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.

What I got from Noemi

Finally, I've gotten around to taken a few photos of the bead soup I got from Noemi for the party in April. Curious about what I got? Well, let's go through the "loot".

In the first gift bag, I found this gorgeously coloured mix of silk ribbon, leather cord (which gave me a real urge for liquorice -- fortunately, I bought a bag when picking up the package from the local post agent), beads and two ceramic links. Those colours are just so me, don't you think? Mmmm, purple...

It also included these lovely, delicate copper components: a toggle clasp and three links with stamped words. I forgot to include them in the first pic, which would've made it easier to gauge the size of these petite pieces. When showing a close-up like this they risk looking big and chunky while in real life, they're so sweet and dainty. So pretty!

In the other organza bag, I found this mix of bronze-coloured components and beads with the big, heart-embellished lampwork bead as the pièce de résistance (see photo below). Again, you can find some of my favourite colours here: green. Especially the lampwork bead have captured some luscious green tones. Add to that the bronze/brass-coloured findings that I always enjoy.

front

back

So as you can see I got a fab, inspiring bead soup to work with. Now that the music blog hop is over, I'm going to just focus on this soup, hoping to create something worthy of this beautiful gift. I'm really looking forward to playing and creating with these components.

Thank you so much, Noemi, for the lovely bead soup!

What Noemi got

Do you remember the BSBP sneekpeak? Well, Noemi have got her soup so now I can show it to you too.

First of all there's the mandatory focal and clasp, as you can see above. The focal is a labradorite pendant and the clasp is a plated fancy toggle clasp that I though matched the style of the pendant. I felt very brace sending this as it's something I've hold onto for some years now, but in the end it might be better to give it to someone else who'll actually make something with it.

And then there's the rest of the "pick & mix" bead soup. I call it that for two reasons: 1. I picked out the soup ingredients from my stash rather than bought anything specifically for the swap, and 2. It isn't a very cohesive. It's a really random mix of beads and materials -- and I just hope Noemi finds something in there that's inspirational and fun to use. As I mentioned in the sneek peak, I was a bit worried that there wasn't enough colour, but that it might be useful too as Noemi can add other colours she likes (or likes better) to the earthtones.

To sum it up, there is -- apart from the aforementioned focal and clasp, crackled glass beads, Miyuki rococo, aquamarine chip beads, keshi pearls, moro-moro beads (scented nigerian beads made from seeds), glass pearls, ceramic rings, two large flower sequins, leather cord, tea-dyed (by me) silk cord and a piece of sea glass I picked up at the beach nearby.

Oh, and then there's a brad I just put in there. Partially because it felt more vernal than the rest of the soup, which seems to partially already long for autumn. There are many ways you can use them in jewellery -- or just use it to decorate something.

I'll show the soup from Noemi once I get it -- and get around to take a photo of it. At the moment I'm still working on my piece for Erin's Challenge of Music, which will be revealed on Friday (Don't miss it -- you'll get both eye candy and ear candy during the blog hop!), so the BSBP is on hold for a few days more while I'm focusing on that challenge first.

BSBP sneak peek

It's been a while, but this year I signed up for the Bead Soup Blog Party. It's the seventh BSBP and my fourth time participating. As I love both swaps (especially international swaps -- I want to do more of those) and challenges, the BSBP is right up my alley, but recently the size of the blog hop has felt overwhelming so I opted not to participate for a while. Until now. 

Earlier this week I sent off a bead soup to my partner, Noemi Baena in Spain. Can't show you what I sent as it's a secret until I know she has received and opened the package, but I can give you -- and Noemi -- a sneak peek.

After sending the bead soup, I started thinking that maybe the colours were a tad boring, eventhough some beads were more colourful than others. But then I thought they could also be seen as a good base to which Noemi can add the accent colours she likes best.

The part of the soup that I'm mostly looking forward to see being used is the focal and clasp: I've had them for years and do think they're very pretty -- very fairytale-esque so to speak -- but I just haven't made anything with it so in the end I thought maybe someone else will be able to make something with those components. Worried about regretting the decision as I can't undo it (that's why it's so important to really make sure if you want to get rid of something or just keep stashing it when destashing!), but while I might regret not having it one day, I don't regret giving it to Noemi. If that makes sense.

Anyway, if you want to see what Noemi has done with my bead soup and what I have done with hers, be sure to stop by here on April 13 (3rd reveal).

The reveal!

Yes, welcome to this latest edition of the Bead Soup Blog Party! I hope you will enjoy seeing what I've cooked up for you all today.

Penny, my bead soup partner, sent me a delicious soup in spring colours. I ended up using the beads and other supplies in multiple pieces, adding some of my own materials to the soup. In some cases this meant finally using beads and things I've had lying around for ages as I couldn't think of something good to do with them. Yay!

