Bead Soup Blog Party - Take One!

It's here!  Today is the first of three reveal dates for the 7th Bead Soup Blog Party, created and hosted by Lori Anderson (sending you a BIG thank you and hugs through cyberspace for all the hard work you do!)  The other dates are 4/6 and 4/13 and are sure to be amazing!

  

In a nutshell, over 500 amazingly talented artists from all over the world are a part of this event.  The amount of work Lori puts into this is just incredible and I wanted to say thanks for everything she's done to pull this together. 

 

My partner is Deana Hager so please be sure to head over to her blog and check out what she's created with my bead soup!

 

Deana sent me a fun bead soup of earth-tones to work with...something I don't personally gravitate to, which made this a great challenge! 

 

  

  This is my bead soup (minus the focal piece and toggle clasp...the picture I had of the whole soup is somewhere in cyberspace).  

  

 

I took three of the tortoise shell teardrop beads and paired them up with some black onyx beads I had in my stash.  I created this pendant by wire wrapping them on one piece of wire and paired it with a gunmetal chain.  It made a dramatic yet simple necklace that I can't wait to wear!

  

  

Deana sent me this fun orange stone as my focal piece.  Neither of us are sure exactly what it is, but it's a great color!  This piece was too heavy for a necklace but it made a perfect key chain holder.  I wrapped it with some antique bronze wire I had and attached it to the key chain ring with a left-over section of a large antique bronze chain from another project. 

 

Now for my favorite piece...Deana sent me an amazing toggle clasp and I needed to create an amazing necklace to live up to it.

 

 

The curves in the clasp reminded me of the waves on the ocean (OK, you knew I had to bring a sea theme in somewhere!) so that provided the inspiration for this amazing necklace. 

 

I started with the pendant, and used a sand dollar cookie.  (It's like a traditional sand dollar but about 1/4 inch thick instead of flat.)  I created the bezel and loop using peyote stitch with the most amazing shade of green Delica 11/0 beads and fun metallic gold/green 15/0 beads.  I used some clear quartz round beads I had left-over from another project for the embellishment around the bezel. 

 

 

Considering this was my third attempt at beading a bezel, I was thrilled with how it turned out! 

 

So I had this amazing pendant and clasp, but no necklace...and it stayed this way for weeks.  I tried four or five different beaded necklace patterns, but they just didn't fit with what I had already created.

 

So I started looking through my old magazines when I found this amazing pattern in Bead and Button, Right Angle Weave special edition (2008).  Designed by Julie Glasser, this variation of the RAW stitch was perfect for my necklace. 

 

So that's my story for this Bead Soup Blog Party!   It was fun to be challenged with the earth-toned beads in my soup and I taught myself a couple of new stitches looking for the right necklace, so it's been a productive time for me.  

  

Be sure to check out the other talented artists and see how their bead soups inspired them to get creative!     

  

Click here to check out all the talented people from the first reveal!