Bead Soup Is Served

Hi and thank you for visiting my blog today. It's the reveal of the Bead Soup Blog Party #8. The biggest bead party of the year. I feel honored to be part of this and I appreciate all the work our hostess, the amazing Lori Anderson and her family do to make this possible. A huge thank you to Lori. I would like to introduce you to my partner Beth Emery. She is a very talented bead artist from Alaska. http://www.storiesbyindigoheart.blogspot.com/ is her blog. She does beautiful metal work (some of which she sent me, Yeah!) and asymmetrical jewelry. She is inspired by nature and natural elements. I can hardly wait to see what she made with the soup I sent her. Please check out her blog. Beth spoiled me with three wonderful soups this time around.

The first soup I worked with was the purple. My favorite beady thing to do is bead embroidery so I started with the beautiful Charoite cabochon from Russia. I bezeled the cab and added fringe with seed beads, rullas, bicone and saucer crystals, pearls, and faceted drops. Since she included C-lon I decided to do kumihimo straps. I sanded and painted the bead caps with nail polish because the gold detracted from the focal. I am pleased with how this necklace turned out. It is my favorite from this challenge.

 

I used the aqua soup for the second piece that I made. I told Beth that aqua was my favorite color so she included lots of it for me to work with, Beth made the focal and stamped it with love grows. Stamping is one talent I do not have so I appreciated her making this for me to use. I hung three aqua sterling silver wrapped flowers from the bottom and a purple and white flower from the soup on top. In fact everything in this necklace except the oval chain, four extra purple lucite flowers, a brass hoop, jump rings, and the clasp came from the soup. I hung the small aqua lentils from the chain and threaded the silk ribbon through it. Both ends of the chain have more of the flowers on them. On the left of the chain I made a link with the large matte lentils and an Indonesian seed bead. The next link is amazonite nuggets and more of the Indonesian seeds. I have never used beads from Indonesia before. Next is a pair of purple lucite flowers with an aqua pearl between them. Then I made links with the amazonite ovals, aqua pearls, and transparent aqua rounds. I used a brass toggle clasp on the end. The first link on the other side of the chain was made by stringing the seed bead mix on 26 gauge wire and wrapping it around a brass hoop from my stash. I put three of the pearls in the center. The following round is a tagua nut ring. I have not worked with tagua nut components before and I liked it. Above that is a repeat of the other side.

 

I made earrings to go with the aqua necklace out of two of the amazonite oval links and flowers that Beth sent.

Then I made a coordinating bracelet. I strung the glass sea “opal” rounds on turquoise cord and knotted it with aqua seed beads. I used the mother of pearl button Beth sent as the clasp. The two stamped brass dangles that say bloom and thrive along with two more of the soup flower are attached to the loop end. It is a simple bracelet but one that I am sure I will wear often.

 

My last piece with the aqua soup is a pair of earrings. I told Beth that I like using unusual materials. So she included Christmas tree lights to challenge me. I beaded around them with aqua seed beads from my soup and added the aqua drops as fringe. I put an Indonesian seed bead and a transparent round above the lights and wire wrapped a loop to make earrings out of them. They look like dainty flowers to me and I had fun coming up with a design for them. I don't think anyone else made similar earrings LOL. I do still need to put the ear wires on though.

 

My third soup was copper colored. I made a two strand necklace with it. Beth made the focal, the heart shaped button and the magic stamped polymer clay piece. She really spoiled me with all of the pieces she made special for me. I feel lucky that she took the time to do this. She included a red link from Miss Fickle Media. I have been coveting owning some of her work so I was thrilled that Beth included this in my soup. I wrapped a glass and an onyx dagger from it. I used the red glass heart and drilled the love stamped copper heart so I could make it into a link. She included carnelian nuggets and I made them into links also. The wavy copper ovals are from my stash. I made spiral links to match the spiral I put on the focal with magnetic copper wire. This wire was left over from rewiring a 1966 Corvette headlight motor. To me this wire looks so much darker and richer than regular copper wire. It has the added benefit of a coating so It doesn't turn green like regular copper wire does. The end of the outside strand is stones and copper seed beads. I used the copper clasp from my soup to finish the end of this necklace. The center of the inside strand is a bird in a ring. This is what I had the hardest time with. The bird would flop over and not lay properly for me. A friend who is not a beader suggested I wire it on a ring and that worked perfectly. I used the small faceted glass beads in sets of three with the amber rounds inside of copper rings from my stash between them. Copper twisted ovals unify this stand with the outside one. This strand is finished with copper chain.

 

The last piece I made is a pair of earrings to go with the copper necklace. I used a copper twisted oval link, a faceted glass bead, and a copper drop for these. I had a wonderful time taking part in this blog hop and I used most of what Beth sent me. To see what the other participants made with their soups please click on Lori's link http://www.prettythingsblog.com/2014/05/welcome-to-8th-bead-soup-blog-party.html

Thanx for stopping by and I hope you like what I made for this blog hop.