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My name is Alla Maslennikova; I'm a Muscovite. I am writing this when the old 2012 is coming to the end and a new 2013 begins. New Year's Day is a kind of milestone when many people traditionally take stock of the year and make plans for the future. I am no exception.

In 2013 I really want to continue my Joaillerie Royal Collection (Royal Jewelry Collection) of beaded jewelry, which the Baroque Necklace belongs to. Drafts of the new necklace are already done, color palette is found, and most of the materials are already collected. There is just a small thing left: to weave a necklace in square rope technique that would be more complicated and intricate necklace than "Baroque" is! I also plan to continue a series of my themed jewelry (like Playing Hedgehogs Necklace and others); there are several ready-made designs with selected materials. There will also be exotic animals and mythological characters.

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Of course, I'd like to give a try to something new; I have accumulated quite a lot of interesting ideas, which for various reasons could not be implemented before. Some of them have been thought over for more than a year and maybe in 2013 year I'll be lucky to start. I won't tell you about them in details, let it be a surprise.

As to my achievements in the past year, they are mainly related to the Baroque Necklace. Apart from it I was able to implement several other, less ambitious though also interesting in their own ideas, but I consider the Baroque is my main beadwork in 2012.

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The Baroque Necklace won three competitions: the first and most important was "Battle of the BeadSmith", specifically for which it was created, then "Baroque" took first place in the contest "Arts and Crafts" in the Art Week in Moscow, and finally it entered the top ten of the best works in the competition "The best gift for the New Year's Day 2013" held by the "Fair of Masters", Russia's largest Internet portal of handmade work.

Necklace "Baroque" is made in the style of Romanov dynasty royal jewelry. Particularly important for me was that I finally took up the theme, which I did not dare to approach, although I've hatched my plans for a long time. Jewelry of the Russian Tsars is considered being one of the finest in the world jewelry history; and I felt that I haven't been ready to face such a complex task neither technically nor as an artist.

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The tournament organized by the BeadSmith gave me strength. In fact, I had no time to doubt because we've been in a narrow timeframe (by my standards); I finished the necklace and took photos only in the last submission day.

In addition to purely bead work, this year I was able to give serious attention to the shooting of my jewelry on the models. I had two photo shoots of my beadworks as a photographer. In one of them I even could attract a professional stylist, in the other I tried myself as a stylist; I am satisfied with the results of both sessions. I am a programmer by profession specializing in image processing, that fact greatly contributed to my strong knowledge of the professional software in this area. That is why I'm always doing by myself the entire photo processing including retouching, color correction, styling and other enhancements.

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There have always been two main interests in my life and I had to choose between them. On one hand, I was born in a family of artists and from my childhood I was fond of creativity: drawing, doing different types of crafts including beadwork. On the other hand, mathematics has been one of my favorite subjects in the school.

As a child I wanted to be a jeweler, but at the time of the school graduation and picking up a college, it became clear that I was better prepared for the entrance examination in mathematics and not in drawing; it largely determined my choice of profession. I always set the bar high and decided to go to the Moscow State University from which I graduated summa cum laude.

I returned to beadwork around 2004, when I learned the technique of making French beaded flowers and after my first competition in 2005 and the first publication in 2007. I understood that my beading creativity is serious. Then the beadwork is very firmly entrenched in my life getting me closer to my child's dream.

My gallery on MyLovelyBeads.com

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