Becky Pancake Bead Designs

Hello everyone. Today's post is my BSBP reveal. It is my first time participating. For those of you who don't know about it the amazing Lori Anderson of http://www.prettythingsblog.com/ pairs us with a partner & we exchange beads. We make something with the beads we received & on the appropriate date we show what we made. First let me say THANX, Lori. I don't know if words can describe how much this blog party means to all of us. Next I want to thank my partner Anitra Gordy of http://www.leelucreations.blogspot.com/ . She is a beautiful new bride & she sent me a wonderful bead soup.

The first piece that I made used the cute owl focal, the light green stone beads, & the clasp from my soup. I added silver chain which I wove with dark green silk, silver leaves, copper beads, rondelles, some green glass, & a bronze owl dangle. Isn't that owl cute? I added the copper accents because the owl has copper in his foiling & I like mixing metals.

For my next piece I used the jasper rounds, the vintage chain, & the four brown vintage dangles that Anitra sent. I made the clasp & links from brass wire. I have never used this gauge wire before. It was much harder to shape than what I have used before. I also made the piece that connects the two strands to the clasp. The focal is a squared stone donut. I used fine pink leather with pink seed beads to suspend two of the vintage dangles from my soup with 4mm bicones, & tan glass leaves. They are very detailed & beautiful rounds. The reason I chose pink is that there are pink beads in the vintage beaded chain which makes up the center strand and the metal in the chain appears like rose gold. The links in the outer strand are jasper in the center. Butterscotch Czech glass flank the jasper. Next comes crystals and last are pink seed beads. The second kind of links are made of carved bone donuts, tan uneven bicones, 4mm rose alabaster bicones, & seed beads. I have never used donuts before. I made a pair of matching earrings with the other two dangles from my soup. It is hard to photograph long necklaces so I curved it into a heart shape so that you can see the details better. 

I saved my favorite piece for last. The day before my soup arrived I finished reading “The Art of Beaded Beads” edited by Jean Campbell. I knew that I wanted to make a confetti bead by Nancy Zellers from the book so that is what I did with the seed bead mix that Anitra sent. I painted a wooden bead copper then beaded around it. I wanted some of the copper to show through so I didn't follow Nancy's pattern exactly. I would never have chosen such dark colors for my seeds but I knew what I wanted to do the minute that I saw them. The inspiration for what to do with the bead after I had it beaded came from Lisa Barth's Caged Turquoise Bead Pendant published is Wirework fall 2011. The wire that I used for this necklace is magnetic copper. If you don't know what that is,it is what is used to make the windings in electric motors. The wire windings would short out if they touched each other so it has a coating to prevent this. The coating makes the copper darker & richer colored. I suspect that it won't turn green like regular copper. It was leftover from fixing corvette headlight motors. I used copper 20mm bead caps, dark topaz crystal rondelles, small copper faceted beads, & a brown pearl drop to complete the focal. I suspended the focal on a copper coil with small brown crystal bicones. Next I used copper beads & more topaz crystals. A beaded spiral rope with copper bead caps uses more of the seed beads. I wanted a long necklace so I added rusty colored silk for the ends. I wrapped the silk with more of the copper wire that I put rainbow jasper beads on to give the silk more strength. I used three copper jump rings to attach the clasp which I also made. You can see the difference in the copper colors on the clasp. The base wire is regular copper & the coil is magnetic copper. Anitra included a copper hand that is stamped “hand made” on it. I suspended it next to the clasp as a finishing touch. I am very pleased with how this piece turned out. I have never made anything like it before. I also made earrings to go with it. 

I have one more piece in progress. It is a bead embroidery using the large & small yellow stone beads from my soup. I will post it when it is done. That only leaves two jasper rounds & the wood beads. This blog party was extremely fun & it helped my stretch my creativity. Now I'm going to see what great creation Anitra made with the soup I sent her and I think you should too. Then I'm checking out the other beaders who are revealing today. They  can be found at this link http://lorianderson-beadsoupblogparty.blogspot.com/2012/06/participants-of-6th-bead-soup-blog-party.html

Thanx for looking & please check out all the creative stuff the other participants made.