Soups On!!! My Bead Soup Creation- The Big Reveal!

You may remember that I recently joined a group called Bead Soup. I exchanged a group, or "Soup" of Beads with a partner who had been matched with me by the amazing Lori Anderson, the moderator extraordinaire of this group. The next three pictures are reminders of the amazing hand made lamp work glass beads that my partner Christine Brandel, sent to me. The whole object of this exchange was to give our partners something that they might not normally pick for themselves, a combination of beads that would cause their partners to stretch outside their comfort zones.

I have to tell you that when I opened the wonderfully wrapped package from Christine, I was thrilled!!!! I was so in love with the colors and the shapes and so very flattered that these beads had been created just for this exchange and just for me!!!! Some times synchronicity just happens and this was one of those times. How was Christine to know that lately whenever I work with Red I always add a touch of turquoise or bright sky blue?? This is a new combo for me, so new in fact I was not sure that I had even blogged about it!!!

Now look at the clasp!!! Spectacular , don't you agree??!!

And here are her faux Milk Glass beads, also wonderful!! I adore the rounds with bumps!!
So after opening and thinking and running the beads thru my fingers and closely studying the beauty of each bead, blogging about the soup and thinking some more, it was time to come up with a plan! What was I going to do???

I was in love with the soup, but I am not a beader who strings beads. I love to do bead embroidery and bead free form weaving and what I call bead collage. Where was I going with this particular mix. This was the part that was challenging for me.!!

So my first step was to go through my stash and pull out anything that I thought might work with my soup. I went through the reds and got several different types, found some vintage white glass beads that I had forgotten that I had and found some blue lucite flowers and the perfect color of #8 sky blue seed beads.

On the left above is the soup from Christine and on the right is what I pulled from my stash.

By this time I had decided that I wanted the wonderful clasp to be in the front of the piece as it should have a major role in the design. One of my favorites from the soup are the ruffled disks that there were three of. So I used one of those to embellish the clasp. the clasp would close the necklace on the right hand front side to the piece. Then I set about stringing and fretting!!!


And here it is! First As I wear it and then for a full display of the entire piece.







I took these pictures in the late afternoon sunlight as it was the Only sunlight we had all day. it does throw some serious shadows but it really makes the beads sparkle and come to their full beauty so I had to include them!! You just had to get a small idea of how wonderful Christine's hand made beads are. She has an ETSY shop called A Hot Piece of Glass and I would be thrilled if you would pop in and take a look at her wonderful creations!!

I also created a pair of earrings to go along with the necklace. I usually don't wear sets of things but I felt that this necklace really called for a sassy pair of earrings to accompany it!! I wanted to highlight the wonderful white hobnail beads that resemble the vintage milk glass pieces. I added a blue Lucite blossom with a red drop center and a deep ruby sparkling crystal bead to top it all off. So all of the beads in the earrings are somewhere in the necklace.

I wore the necklace for the first time today and I had three people comment on it!!! I think that this is a piece that I will be wearing often! It is bold colorful and unusual enough to go with many of my outfits and such a fun piece to wear.
There were a total of approximately 362 participants in this exchange from all over the world (5 continents and 21 countries)!!!!. The entire process was beautifully orchestrated by the amazing artist Lori Anderson. For the full list of participants with all of their blogs showing all of the wonderful pieces created just for this reveal click here.

This was a huge labor of love done with great style and a huge commitment of time and vast quantities of energy and patience and I would like to personally thank and bless Lori for doing it ALL!!!

I am planning on visiting every blog on the list but I will probably do it in groups of 6-8 at a time. I know that it will take time as I love blogging and I adore beads and I love to be inspired! I know that I will be filled with ideas and notions to bead and there is only so much that one can absorb at one time , and I MUST absorb it ALL!!!! So SLOW and STEADY will get me through all of this beady luciousness!!!

My very first stop however, will be Christine's Blog to see what magic she ahs wrought with the soup that I sent to her. Just to jog your memory and to entice you to make that Blog Hop along with me, here is the soup that I sent to her!

Remember the full list of Participants and Partner Pairs HERE. So hop on in and enjoy the Soup!