prize draws. Others may require you to design and bead your own pieces. Some may require you to use a pattern sold or given away by the shop or designer.
So, you have plenty of variety. But how do you find out about them?
Well, one way is to keep your eyes peeled on social media. Chances are, the shop/designer will be posting about contests on their pages and in places like Facebook groups.
Even easier than that, you can sign up to the mailing lists of your favourite shops and designers. This will guarantee you are the first to hear about any contests or giveaways that they run.
It’s also worth checking out their websites. On my own Beadflowers website, I try to run regular contests and giveaways. So, I have an actual page with details of all the beading competitions that I’m currently running. You can find it here.
A Few More Helpful Tips
If you are thinking of entering a competition, I’ve also got a blog post that will help you. It’s full of tips to help make sure you find the best competition for you, and do all you can to get the best results. So, you can check it out here.
As I’m writing this post, I’m about to judge a beading competition run by a very good beading friend, Erika Sandor from The Story Telling Jeweller. So, if you’re reading this in real-time, you might want to start by checking that competition out. Click here to find out what it’s all about.
Watch the dates, though…if you’re reading this post later on, you may have missed the deadline for that. But there are sure to be others.
And, if you don’t want to miss them, make sure you’re on my mailing list!