Bead Soup Reveal And Giveaways......

Bead Soup 2014

It's reveal time for the 8th Bead Soup Blog Hop. Most of you know our lovely hostess Lori Anderson without her this fun and challenging event could NEVER happen.

This year I was paired with the talented, sweet,kind and I call her marvelous Marge Beebe, if you click her name it will take you to her blog. Marge sent me 3 focals, a couple of toggles, a tree charm,some coordinating beads,some micro macrame fiber and soutache.

To Marge I sent the following....

3 Of the soldered pendants I make 2 are butterfly wings and another is a feather. A filigree pendant I made using a vintage typewriter key and vintage rhinestone chain along with a vintage clock hand and some coordinating beads. Then the natural stone lot with some matching goodies and a clasp.

 So when I first opened her package I looked at what she sent me and I loved the variety, it was like sensory overload, loads of color,neutrals,fibers,tiny beads,stone beads, three focals. I laid everything out and pondered where to begin. I was stumped for a few days and every day I would look at what she sent me and yeah nothing, no good ideas,zilch. Then it was like a bam ideas just started flowing I had so many ideas I wasn't sure which ones to use, but I finally decided and here they are...

 

The stone focal was very pretty, I thought about adding matching jasper beads but that would make it overly neutral so I decided to jazz it up with some different colors of briolette beads, some are stone, others glass, just to give it a punch of color. Because I adore color.

Next up was the soapstone flower focal which let me tell you is huge, I don't ever recall working with a focal that big so this one was challenging. I actually kept it in my purse to look at and try to find some beads to match. Well  I found a ton of matching beads and bought like 7 strands that I thought would look nice with it and do you know what? I didn't even use a single bead off of those 7 strands. Instead I decided to copper foil and solder around the edges of the focal to give it a little pop, added a big link chain which I ran some brown ribbon through the links,added a few metal beads to the bail and this is what it looks like....

and lastly my favorite....

The purple round focal got drilled, some czech beads, a little wire wrapping and it became this.

I am doing a giveaway for all three necklaces, it's open to U.S. residents only, all you have to do is leave a comment and become a follower of my blog. I will draw on June 1st just in case there are some late hopper's.

I want to thank Lori for putting together this event and especially to Marge it was a pleasure getting to know you and thanks for helping me to stretch my creativity with the lovely soup you sent me!