Bead Soup Blog Party - the reveal

I've been looking forward to this for a few months now .. my reveal for the 7th Bead Soup Blog Party!

First, let me thank Lori Anderson for all of her work in putting this party together.  

There were close to 500 participants and Lori took the time to visit all of their blogs and personally select a partner for each participant.  Lori also sends individual emails, coordinates reveal dates, posts helpful hints, is available for questions and many more things I am forgetting.

Lori, you are awesome!

Second, I want to thank Catherine for sending such a gorgeous soup.  There were so many possibilities and I hope you like what I created.

Let me remind you what Catherine sent to me.

Catherine's soup was full of luscious goldstone and copper as well as some faceted rounds, beaded beads, a gorgeous jasper pendant and a copper heart.

I ended up making four necklaces, a bracelet and a pair of earrings.  Even with that, I still had beads left, including some of the rectangle tube beads.  I would like to make another bracelet with those, but that will have to be later.  :)

I'll start with the gorgeous jasper focal and the copper clasp.

I loved this pendant.  I haven't worked with natural stone very much and never one this big.  I really wanted to make the pendant shine.

I tried several different bezeling techniques and had every intention of using the copper pearls.

As it turned out, I opted for something simple to keep the focus on the detail of the pendant.

I used copper and gray seed beads to create spiral accents around the pendant.

I did this after I created a gorgeous cubic right angle weave rope using a tutorial by Gwen Fisher.  I *adored* how the rope came out and I think twisted cubic right angle weave might be my new go-to rope.

I like how the spiral around the pendant echoes the spiral in the rope.

I used the clasp from the soup also.

The copper goes so well with the beadwork.

This necklace was one of the last pieces I finished.  The first piece I made from the soup was this bracelet.

I used the copper pearls, goldstone rounds and a few of the faceted rounds from the soup and copper and green seed beads from my stash.  I love copper and green together and the goldstone was a great compliment.

To make the bracelet, I combined one component from Mikki Ferrugiaro's "Medallion Bracelet" with Sabine Lippert's "Starlace bracelet" pattern.

I love the way Mikki's component pops up a bit for a three dimensional effect.

Sabine's open band is a great compliment to Mikki's component.

Mikki and Sabine are two of my favorite designers  Mikki has awesome designs in her artfire shop.  Take a look.  You won't be disappointed.

You can find more of Sabine's patterns in her etsy shop and in her webstore.  Sabine's book, Beaded Fantasies, is also a "must have" for seed beaders.

The second piece I made was a necklace that used one of the "blooming beads" from the soup.

These beads were made by a friend of Catherine's using a pattern from Carol Dean Sharpe.  I love this pattern and how versatile it is.  You can find the pattern here if you want to create your own.  You might also want to check out Carol's etsy shop for more gorgeous patterns and beautiful beaded jewelry.

For my necklace, I, once again, took inspiration from Lorelei Eurto's and Erin Siegel's book Bohemian Inspired Jewelry.  (Seriously, if you don't have this book, get it now.  I don't mind waiting.)

I had some rose quartz rounds that looked great with the blooming beads and used them to create my version of Lorelei's "Ocean Love" necklace.

I wanted to use both "blooming beads" from the soup, but ended up only using one.

I think the necklace works, though, and I have enjoyed wearing it over the past few weeks.

I have also enjoyed wearing the pair of earrings I made with these gorgeous drops from the soup.

I wasn't sure what to pair the drops with.  I looked through my stash of beads, but couldn't find anything that really "worked."  Then I remembered Marcie Abney Carroll's "Moroccan Charm" pattern, published in the April/May 2012 issue of Beadwork Magazine.

I used the faceted rounds from the soup to create the charms.

Marcie's pattern is cute and versatile.  Plus, it works up very quickly and is easily adapted to different sizes of beads.

Marcie has many more tutorials available in her etsy shop.  I have many of her tutorials and I can honestly say that they are a joy to bead.

The charms went perfectly with the drops.

As much as I love those earrings, I think my favorite piece I made was this necklace.

I loved the goldstone ovals the second I saw them.  They are sparkly and have little flowers on the surface.

I wanted to use a blue stone to compliment the blue in the ovals, but couldn't find anything in my stash.  I ended up buying a strand of kyanite ovals at the bead store and I am so happy  that I did.

The necklace is made with two strands of beads.  The first strand is made with the goldstone ovals and rounds, kyanite ovals and Chinese crystal.  The second strand uses those beads as well, but incorporates sections of spiral rope.

The spiral rope uses the goldstone rounds, the red magma crystal bicones from the soup and Indian sapphire crystal bicones from my stash.

I love how the goldstone, red and blue all look together.  The color palette looks so "rich" to me.

I made a pendant with the copper heart from the soup.

The pendant was inspired by the focal on Jill Wiseman's "Falling for You" necklace from her book Beautiful Beaded Ropes. Definitely check out the book if you haven't.  It contains many gorgeous ropes using basic beading stitches.

I made the bail large enough to slip over the clasp and the beaded strands.

It can be removed for a different look.

I *love* how this came out.

The final piece I made used the rectangle tube beads from the soup.

As soon as I saw those beads, I wanted to use them, but I couldn't figure out how.  I tried beading them with a right angle weave stitch.  I tried knotting them and stringing them, but something wasn't quite right.

Finally, I paired them with a polymer flower by Staci Louise.  (Check out Staci's etsy shop for more awesome components.)

Staci's focal went perfectly with the rectangle beads.  I grabbed some green crystal beads, the copper pearls and the rest of the faceted beads from the soup.

I love how the bits of color go so well with the browns and yellows in the rectangle beads.

The copper chain from the soup was a few inches too long for the necklace.  I took a few of the links off to shorten it.

I used the oval links as decoration between the two strands of beads.

I made a copper hook and used a round link from the chain for it to hook into. The hook blends into the chain.

I like how the necklace turned out.

It's a great spring necklace.

Lori, thank you again for putting together an awesome challenge.

Catherine, thank you for such a wonderful bead soup.

I am off to Catherine's blog to see what she made with the soup I sent her.  Then, I am going to take some time to visit the other participants in the second reveal.

Please take some time to visit the other participants.  I know you will see some amazing work.  There are too many blogs to list here.  (This post seems too long already), so I am just going to provide you with the link to all the participants from Lori's bead soup blog party blog.

If you haven't already, you can also browse the blogs of the participants in the first reveal a few weeks ago.  Next week will be the third reveal, so stay tuned.