Here's a pic of the soup. If you want to read about my reaction when I got you can find a post on that here. Now to see what I did with my soup. As usual you can click on the photos for close-ups (that especially goes for the first pic below).

This is not the first piece I did, but since it uses the focal and clasp (as was mandatory) it will be presented first. And considering the time it took me to make it deserves the most of the limelight. Cutting a long story short, I had several ideas but annoyingly most of them where random and didn't really work as a whole. As you saw here, I just recently had to scrap half a dozen beaded beads because, while the colours matched the focal so well and I wanted to include some seedbeading, there just wasn't any good way I could think of to use them i a necklace design using the other ingredients.
 
The key to solving the puzzle came when I selected my flower focal. I wanted to layer the ceramic focal and also use it as part of a toggle clasp (yes, I've only used half the mandatory clasp, namely the key-shaped toggle bar). After having tried and scrapped several ideas, I looked through a container of fabric flowers and found a beige leather flower bought ages ago. It looked good in the pic, but the one I got was poorly cut and some of the smooth surface was sliced off. Disappointed I put it away, almost forgetting it. But now it looked like a good candidate and to make it more attractive -- and to add some colour to the earthy focal -- I painted it with three shades of ink: ash rose, purple and raisin (wine coloured).

After that the rest of the beads were adding as I chose anything that matched the focal or flower. More or less: the pink/rose/crystal fire-polished nuggets could've been redder (looked like they had more red flecks and no purple tones when first selecting them) and the mustard-orange-salmon in the half picasso rondelles adds a colour not intended from the beginning. But you've got to use what you have. I also added the filigree beads from the soup for more earthy browns.

Final design decision was which side to use as the front as the ceramic focal had different textures on each side. In the end I went with the texture you can see above instead of the side you see in the secon pic above.

The colour of the matte seed beads was so pretty and in one of my boxes of forgotten beads, I found a bag of matte 4 mm shell pearls. A perfect match! Quite soon I came up with the idea to use this technique/design. Originally to make a wrap bracelet, but then -- while getting ready to start -- I remembered an idea I'd thought about ages ago: what would happen if you add a second row to the "berries and vines"? Just had to try. And this is the result.

The reason it ends with two loops is not because I wanted to make a laced ribbon closure (which would work, have tried it), but that I wasn't sure the idea would work so I made sure to make the bracelet in such a way that it would be easy to remove the second row and still have a good, finished bracelet if it didn't work. But, at least in my eyes, it worked.

This necklace was actually the first thing I did. I really liked the colours in the Beady Monkey wooden bead and the soft spring green in the silk cord. They were perfect for a piece of light -- in weight and colour -- jewellery and so I made a very simple design, stringing large beige lustre seed beads on the cord and adding the bead as a small pendant. The necklace i adjustable as it's finished by threading both cord ends through one of the large-hole seeds.

Fourth piece -- yeah, I know, lots of pieces this time around --  is this bracelet, which isn't really finished. I made it by threading the ribbon through the shank of a matching glass button and then knotting the ends to create a loop for the closure. On one side, I began embroidering using a dark brown thread. Feather stitches with a whipped "stem" (if you follow my blog and have seen what I've done in the Take a Stitch Tuesday embroiery challenge you know I like whipped stitches).

My idea was to add some (dark) bronze beads too, but before I had the decided on a design the clock reminded me it was time to take some photos and compose this blog post. So I'm afraid you can't see the finished result. Hope you like what you see so far, though.

If the bracelet is a WIP this is probably no more than a hands-on sketch. My idea -- that I never got the time to realise -- was to wrap the metallic green seed beads around the oval links of the chain after having removed the "antique gold" links it was orinally equipped with (meant to use them in the necklace, didn't happen). For the wrapping I'm using a thin light green coloured copper wire. For now you'll just have to imagine the finished result...


And that was the last of it.

Thank you so much for giving me this delicious, inspirational and challenging soup, Penny! And thank you so much, Lori, for making this party happen again! And, last but not least, thank you, who are reading this, for stopping by!

Now it's turn to go and see what my bead soup partner Penny at the Copper Penny Designs blog and all the rest have made. Below is a peak of the soup I sent Penny. I bet you're interested to see what she made with them -- I know I am!

Bead Soup Blog Party participants list

(A full list of participants can be found on Lori's blog Pretty Things.)

Leftovers

 
Yes, I should be working on my bead soup right now, but I'm taking a break to play with some photos. Photos of "blog hop/challenge leftovers" you might call it.

When I participate in challenges and things like that, I often start to pick out beads I think would work for the theme, palette or beads given to work with. All too often I don't have that many beads of each sort so I end up scrapping ideas based on that (or the fact I lack a matching focal). It's really all about having a really tight budget and loving colours so I rather buy a few beads of each colour or finish than enough beads of a fewer number of colours. Sometimes the lack of materials only become apparent after a while.

