Bead Soup Party Reveal

Yes, it has been a whole year since I participated in the Bead Soup Blog Hop. This one was really challenging and a lot of fun. The soup simmered in my craft room for several weeks until I decided what I really wanted to do with some of it. But first let me introduce you to my swap partner....her name is Dana also and she is a wonderful wire artist. You will be able to see that from the focal she made from my soup. Please visit her blog to see what goodies I sent her and what miracles she was able to work with it. Have fun taking a look at her wonderful creations at Winddancer Studios.

Now to the soup.

As you can see there is a lot of copper metal pieces which I love but I have never worked with the lightweight pieces before. Love the Birdy and it definitely became the focal of one of my pieces.

This first piece came about as I was working up a class project for a winery where I'll be teaching. They wanted something wine related and I thought of corks, then I pulled out some of Dana's goodies that she sent me and was inspired to make this little cork pendant. This is a just a sample of what I'll be teaching at the Scatter Creek Winery on June 21st. I used some of the crystals and the light weight copper pieces. I love how the bottom copper piece makes it look like a flower on the bottom.

Here is the winery info and you can see this piece is pictured prominently on the flyer. 

These next pieces I plan to wear as a set. I think they look rustic/bohemian/feminine all at the same time.

This is a close up of the focal. Isn't the wire work wonderful.

The bracelets. The one on top I used some of these wonderful triangular shaped beads around the bangle with one large bead on top. The other two are just wrapped with the sari silk that I'll layer.

The necklace showcases Dana's wonderful wire bird. I even dared to try fusing some copper 14 gauge links. That was fun. I probably need a bit more practice with that.

All in all this was a fun soup to work with and I have lots of pieces left that I can play with. I still have to make earrings and I'm thinking I really like those etched copper tubes and I just happen to have a couple left...so maybe a new pair of earrings are in my future.

If you are ready to view a lot more blogs with beautiful creations, head on over to Lori Anderson's Pretty Things blog and she has the giant list of participants. Happy blog hopping and thanks for dropping by.

The Bead Soup Reveal

Finally today is the reveal of the results of my bead soup. Lori Anderson at Pretty Things organizes Bead Soup parties a couple times a year. This one was a Fairy Tale/ Fantasy based in color and design. Lori paired us up to exchange beads and then we were tasked to make something with those beads. Now I get to show you what I made. I received two soups, but unfortunately I have only had time to make a couple of pieces with the first one. This soup is from Loretta and is predominately green and purple with the purple being Amethyst.

There was so much to work with here with the glass beads, a couple of polyclay beads, amethyst and some cute metal ones with flowers on it. She even sent me some memory wire which I had never used before, so I dug right on in. This is the first piece, a bracelet on the memory wire which highlights the glass frog because as Loretta put it you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince.

This next piece I used only the amethyst pieces she sent and added one of mine which is the flower at the bottom. I donated this piece to the Puyallup Valley Gem & Mineral Clubs raffle. Proceeds of the raffle support scholarships for students majoring in Earth Sciences.

I have one more soup left and several beads that would make a great bracelet that came from Eve. Maybe after this hectic weekend I'll be able to concentrate on making something out of it.

Now if you would like to follow us in the blog hop with our bead soup, check out these links. I can't wait to see all the fabulous things that were made.

Fairy Tale/Spring Bead Swap Blog Hop

Lori Anderson, Pretty Things

Rebecca Anderson, Song Beads

Courtney Breul, Beads By Breul 

Loretta Carstensen, Designs by Loretta

Evelyn Hall, Dragon Lady Evelyn

Sandy Richardson, Sandy's Coloring Box

Dana James, Dana's Jewelry Design

Tara Plote, Newbie Beader

Christine Brandel, A Hot Piece of Glass

Lisa Sittniewski, Alterity Art

Joanna Matuszczyk, Filcowe

Jenni Connolly, Jenni Bead

Geneva Collins, Torque Story

Elisabeth Auld, Beads For Busy Gals

Sally Russick, Wireworked

Mary McGraw, MK's Creative Musings

Norma Turvey, Moonlit Fantaseas

Erin Prais-Hintz, Treasures Found 

Stephanie Haussler, Pixybug Designs

Shai Williams, Shaia's Ramblings

Johanna Rhodes, Fire Phoenix Creations

Sandi Lee James, Do Be Do Bead Do

Sweet Addy Designs

Valerie Norton, Hot Fused Glass

Hopefully everyone is having a great weekend.

