7th annual Bead Soup Blog Party - 3rd Reveal-April 27

Well it is finally here, and believe it or not, I am ready.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Lori Anderson for putting on such a fun event.  I would also like to thank my bead soup partner Therese Frank; your generosity and the beautiful assortment of beads and things you send me were just amazing. Thanks so much for making my first bead soup party an enjoyable experience. I would not have been able to create such lovely pieces without your beautiful gift of beads. Now on with the show…..

My first piece is called KEY TO MY HEART

Green jade, dark green lamp work focal bead, copper closure and the brass key over the heart came from my partner

Matching earrings made with green jade and the lovely center piece of filigree copper and Czech fire polished round  are more pieces from my bead partner.

My second piece is a ring that is called MEMORIES

Each stone in the ring signifies a memory I will have from my first bead soup party and partner. The stones are red Creek jasper from Therese (bead soup partner). Wire is sterling silver and gold plate.

Finally just to have some fun, I made a plant spike, for me. I used the beautiful blue butterfly beads my partner sent and some from my own stash. I also attached a small gift to me, from me. I contacted one of my favourite wire artist/teacher’s and asked if I could follow one of her tutorial (Butterfly earrings by Abby Hook) and attached them to my spike, once the plant has died (yeah, that’s right no green thumbs here) I will carefully remove the wire holding the 2 –halves together and presto a pair of earrings

This has been a wonderful experience!  I hope y’all enjoyed looking at my projects, I have had a great deal of fun.

Here is a peek at Abby’s earrings, they are in her book ”Wire Jewelry MasterClass”.

Thanks for stopping by!    Happy bead bloggen!

Penny

Friends, friends and friends

I don't have any "friends' as per say, was never very good at relationships with other people. Not too sure what the problem is but I have grown use to being on my own ,so I don't mind it so much any more. { That sounds a little sad , so I need to clarify, I have two amazing children, grown but they are my best friends. My daughter and I are almost inseparable , but this fall could prove a bit challenging for me for she is off to school..... residence I think.}
 So you could just imagines how excited I was when the internet and blogging  came along and then, all of a sudden,  I could share a laugh, blog and comment with my internet buddies and feel like I belong.
I still get a bit of a thrill when I think about the fact I have 40 some odd friends on face book!  I  believe if I went missing, they would actually miss me , or at least most of them would.  This blog was designed as a place to put my bead soup, I think it may  also be used as a place to  "talk to my self" because for the most part, no one knows it exists.
I would like to  introduce a few of these wonderful people that call me friend and "pretty up" this blog with some pretty amazing bling.

Christine is my dearest internet buddy, I don't get as much time to talk with her as I would like, but when we do, it is like we talk everyday, we just slide right into an easy friendship again.

 Christine is a wire artist and she also makes  amazing pine baskets. I met Christine in March 2010 when I joined jewelrylessons.com.

I'm late... I'm late..... I'm really, really late!!!!

I have now had the time to upload the pictures of my bead soup to Therese, I hope she enjoys the soup. For my first time in the soup, it was so very hard to pick out what someone else would like. Therese is  a very talented artist and I bet she is about to amaze me and many others!

As I mention it is my first bead soup hop and Therese thought she would like to make it special for me. Her generosity has left me quite speechless.  Not only did she give me all these wonderful beads...look at the Box.. so very beautiful.

The beads are a lovely selection, I spent almost 2 days trying to decide what to work on first.   We will just have to wait and see what everyone dreams up.

Fingers Crossed

Here's hoping our bead soup arrives this week!

Bead Soup Partner, Therese

I have been a bit slow to get this posted. I work all day as a Data
base Manager & IT support for  one of the largest hospitals in Ontario. You would think  working on computers would be like breathing.  Not so, I am just as afraid of working on new stuff as anyone else.
I have never blogged before so I am a bit timid; then I saw what a lovely announcement my beading partner did for me on HER site. So here goes..

Therese Frank is my beading partner and she works as a Police Dispatcher in Montgomery Alabama.

Therese works with seed beads, and boy!!!! once she gets her soup she is going to be challenged...I hope!!!

The above mystery photo was borrowed from Therese's blog , It is my bead soup from Therese...interesting , should arrive this week in the mail.

Also borrowed from Therese's blog is a sample of the style of work she does. Look at all those wonderful beads. I really envy artists that have the patience to work with beads, just incredible and absolutely beautiful.  This is not one of Therese own designs as she mentions in her blog; she bought the tutorial from "Monomint Beading Design" (Etsy ) a James Farrand pattern.