It can also be that I begin working with one idea in mind and then it evolves or is scrapped and I can no longer use the beads first picked out. Here are two examples of that.

These are half a dozen beaded beads I made, using marbled druks and seed beads that seemed to go perfect with the bead soup focal (also seen in the pic). It was just last weekend I finally had to give up and face the fact that while beaded beads might be a good idea, I didn't have a good idea of how to make a whole design using the beaded beads and focal. Couldn't make it work. Not with the other supplies at hand.

The other leftover is my unfinished wrap bracelet intended for yesterday's Challenge of Music. As mentioned I had to give it up when I couldn't find a focal I liked. Instead I made something else that I, in the end, quite liked. So it wasn't all bad. Even if it felt frustrating and stressful to scrap an idea in the last moment before a blog hop.

The beads are purple aventurine (sometimes called purple jade) and czech druks in frosted milky pink apollo gold. Much more subtle and earthy than the twilight colours used for the brooch/pendant that became my challenge entry.

I'm not sure whether to finish the bracelet or not, nore about what to do with the beaded beads at the moment. Right now they're somewhere between WIP and UFOs. I liked putting the beads together, though, and that's my reason for showing them here. (And also, I took the photos because I liked the beads toghether. Nothing beats purple and green.)

Penny's bead soup

Last week I showed the bead soup I got from Penny. Now that my soup has reached its destination as well, I thought I'd show a pic of it too.

As usual when I make a bead soup there's a little bit of everything. It turned out to be a mixed metal soup too: "antique copper" clasp, anodized aluminium scales and roses, round bronze tags and "antique gold" links (2 sizes). Add to that sodalite and lava stone beads, ceramic buttons, tiny drop beads (Miyuki) and twin beads (Preciosa Ornela). Plus hand-dyed viscose/rayon gimp (i.e. the thread) and a likewise hand-dyed silk carrier rod. Oh, and a lampwork dolphin pendant.

Can't wait to see what Penny will do with this! Not least the carrier rod. I haven't even got around to using those myself yet so I know they can be challenging.

The big reveal/party date is March 3rd -- don't miss it!

My bead soup has arrived

I got my bead soup today and I just had to share it with you. Today I woke up tired after having been brutally awaken by a cat fight in the middle of the night. Then I started feeling a headache coming on, kind of like I'm going to have a cold. An just generally it wasn't a great start of the day. But it felt a lot better after getting the mail. What perfect timing to get some bead soup to cheer me up!

Penny, my bead soup partner, has made such a lovely parcel. Both in presentation and content. I don't think my photos really make it justice, especially not the seed beads as I didn't bother to pour them out for the photo session (considering how my day started, they'd probably end up scattered on the floor if I'd tried to pour  them!).

I really like the earthy, soft colours. There's definitely hints of spring in it with the light greens. The soup has a mix of things I like (colours, fibre, seed beads, "picture" beads) and also things to challenge me like the big focal with its irregular centre hole and the chain, which is of a kind I rarely use.

I'm intent on using the lovely seed beads so the question is just about techniques: Embroidery? Off-loom bead weaving? Stringing? With seedbeading you have to plan a bit in advance as it takes much longer to do than a simple linked or strung necklace or bracelet.

The big focal has different textures on the two sides. Above you can see one side and below is a pic of the other side. That makes me start thinking about e.g. a "two-sided" or reversible necklace -- or perhaps bracelets, come to think of it -- that you can flip and get a whole new look.

But I really haven't decided anything yet. Have to look at the beads more than I've had time to this far before the more detailed ideas set in. Before all things fall into place. But if feels promising that I'm already having random ideas pop up just writing about this soup. Curious about the result? The big reveal is on March 3rd.

So what more to say? Just one more thing before I return to my e-mail and all those neglected messages waiting for answers:



Thank you so much, Penny! Love what you put together for me and can't wait to create with this soup!

And thank you, Lori, for hosting this fun party for us again!

Bead soup teaser

I was one of the lucky who won a spot in the fifth Bead Soup Blog Party, which -- as usual -- is hosted by Lori of Pretty Things. This will be my third time participating in this fun (and huge) event. For this party, I was partnered with Canadian jewellery maker Penny of Copper Penny Designs.

This week, I assembled a bead soup for her and I'm keeping my fingers crossed there'll be something she likes in that soup. It's always tricky picking a good mix for someone you don't know. Even if it's supposed to be a challenge, perhaps working with beads you wouldn't choose yourself, at the same time you want to give something that the recipient will enjoy and can feel inspired by. So I'm hoping it will be an appreciated and positive surprise when opened.


But... I have to confess this... Guess what I managed to do.

