Bead Soup Blog Party - Bead Hoarders Edition

Once again, the wonderful Lori Anderson created a bead swap and blog/pinterest party.

This time around, Lori asked that we send hoarded beads to our partners -- the ones we kept around year after year, promising to use them, but never found the right project.

She also made it easier for those who don't have blogs to participate

I was partnered with Joelyn Bissing.  Her pinterest entry is here.

Lori asked that we package up our beads and have them ready to send when we were matched up.  After narrowing down what I wanted to send, I wrapped and boxed up the goodies ... and forgot to snap a photo.  So, you'll have to hop on over to Joelyn's post to see what I sent.

Joelyn sent me a gorgeous bead.

She said it reminded her of Napa Valley and I can totally see why.  When I saw it, my first thought was grapes and vines.

The back of it is just as beautiful.

I struggled for a while as to how to compliment the bead.  I wasn't sure how I wanted to hang it or what kind of bail to use.  

I briefly thought about bezeling it with seed beads, but dismissed the idea because I didn't want to cover any of the bead.

I finally settled on a celini spiral.

At first, I was going to use the celini spiral in the back of the necklace and create something with chain maille in the front.  That didn't work, or, at least, I couldn't find something that looked right to me.

After a while, I decided to make a long beaded rope.  I didn't have enough of one of the size 8 seed beads, so I switched to size 11s in the front and back of the rope. 

You can't tell from the photo, but I hid a small magnetic clasp in the beadwork.  It's in the back of the necklace where the beads come to a "V."

Since I couldn't just suspend the bead, I decided to add an element of chain maille.  I had this twisted lantern bead laying around, so I used it to help suspend the focal bead.

As I changed my mind and direction in the course of this project more times than I care to admit, I didn't have time to patina the copper.  I need to make the lantern embellishment darker so it blends better with the rest of the necklace.

All in all, though, I'm happy with how it turned out and I hope my beaded rope does justice to the gorgeous focal bead.

Lori, thank you again for hosting!  Bead swaps are so much fun!

Joelyn,  thank you again for such a gorgeous bead to play with!

If you are interested in hopping, you can find the list of participants here.  Many of them are using pinterest.  Just an fyi .. you need to be logged in to pinterest to be able to comment.  I about tore my hair out trying to figure out why I couldn't see the "comment" button under a photo.