Is it Sunday Already?

Where does the weekend go? I just seem to squander it away and then before you know it Monday is here. Yesterday I worked on my Bead Soup....oh what fun and I made several pieces. Sorry I can't show them to you yet but I will soon. Let's just say they aren't my usual style, although I'm really not sure what my style is anymore. I'll have to think about that a bit more as my tastes in jewelry change.

Today we are going to visit a friend in Seattle and then to take the kids out for dinner. Grandson is having a b-day tomorrow and it's best to do the celebrating on the weekend.

I will share my Art Charms for the Celtic swap and Steampunk/Found object swap that I'll be mailing out tomorrow. Once I had the ideas for them, they worked up pretty fast. The Celtic ones are shamrocks with either a copper flower charm, green crystal or pearl dangle. Then I made a pocket to hold the charm out of fabric and vintage images of Irish music or postcards. Lots of fun.

I signed up for the Steampunk charms thinking this is going to be fun and then the swap details indicated we needed to use a found object in the charm...ugg, I really don't like abiding by rules but I did it. Most of my found objects came from my hubby's tool chest in the garage (don't tell him). Then I made a new little Steampunk card to attach to the charms with a cute little gal on it. I think when we just do the Steampunk theme I'll have more freedom to explore this theme a little bit more since I couldn't use the jewelry findings I had specifically for this.

The next charm swap I signed up for is Adopt-A-Ancestor. It is a B&W color theme in which you have to use a vintage image or photo in the charm. I have the images and I think I'm going to do some soldered charms for this one.

Okay, time to fix lunch before we leave. Have a wonderful Sunday.

Time for the Reveal

Bead Soup Reveal is here. I gave you a sneak peak last week but now you get to see the whole necklace and earring set. My bead soup partner, Cathryn sent me some wonderful beads in Summer colors. Be sure to hop over to her blog today and check out what she made. The first thing I made when I got down to it was the earrings.

Then I had to mull over the other beads for awhile. I knew I wanted to use the other orange open rectangle piece as a focal pendant so I made that.

I had some brass links that I had soldered so I set about placing all the other beads around and organizing them in a planned random pattern and ended up with this.

It turned out to be quite a long necklace, but that is what I wanted. I added the leather at the back to make it more comfortable and lighter weight.

This was a lot of fun and I highly recommend participating in bead swaps or challenges. Thanks to Lori Anderson over at Pretty Things for hosting the party.

If you want to check out all the other bead soup reveals today, head on over to Lori's blog where she has a complete list.

Don't forget about my giveaway for a $60.00 gift certificate to any of the CSN Stores. Here is the post if you would like to enter.

Has Summer Finally Arrived?

Be sure to enter for my giveaway on this post. You could win a $60.00 gift certificate to CSN Stores.com. Lots of wonderful items to use for yourself or as a gift.

We decided to get out of the house for awhile due to all the remodel dust and what do we find but wonderful weather. This morning it was sunny and 59 degrees. Now that may not seem warm to you but to those of us here in Washington State it's downright balmy especially if the sun is out. It was short, tank top and flip flops for me today. Ahhh, now if I could only get these allergies under control. I'm up to 2 Zyrtec a day, nose spray and eye drops....I'm not sure of what else I can try at this point. My only hope is that whatever is in the air will go away soon.

Have you check out the bead soup hop today. Head on over to Lori Anderson's Pretty Things blog and check out all the cool and amazing bead designs by today's artists. I'm getting caught up now in viewing them all. Such wonderful artists.

Come visit my post tomorrow for the big bead soup reveal.

Time to Travel

With the remodel and all the noise and dust, we are feeling the need to get out of the house. Since we have been eating out of the motor home there really isn't much else we need to do to get it ready to roll. Even just a couple days away from the mess will be a welcome relief.