The day after I mailed the bead soup, I tidied up a bit in my bedroom and what do you think falls out of a blanket. Yes, that's right, a little something that was meant to be part of the soup, but which had slipped out when I wrapped the present and hidden in the blanket. D'oh! That's what you get for not sitting at a table doing this! Can I blame one of the kitties for taking it? It might've been the case, but I can't blame them as it was my fault if they could reach it in the first place (I try never to let components I'll be giving other be near the cats what with allergies and all).

Luckily it was just that one little thing (which was neither focal nor clasp, the two components mandatory to send) so there's still plenty of soup, but I really wanted to include it so there'll soon be a second letter on its way to Canada.

It's party time!

I hope you've been looking forward to today. It's the day of the big reveal. 362 bloggers from around the world showing what they've made with their bead soups. For a full list of participants and links to their blogs, please see Friday's post or the BSBP site.

Every participant has been paired up with a partner to swap a mouth-watering and inspiring batch of bead soup to. Each soup had to include a focal and a fancy clasp -- which were mandatory to use -- and some matching beads and components. My partner was Sue of Hello Gorgeous in Wales, who sent me this lovely and challenging soup, which also included candy from Pwllheli (which I ate before I thought of taking photos of the whole package!) and dragons: a coaster and pin. I love dragons.

What I especially liked about my soup was the blend of things I like and things I don't use very often. I love autumn colours and -- this I hadn't told Sue -- soosho/tri-colour jade is one of the relatively few stone beads I really, really enjoy working with. On the other hand, the beads were big. I often go for the more dainty sizes even if I wish I would try bigger beads sometimes. So that was a big unusual, trying to design with larger beads than normal. The focal had colours and patterns that really spoke to me. It's not the type of focal I usually work with, but I fell for it instantly. And finally, the silver clasp. I rarely work with silver. A price issue of cause, but also because I prefer the colour of brass, copper and blackened metal. I also rarely work with this type of big focal toggle clasps -- and it was the clasp that was the toughest thing to design for.

I ended up making two pieces as I felt the clasp would do nice as a focal itself. It might have worked in the same piece as the shell focal without the two trying to overpower each other, but I made the easy choice of separating them into two projects. First I made a necklace:

For this necklace, I linked the "jade" rounds with oxidized brass heart links. While I knew pretty much from the start that I wanted to link rather than string the stone beads, it took a long time before I settled with this design. I tried so many things, but in the end I felt it was best to keep it simple. And anyway, battling with my natural impulse to work symmetrically (which I wrote about here), it still took some time to do as I kept reorganizing the order of the beads. Again and again. Ending with a compromise of sorts: it's a very tame asymmetry in colours in that necklace.

I also linked the focal to one of  the heart links. The focal has an oxidized brass rose tied to the centre hole and a bead dangling from the bottom to add weight and stability.

I added twist threads to either side of the bead chain for two reasons: 1) I ran out of beads and brass links. 2) I didn't want any big beads in the back. It's not comfortable -- and I had found some silky thread in by yarn and ribbon bag, which matched the shell focal perfectly in colour. Fearing adding other beads would disturb the design, fibre felt like a better solution than adding beads and links in a different shape and size.

I'm not sure whether I'll keep the ends dangling like that. At one point I wanted to just have the twisted cord and use it as closure, tying a nice bow in the back. But the beads are so heavy I feared the silky cord just wasn't going to work. Instead I added crimp ends and a simple little brass s-hook. I still have the cord end, which I can tie over the clasp. But should I keep them or not? What do you -- who actually reads all this text, not just look at the pictures -- think? I'd love to hear it.

With this design it's really hard to get a good photo unless you hang the necklace up. On a model or something else, just not lay it flat. That's also why there's a towel in the last photo: I needed something with pile to keep the beads from rolling away.

So that was the necklace. What happened with the clasp?

Oh, how many times have I re-made this one? At first I found the perfect beads. At least when it came to material: the vesuvianite looked fab against the silver. But I only had some chips and no idea incorporating them worked. Moving on. I wanted really bad to use the smoky beads eventhough I didn't have to. I think that hampered me as I focused on just using semi-precious when it really isn't something I use very often. Then finally overcame that hurdle and opted for fire-polished, reflecting the facets in the quartz beads. But, again, didn't really work. In the end, I got back to just using the only smokey quartz beads I have in my stash, interspersed with sterling silver beads. And I lost one of the bead soup beads in the process. It disappeared without a trace! I've looked everywhere. Well, I guess the cats will find it sooner or later...

Before I end, I must show Goch. He's the dragon I got from Sue and of cause he wanted some bling too so I gave hime a necklace made from a scrap of gold-filled dainty chain and an abused gold-plated crimp cover. (The coaster he's sitting on is also a gift from Sue.)

~*~

Wondering where to go next? My suggestion would be the fabulous and generous hostess of this blog party, Lori Anderson, and my likewise fabulous partner Sue Hodgkinson. Below is a pic that will give you an idea about what Sue had to work with. A complete list of participants can be found on Lori's blog.