Bead Soup Blog Party, Bead Hoarders Edition

Bead Soup is back! This year, Lori Anderson, added a fun twist – send your partner a hoarded/treasured/loved bead(s), along with a note, explaining why it was important to you.

I was partnered up with Janine Lucas. It took me a while to find the perfect bead to send her – since she lives in Greece, weight and size were an issue. I selected one of my first artisan bead purchases, a large glass heart in blues and pinks, as well as beads in complementary colours. I can’t remember who made the this bead – when I first started buying hand-made beads, I didn’t always keep the maker’s name. I’ve always loved its shape and texture, but even though I would frequently pull it out of my bead box, I never managed to come up with a design that would do it justice. Unfortunately, in my rush to get Janine’s package in the mail by the deadline, I forgot to take pictures. I’m looking forward to seeing what she does with her soup.

Janine sent me a lovely collection of beads, including a gorgeous plum-coloured  ceramic pendant with white dots.

I love purple (I even have a pair of purple shoes), and I knew right away that I wanted to make a necklace. However, it took me a couple of weeks to come up with a design idea. I started working on the necklace last weekend and quickly realized my original idea wasn’t going work. Back to the drawing board.

By mid-week, I still hadn’t started my necklace. Since I work full-time, I didn’t have a lot of hours left to work on it before the Big Reveal. I know myself pretty well and it always takes me longer than I think it will to finish a project. I finally found my inspiration in a bag of “studio sweeps” purchased a couple of years ago from Yvonne Irvin-Faus of MyElements. She makes brightly coloured, funky plexiglass components. I found a tiny round charm and added a pewter bird from Green Girl Studios, to make a dangle to hang from the pendant. Once I figured out what to do with the focal, the rest of the design fell into place quickly. I wasn’t too keen on the clasp options I had on hand and thought briefly about running out to my local bead store to get something more suitable. Thanks to a late-season snow storm, I  squashed that idea.

The only “rule” for this year’s Bead Soup challenge was to use the special bead sent by your partner. In addition to the pendant, I used a couple of  the other beads Janine sent me. I’m happy with the final result. Lots of texture and movement; the tiny charm adds a pop of colour. Since I wear lots of black, the necklace will be a nice addition to my wardrobe (the leather cording has a silver lustre not evident in the photos – thnks to the snow sto snow storm also made it hard to get decent indoor photos).

Thanks to Janine for sending me such a lovely bead soup and to Lori, for organizing the Blog Hop. Happy hopping.