Bead Soup Blog Party–Reveal

I’m part of the BSBP 2nd Reveal. There are 500 participants and Lori Anderson split us into 3 Groups. My Partner is Jen Van Benschoten which I blogged about in a previous post. Here is a recap of what she sent me, my progress and my finished pieces.
Initially I wanted to make a fancy collar, but I’m pretty limited with time now that Spring is here. Also, I really only was required to do one piece, but Jen sent me 2 soups, so I went to work.

First I created pendants for the dichroic cabochons. I used black polymer clay with Pearlex mica. For the purple dichroic cabochon I created an almond shape, inlaid some magenta swarovski crystals, cured and varnished. For the blue dichroic cabochon I used a little turquoise chip inlaid in a polymer clay flower to hide the slight imperfection of missing dichroic background that is visible on the left side of the cabochon in the picture above. Maybe I’m too picky, but it bothered me a little. I also created some matching beads which I textured with some of my handmade textures.

Click on the pictures for larger versions.

Then I used the size 8 magenta beads to surround the shape, along with black size 6’s from my stash and embroidered onto some Ultrasuede. I have to admit, the Japanese Stick pearls gave me trouble and I could not work them into this piece.

Isn’t the clasp beautiful? Even more in person because the Swarovski just sparkles. Jen was kind enough to give me the link for 'A Grain of Sand' so I could purchase some more of these. While they aren’t sterling silver, they are silver filled. I know there is such a thing as Gold-filled, but didn’t know that there was such a thing for Silver. I guess because of the increasing value of Silver, this had to happen.

At first I only had the diamond shapes beaded and attached chain between them and the clasp, but it looked too sparse and empty. I couldn’t get my almond shape polymer clay beads to fit in either, so it hit me…and maybe, just maybe I came up with a new stitch…braiding cord through the chain and then beading the edges.

I ended up making a whole bunch of bracelets as I have a large roll of this chain and got hooked on stitching it…


Getting back on topic…with the Blue necklace. Pendant is beaded like the Purple necklace, but made a beaded fringe with the Reconstituted moonstone beads and czech glass drops. Hey, I didn’t know they could reconstitute moonstone…mmm. I have a bunch of the real stuff and the reconstituted reminds me a lot of sea-opal which is a man-made moonstone type of glass. Anyway, I managed to fit in a couple of the polymer clay textured pillow beads and of course wove more chain.

What do you think? Did I succeed with these?
I’ll be posting these to a special Pinterest board where all the entries will be judged by a panel including Nina Designs, Lima Beads, Fusion Beads, PJ Tool and Jewelry, Beaducation, and Kalmbach Publishing. Not sure if I stand a chance to win one of the Prizes as there are some pretty amazing works on there already! I’ll be posting my entry after I hit ‘publish’ on this post here. The following link is the board…(wish me luck)
http://pinterest.com/limamike/contest-entries-for-bead-soup-blog-party-7/

These are so many  participants for the 2nd reveal. I tried copying and pasting the list, but my formatting won’t play along. You can see all the list on Lori’s blog.
http://lorianderson-beadsoupblogparty.blogspot.com/2013/04/7th-bead-soup-blog-party-2nd-reveal.html

and of course, please visit my Partner Jen Van Benschoten’s blog to see what she made with the beads I sent her!!

German Bead Soup

It’s time for the Bead Soup Blog Hop and our 2nd Reveal for August 11th! There was one a week ago and the last one a week from now. It was split up because there are 400 participants!!
A few weeks ago I blogged about all the wonderful things I received from my Partner Stefanie Teufel of Germany. Here is a recap of what she sent.

She knew I like Copper so she included some chain, a Toggle and Focal Heart in that metal which I used as the basis for this necklace. I didn’t use all the beads as I only had so many copper bead caps and wasn’t sure how else to pull off the larger beads or how to incorporate the odd smaller beads work with the large, but I think this one works!

Here is another view. The focal with the Green Agate bead



I used the Jade and Coconut beads for these Earrings…

I filled the little glass vial with sand and all the small beads that would fit in and used the green jump ring to hang from a simple necklace that has African frosted flower beads.

So I was able to use most of the beads.

Our Wonderful Hostess, Lori Anderson, Pretty Things