Saturday 27 April 2013

Bead Soup Reveal


Hi there, and welcome to my corner of the Bead Soup Blog Party 3rd Reveal. 
Thanks for stopping by. 

This is my first time joining the party and I have been very excited about the 
whole process. 

I was really lucky to be paired up with talented lamp worker 
Laney of Izzy Beads.

You can see the fun selection of goodies she sent me in the pic below: 
(and keep scrolling down because there's more creations to come!)  


I have to admit that after the initial rush of 'Oh how cute' 
on opening the Bead Soup package 
I panicked! 

Each lamp work bead was a little character in its own right.
So many of them and such different colour ways. 
Just how am I going to use ALL of them  AND do justice to the 
outstanding craftsmanship and attention to detail on each and every bead. 

I was afraid, VERY afraid! 

So I sat and stared, and stared. Luckily my initial panic was without 
reason (kind of)
as ideas started to come to me. 



The first design that I had in mind was a pretty 
little Spring chicken 
necklace.
 I hand stitched a daisy chain with a peyote 
clasp in pretty spring green and fresh orange shades to 
compliment the first little Easter chick.







Here I focused on picking 
out the colours of the rooster in the necklace.
I choose the semi precious rounds because they were
the perfect colour match and reflected the little 
bobbles on his head!  




Ta Daa! 
How do you like your eggs in the morning? 
I wanted to make a necklace that resembled a
fried egg - you know when you crack it in the pan and it goes 
all wobbledy (for want of a better word!) 
I beaded a rivoli as the focal and used the egg lamp work and 
clasp that Laney sent. 




I wanted to use every single bead 
and there was one lonely egg left over. 

 It led to the making of this breakfast time 
kilt pin brooch! 





Rooster button as a focal 
on beaded napkin 
holder. 




Cheeky chicken earrings in complementary 
colours of red, orange and yellow.



The second adorable mouse bead 
this time as a book mark 
with rose quartz rounds and the 'just for you' star charm 
hanging from the end.  



For my final designs the ornate  metal hearts and tiny flowers 
struck me as very feminine and pretty 
so I teamed them with soft milky shades of palest pink
and  pastel  green. 
I beaded a around a Swarovski rivoli for the focal point and added 
an ornate dragon fly clasp which I was thrilled to take from my stash and find 
a home for at last! 

I thought it would be nice to make a matching set. 
So here we are.. 




This is my first time playing the  Bead Soup Blog Party 
and I've been enjoying embracing every facet of it: 

I've learnt a new technique (beading around a cabochon) 
Pushed my creativity by working with different beads to what I'm used to.
Hopped around all the blogs discovering all the great talent and interesting artisans. 
Spread some love with some nice comments. 

(Just 'loved' my computer playing up and not letting me 
post all the comments I wanted to... ;-0 ) 

Eagerly awaiting my purchase of some hand made beads.   
It's nice supporting self representing artists, and I have my eye
on a ahem *few* more... 

and I've made a new bloggy beady friend 
of my partner. 

All in all it's been a great experience 
and I'm already looking forward to playing again next year! 
Thanks Lori for organising this epic adventure! 

So, anyway,  thanks for wading through all that! 

Take a look at my partner Laney's blog to see what she made with  what I sent 


P.S A 'BIG THANK YOU'  to Lori Anderson 
- the lady who makes the blog hop happen! 

Oh, and If you wanted to see the frying pan necklace close up 
here it is... 






For the full list of 3rd reveal participants 

Wednesday 24 April 2013

Pretty In Pink, Lilac, And Green!



This Swarovski Rivoli is such a  gorgeous 
 pale green.

I enjoyed working with the pretty pastel colours 
and teamed the centre stone with other Swarovski 
crystals in Rose Alabaster and colour matching Chrysolite. 

If you are anything like me the sparkle of Swarovski 
crystal is so enticing and addictive you just want to try 
out all the colours! 




Tuesday 16 April 2013

The Lady Of Shalott Necklace






The Lady of Shalott painting
 by John William Waterhouse 
was the inspiration behind this necklace. 

I wanted to make something she could be wearing in the picture. 
I'm not sure that I will ever wear this necklace 
-  it's not the sort of thing you could just pop on with jeans and tee shirt really! 
However, I loved making it all the same and I'm pleased with the way it looks. 

The painting depicts a scene from the Tennyson poem 'The Lady of Shalott'. 
If you would like to read the poem it's after the page break.... 

Friday 12 April 2013

Bead Soup With A Side Serving Of Chocolate Bunny!



So I had a lovely Easter weekend. 
The highlight of which was settling down with
lots of chocs and working my way through 
the first reveal of the Bead Soup Blog Party. 

I'm not until the third reveal 
(which has been moved to April 20th . 
Edit - now moved again to April 27th), 
but I had a great time 
looking through the other blogs.  
There are some very talented people out there!

For some reason my comments 
were not showing up 
on a lot of the blogs,
 I don't know why. 
I guess that's what they call Murphy's law.

Or probably, 
in my case,
 technophobes law ;-)