Week 4 of the Nine Weeks of Amy ... win a gift certificate from arjarvis

Be sure to come back every week through the rest of the year for another giveaway from another talented Amy!

Hello, I'm Amy. You've probably figured that out already, so I'll be a bit more specific; I'm the Amy behind arjarvis.etsy.com, which is where I list beautiful hand-beaded works of art and pieces of jewelry for sale.

My chosen beading technique is the square stitch, which is a tedious process by which one can create beaded cloth—something you can cut into and not have fall apart (although I'd appreciate it if you didn't). I've been doing this sort of beading on and off for close to a decade, and I can only say that my skills have improved over the years. It can be monotonous, but I really enjoy the things that I create, and I hope that others do, too.

I think my favorite part of beading is making patterns. I spend a lot of time on them, building the images, getting the shapes just right, picking colors that will work well. I love to make patterns of a fantastical or whimsical nature best of all—I have several patterns for dragons, a unicorn, a merman, pirate ships, phoenixes and even an airship. I'm currently most proud of and pleased with the airship, which ultimately turned out just the way I had envisioned it.

The prize for this week's giveaway is a $15 gift card for my shop, which you can put towards whatever you'd like to buy—pins, patterns, bracelets, mobius strips (endless one-sided fun) or tapestries. Give someone a beautiful work of beaded art or spoil yourself this holiday season!

To enter this giveaway, visit my shop (arjarvis.etsy.com), pick your favorite item and post a comment about it back here on this blog post. If you'd like to enter more than once, you may do any of the following:

1) Follow the Amys in the Arts blog (the one you're looking at now)
2) Follow @amysinthearts on Twitter
3) Follow my blog (amyville.blogspot.com)
4) Share this giveaway on Twitter by tagging @amysinthearts
5) Become a fan of the Amys in the Arts Facebook page
6) Post a link to this giveaway in your blog
7) Add the Amys in the Arts button to your blog

Make sure that you post a link back here for whichever of these you do—otherwise we won't know about it and your entry will be invalid. Also, if you've already done one of the above, please let us know by commenting on this post because it counts as an entry as well.