While reading through some of my creative blogger friends blogs, I came across Valerie of Additions Style. She mentions in her blog 7 ways to take time for art on vacation. Some of these I do now but I will definitely will have to take some of her advise with me as I do get so bored when I don't have all my beads and sewing projects with me. One of the things I do when traveling is take a notebook with me. I tend to come up with all kinds of ideas when I'm experiencing new things. If you want to find out what all the 7 things are, check out her blog.

Speaking of journals, I started my art journal this past week. So far I have 6 pages with a base coat of watercolor and now the fun starts with layering paint and more paper. This is something new for me and an idea that has been growing slowly as I want to get back into my art. What pushed me over was the Cloth  Paper Scissors site and the challenges they run. This is a mixed-media magazine site. I haven't subscribed yet, but most likely will since I really like their site.

I wish I had some things finished that I could show you....oh but I do, but I can't show you the whole thing. I joined a Bead Soup party and I received all these cool beads from my swap partner. See this post. Here is a sneak peak of my finished piece. I'll show all of it during the party. Click the upper picture to that links to the party to find out more about it.

Wonderful New Beads

As I mentioned yesterday, today I will show you the beads I received from my bead partner for the Bead Soup Party. To my surprise she sent me two packs and not just one. Talk about generous and these are great beads. This first picture is of the orange mix that I will work with first. I already have some ideas and want to get started but wanted to get photos of the beads first.

Aren't these fun and I just love the roses.

This is the second set and will work perfectly with any of my casual jeans. Love the abalone drops.

I can see I'm going to have a hard time choosing my favorite....oh, wait I don't have to, they're all mine.

So, I have a picture of a tape measure that has been in my family for a couple of generations that I found in my sewing basket. I do remember my mother having it and it was old then. As you can see it says "Help Your Cows Measure Up with PILLSBURY'S Best Dairy Concentrate". Now can you tell me what it was used for?

Looks like a tape measure to me.

Another Weekend Gone!

Where does the time go? It seems like yesterday it was just Monday and the week was starting. This week just went by too fast. I can't even remember what I did this week that made it go by so fast. That is so sad when life becomes a blur. Oh well, there is always this week to look forward to. I purchased a new sewing machine. Yes, I finally broke down and bought me a nice one. It is a Husqvarna Viking and runs like a gem. Wow, I didn't know what I was missing using that old 70's vintage machine. This one has some really nice bells and whistles too.

From this:

To This:

What an impressive machine. It has all these decorative stitches and I can even sign my name. Now I wonder if my sewing will improve with the improved machine? I guess you know what I'll be doing this week.

In other news I received my box of bead goodies from my bead soup partner. More of those pics to follow tomorrow.  They are very yummy and I can't wait to starting making something out of them. This will definitely be something I will keep for myself.

Oh, the joys of having too much to do and wanting to do it all.

Have a good week and be sure to come back tomorrow.

I'm Ready for a Bead Party!

I just joined a new bead swap called Bead Soup. I think it is going to be a smash. The deadline is the 7th so if you want to join in you still have some time. Head on over to Lori's blog Pretty Things and enter. I didn't participate in the last one but did look at some of the wonderful pieces that the participants put together. I believe the whole process is that you are assigned a partner, you then swap beads, a clasp and a focal bead with your partner and then make something using those components. Sound like fun doesn't it.

In other news, here are a couple of pieces I created yesterday. More venetian glass, pearls and brass links.

I have nothing to do today, so I am resting...okay I rest everyday but some days I have more to do than others. I thought about sewing a template for an Apple I-Pad as my sister-in-law wants a hipster type bag to carry hers in and I also thought about taking a nap....humm. Maybe I should really do something productive today. I do have my Orthopedic Society meeting tonight, so at some point I really will have to get out of my sweats. You'll be hearing more on the Orthopedic Society that I just join later. All the money we raise benefits Mary Bridge Children's Hospital, so it is a very worthwhile organization.

I hope everyone is having a great week.