Beader's Showcase is for beading artists to interact and showcase their work. It is not a general network and therefore membership is not available to anyone that is not involved in some type of beading. If you are just starting and don't have photos to upload that is fine, but please do indicate somehow on your profile page that this is the case so members understand your situation.

Beader's Showcase came about after a number of discussions between my wife Ann and myself. Primarily, we wanted to provide a venue for beading artists to showcase their work. As our awareness of social networks grew, we realised the site could be much more. It could include facilities for beading artists to interact with each other, to share experiences, to demonstrate techniques and much more.

We then refined what it was we wanted, down to just a few core things -

1. This is for artists, not manufacturers. We don't mind if people are selling their work, nor that they link to their own website, but the site must not become blatantly commercial.
   
2. Membership had to be without charge.
3. And we wanted as many features as possible for true social networking.

So I set about looking for some way to start the site on a shoestring, or even less, budget. Once we found our solution it was a matter of then jumping in the deep end.

Well, the response has been great and we are very happy with the number of beading artists that have joined our site to share their work and lives.

Over time we want to improve the site and add more and more features for members to use. But we are picky and they must satisfy the following -

• It must have real value to members to help them in networking and showcasing their work and themselves.
• It must not be too intrusive or impact directly on members use of the network.

Because of these simple requirements you will not find here any of those useless 'applications' that provide no real benefit, and often get in the way of using the real useful features of the site.

If the site keeps developing the way it has so far we can see the site growing and becoming a great resource for all beaders.
By the way, if you see this badge overlaid on a members profile photo this indicates someone you can contact directly about anything on Beader's Showcase.