Welcome to the March 2013 Bead Soup Blog Party!

What is a Bead Soup Blog Party?

 Each beader was paired up with another jewelry designer and tasked with sending the following:

- A focal
- A special clasp (not just a lobster claw)
- Some coordinating spacers or beads

Using the focal and the clasp was mandatory, but we could use anything from our own stash to round out the rest, and choose to use the coordinating beads or not.

Here is another picture of the beads I received from my fantastic Bead Soup partner, Laura Bracken of Laura Bracken Designs:

I wanted to spread this beautiful beady goodness around and decided to make a few different pieces.

The first set that I made incorporates the beautiful focal:

To create the focal I hand cut a backing and bail from copper sheet, heat treated, drilled, and textured them with my chasing hammer and connected all the parts together.

To make the tube beads, I took thinner copper sheet, cut, treated and textured them the same way I did with the focal, and rolled them into inch-long tubes.  Using two hues of olive colored waxed Irish linen, I knotted the tube beads into a long chain.

I loved the way the necklace looked so much that I made a matching bracelet, earrings set and ring.  I've already worn the set out and about, and I absolutely love it!

For the second set, I wanted to incorporate some of the olive green glass discs and the tiny crystal bicones:

To make this focal, I enameled a large copper heart using my favorite white crackle enamel base covered by beautiful layers of sapphire blue, olive green and a tiny blush of geranium pink.

I love the spirals in the design of the green discs, and wanted to incorporate that element into my design.  The spirals dangling from the focal and the wire wraps on the beads really emphasize that particular design element.

I went ahead and made a bracelet and earrings set to go with the necklace, and threw in some of my handmade copper soldered links, adding texture to the overall pieces (doesn't that ceramic toggle clasp from Cindy Kovar at Captured Moments look great with the other beads?).

The third and final piece I made is a bracelet that incorporates the lovely amber glass rondelles, more of the olive green discs and the sterling silver clasp:

I absolutely LOVE this bracelet!  The bead colors look fantastic with the antiqued silver.  

I randomly added jump rings with seed beads in complimentary colors to add interest and movement to the design.

And that's it for this serving of bead soup!

I want to send another HUGE thank you to Laura Bracken for sending me such lovely ingredients.  Please take a few minutes to check out her blog, Laura Bracken Designs - she is an amazingly talented artist, and I can't wait to see what she made from the soup ingredients I sent her!

For the list of all the other bead soup participants, you can go to Lori Anderson's blog HERE.

Have a FABULOUS soupy day!