Bead Soup Blog Party

Hello!  Welcome to my little space on the inter-webs.  I'm so excited to be part of Lori's soup party again! Honestly, she throws the best parties ever.

I was partnered with the bold and delightful RaMona Woolson of Jersey Girls Beadwork.  Here's the soup she sent me.

RaMona's Bead Soup

Such a lovely mix of blues and turquoises! Pretty humorous since I sent similar colors...

My Soup For RaMona

I knew pretty quick what I wanted to do with that cute whirlpool handmade focal bead.  I had seen a bracelet using a long handmade glass bead, and I wanted to try something similar.  I also have just recently made my first purchase of sari silk and I wanted to work that in, too.

Whirlpool Bracelet

I love the sound this bracelet makes when you wear it.  Ramona's swirly charms and the spin of the focal bead and the clinking of the glass beads make me smile.

I fell in love with the mosaic shell beads and wanted to work with them next.  I had an idea, but it didn't quite work at first...  It wasn't until I pulled out this large handmade glass bead from my stash that I knew what I was doing. And again, I pulled from my new stash of sari silk!

Caribbean shores bracelet

I find I'm mostly using large lobster clasps with my pieces right now because more of my customers prefer the ability to change the length of their bracelets and necklaces.  I'm using a lot of extension chains to make them longer and varying the size of the lobster clasps.  Which means I've got a lot of lovely clasps stashed away and I'm not using them.  

And the sweet leaf clasp RaMona sent me was leaving me in a bit of a confusion.  What was I going to do with it?  Then Lori sent her bead soup tips e-mail and I jumped on the challenge of creating earrings with a clasp.  Thank you, Lori!

Bloom Where You Are Planted Earrings

I pulled out my green wire and combined it with my stash of Lucite flowers & leaves to create these little cuties.  And now I want to pull out some of my tucked away and unused clasps and make lots of asymmetrical wire-wrapped earrings.

Finally, those sodalite leaves were telling me they wanted to be long dangly earrings.

Leaf Wrap Earrings

I liked working with the wire so much on the clasp earrings that I did some wrapping here, too.  It was fun to combine the different colors of silver.

I still haven't done anything with the cute birdie, the large shell beads or the blue pearls, but I have some ideas kicking around in my brain that haven't quite gelled yet.  I'm looking forward to working with them this summer.

Thank you, Ramona for sharing your stash and playing beads with me!

Thank you, Lori for your work putting this party together!

Go ahead and visit some of the other lovely bead artists participating in the Bead Soup Blog Party!

Soup's on!