Look what she has done with this......I love the colours!!!!!

Tree of Life for Kyla

A girlfriend of my daughter is also finishing up high school in June and then off she goes to either university or college. It is so hard to believe these girls have reached this point in their lives. It seems like yesterday they were all so excited about ending grade 8 and then off to high school and NOW it  has come to an end. Kyla has been a school mate of my daughter's since grade 6.

I always wanted to make the tree of life but it isn't my "thing " to wear, so when I recently found out that Kyla loves that type of jewelry, that was all I needed for an excuse.


I made the frame with 16 gauge bronze and the rest of the wire is coated copper. The beads in the tree are an assortment of browns, coppers, rusts, yellows of glass beads with some green Adventurine and Coral Cupolini gemstone chip beads.
The necklace is also a combination of the same beads I used in the ,pendant BUT there are 4 big butterscotch coloured glass beads (my favourite) and some chocolate coloured porcelain beads near where the pendant will sit.  Sound like I am making a dessert!!
Finally the tutorial for the tree (necklace was actually my design) is from "Beading on a budget"  Jamie Anderson (Etsy store).

Penny..till we meet again......

Bead Soup for Therese

What can I say,  a beautiful collection of ingredients and guess what.......It's in the mail!!!!!!!

IZA's Butterfly is DONE

Wow!!!!! this took me so long to make and I know why........FEAR.

The tutorial was great, easy to understand and I highly recommend it. Iza Malczyk  asked me to send her a picture when I finished it.  No pressure here!!!!!!!   I really hope she likes the look of it, it sure doesn't look much like hers............My problem --> I was working with expensive wire, the first time for me. It was not sterling or fine silver but it was new to me . I bought it off Etsy from someone I love to shop with, great guy , great service and if you knew me, you would know why I am not telling you his name or the type of wire I used. Okay, okay the truth is, I have a terrible memory for  names....  The wire at least was silver plated with a white core of some description.  Enough about that , I can tell you the bead in the center is a purple lampwork bead that I can't remember where I got it and the stones are  Swarvorski  and you guessed it..... I can't remember where I got them either.
I want to share something I did find to be true and great advice.  I have been working on this for at least a couple of months; while finishing it up today I noticed it had turned a bit on the yellow side (colour). I thought with all the ins and outs it would take me a couple more months to clean it, since I couldn't remember where my cleaning cloths were. So I remember one  wonderful teacher (my apologies... that's right can't remember her name) from Jewelry lessons.com mentioning she used Dawn dishwashing soap to clean up her jewelry, So I put a good size drop in my ultrasonic jewelry cleaner machine and presto  this butterfly is just simply gleaming.

Well it is Tuesday Feb. 5th, I was feeling poorly this morning so decided to stay home and rest. At about 4:00, I started to think about what to send my partner in The 2013 Bead Soup Activity. My primary concern was: "how much to send" ? How much is too much? How much is not enough?  I am so very glad I found some pictures from previous soupers. I want my partner to love what I send BUT I feel it is improtant to not cramp their style or their designing talents. I want them to use my beads and things as a guideline for something that is of their own imagination.

I must have signed up for the 3rd reveal date...of course with my 2 second memory I have forgotten. So I wait......  I wonder how many times I will change up my soup before I need to get it in the mail. For those of you that suffer from the same problem "I can't make up my mind" and "Oh! hang! "just send it all" Maybe I should take my picture and then get it ready for posting...yeah like that is going to work, I'll just unwrap it.  THIS is going to be SOOO much fun!!!!!!!

Yum! Bead Soup

Today I went to my email and found what I had been looking for..news from the 7th annual Bead Soup Party. It was just sheer luck I didn't sign up for the first due date..why you ask? I am so new at this blog thing I can't even figure out how to add the "button" Lori suggested we add..this could take a while.
I will start to make my soup and wait patiently to be matched up.  Oh I do hope I have done this right and  they will find me, it is a very BIG world out there.

Katie's Christmas Present 2012

I made this for my daughter from the "Woven Cuff" tutorial by the very talented Lisa Barth.

Why I started a Blog

I started this blog a very long time ago and then life took a turn and I am just now getting back to it. I have to say I did not create this blog to do a great deal of talking, merely a place to put the items of jewelry I make from my own designs or from the tutorials of the talented artists I have grown to respect and admire.
I have also taken an interest in participating in a Bead Soup activity and you need a blog to do that, I hope this one is good enough!