Today is the shortest day of the year, the astronomical start of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. I am (sadly) in the North today, looking out my window at the Milwaukee snow and being grateful that today's temperatures are in the 20s (it was -10 on Monday!)
In the hustle and bustle of getting everything finished so I can head home to Chicago for the holidays, I find myself taking a moment this afternoon, pondering the goals and challenges of the year ahead. My New Year's Resolution, of course, will be to make Facet an even better source for jewelry making information and projects, and to interact more with you, our readers. As such, I thought I'd give you a sneak peek at things to come as the days begin to lengthen, be it ever-so-slowly!
Here on Facet, we host a regular monthly Design Challenge. We invite our readers and makers to create or share a work of jewelry that fits our monthly themes: on the first Tuesday of each month, we introduce the new topic, and you may submit two images for each contest. If your piece is chosen as a winner, it will be featured in both Bead&Button magazine and also on the Facet website. I'm going to share the themes for January and February with you now, so that as the sun sets (at 4:21 CST!) you can think ahead to a brighter day!