Bead Soup Blog Party 3rd Reveal

And so it's finally here, the third BSBP reveal. I signed up for BSBP again, not having joined for for a couple of rounds. Of cause that had made me very keen to participate again and I signed up -- completely forgetting that the dates could be in the middle of spring farming season. Oops! Of cause I couldn't know that the spring farming would start unusually late this year, but as luck would have it (for me), the reveal was postponed a couple of weeks so here I am, free from the potatoes and ready to show what I made with the lovely soup I got from my BSBP partner Noemi.

First, let's take a look on that spanish soup Noemi cooked up for me to work with.

You can read more about all the different ingredients here. It was a fab soup, but due to work, a workroom I couldn't work in (= no metalwork or techniques requiring a torch this time) and everything else that came in between, I still had my struggles with it. Mostly with getting ready in time with something I wouldn't be embarrassed to show anyone and that would make Noemi's soup justice. In the end, I ended up with four piece to show you today. Haven't yet used all the beads from the soup so there might be some "leftover posts" later.
 

First a quick (and hopefully enticing) sampler of what's to come below.

First up is the necklace made for the lampwork focal. I had matching fire-polished rondelles, but they were pretty tiny (as are most my beads, being used to working with dainty jewellery and seed beads) and there were only 30 of them. After going back and forth many times, I finally decided on just stringing them with dark green silk cord (in lieu of anything matching the chain) on a gunmetal chain.

Looking back at it, I should've added something to the last portion of the chain. Ran out of rondelles, but adding, say, some gunmetal beads would've looked better than just leaving it bare in the neck. Well, something to remember for next time, then.
 
And look at that wire wrapping -- you can tell I've almost only been seedbeading and embroidering these last couple or years!

For the next piece, I wanted to do something with the sweet little copper connectors and clasp, which are made by Noemi herself. Wanted to keep it simple in order not to overpower the connectors and this is what was finally settled on. Not the best chain to use -- if you want to try something similar, I'd suggest a small rolo/belcher or cable chain -- but the only one I had that matched the copper. As it was slightly boring with just the chain, I wrapped some dusky dark purple anchor embroidery floss around the links. Don't know if it made it better or worse! *lol* I do enjoy embroidery so threads and floss is something I like to add to my jewellery nowadays.

The chain was so uncooperative I almost gave up, thinking of turning the connectors into little charms with a bead dangle in one end (it would've included a maneki neko charm, sorry all catlovers who didn't get any cat jewellery here). But I persevered.

Third piece is a silk wrap bracelet. First I thought of altering the ribbon in some way, either embroidering it, smocking it or adding a beaded edge, but in the end it all came down to my wanting to try an idea. Now, I'll say right away that it's an idea that maybe looks nice, but wasn't as practical as intended.

The idea was to lose the clasp and use the rubber o-rings to tighten the ribbon ends, then tucking them under the ribbon as with other wrap bracelets. But the wrap part made it more cumbersome than practical -- next time I'll try it with a simple bracelet that doesn't wrap around the wrist several times. (Also, the focal was supposed to be black to match the o-rings, but I hadn't time to blacken it. Some of you might prefer the antique bronze colour it has now, though.)

And so, the fourth and last piece. I wanted to use those vibrantly coloured crackle beads, but couldn't think of anything fun to do with them last minute (made it yesterday). Ideally I wanted to keep them mixed with the fw pearls in the colour combo Noemi created, but some of my teal supplies kept trying to get my attention, wanting to play with the purple beads. Finally, I caved and created this simple leather necklace with beads dangling from waxed linen cord attached to the leather using lark's head knots.

That's all, folks! My creations for this year's edition of BSBP. Now be sure to visit my BSBP partner Noemi, who had this eclectic (and somewhat boringly coloured) soup to work with:

And of cause a huge thank you to Lori for hosting this great (in fabulousness and size) event once again! You're fab!

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For a complete list of all participants in the 3rd reveal of the Bead Soup Blog Party, please visit Lori's blog here. As Lori makes her way through the blogs, she will replace the links with direct links to the reveal posts, making it easier for us who will take a long time going through all 200+ blogs in this reveal. 

You will also be able to find many of the creations from all three of the reveal on the official 7th BSBP pinboard at Pinterest.