Bead Soup Blog Party 8 :: Chirp chirp... Chirp Chirp ?

You know what they say about great minds, right ? Well, this is more than a little funny... Sandra and I both received our respective soups today, and... well...

We sent along the same themes. XD Just different colors and executions of said themes ! My other soup was much different, and Sandra had three soups to pick from... What were the odds of this ? XD

Before anything else, I would like to say that I have been completely and utterly shamed in the packaging department. Just look at this ! And there I just tucked everything safely into a box.... Sadly packaging is not my strong point.

But man, look at this haullllll. Two focals, lucky me ! One if a beach glass find that Sandra wire-wrapped herself - isn't it lovely ? I've done some wire-wrapping of stones - in fact, that's where I started because this is what my lovely mentor Bee excels at. And yet, a year later, our styles have diverged so much that Lori paired us up !

The second focal is that lovely bird by Rebekah of Tree Wings Studio whose shop I should not have looked up because LOOK AT THOSE CUTE BEADS ASDF ASDF I think im gonna raid it someone please send halp. The two bigger red and black disks are also by Rebekah.

Also pictured is coral - which is something I've always wanted to work with !, small pearls, an assortment of lovely gemstones, a clock claps barely peeking out from under the bird's wing, and my nemesis... The yellow. Those are very interesting yellow beads, however, and this set will work very well with the few yellow beads I do already own, mostly from swaps and soup purchases.  I already have ideas swirling in my mind, so this will be very interesting indeed.

As for the soup I have sent...

...Buuuuuuuurds. <<; The fact that this was completely unintentional really makes this even better. My soup features a clasp from Cat of BooBeads, some of the favorite clasps I have ever owned. :) You might have seen another similar a few posts down, in my remake of the star necklace.

Sandra's challenge will come from the focal - which is bigger than what she usually uses. I always tend to work with volume and big focal points. The ribbon will also be a bit of a challenge for her. Basically, I provided her with materials that are things I commonly use, but are completely foreign to her. I can't wait to see how she uses them ! Likely she will use them in very different ways than I usually do.

BONUS ROUND :

Warning, birds may attract cats...

This is my piece for the monthly challenge over at B'sue Boutique Creative Group. for your viewing enjoyment. :)

The challenge this month consists of taking this little tie here, or a bowtie, and make something funky with it.

I've gotten one of these in a muse box a long time ago, but had never really done anything to it. Well, late is better than ever, right ? I owned a bezel that I thought looked like a funky little flower, and a cab that fit right into it... One thing followed the other, and well...

This might have gone a bit out of hand << I do a lot of assenblage type work, but this was more involved than my usual, and honestly kind of fun ! The leaves and the tie itself were coated in ice enamels, the bezel was painted in lumiere paints. I thought the focal was involved enough that some plain ribbon would do the trick to finish :)

Bead Soup Blog Party 8 :: Meet My Partner

Indeed, it is bead soup time again, and thanks to Lori's hard work, I now have my partner, who happens to be the very lovely Sandra McGriff of Creative Chaos. I've known Sandra for a few years now so getting to do this with her is an honor :) We have some different tastes and styles, so this is going to be a whole lot of fun ! Here is some of the jewelry she made for last year's bead soup.

And... gasp.... For the first year in the three years I've been doing this... I actually remembered to take a picture of my soup. GASP, I know. So, here we go...

;) More soon, darlings !

Counting Stars

Lately I been, I been losing sleep
Dreaming about the things that we could be
But baby, I been, I been prayin' hard
Said no more counting dollars
We'll be counting stars
Yeah, we'll be counting stars

I often take things apart. Most of the times, I put them back together in the exact same way that I've first made them, just with better wire / jump rings (I've used some junky things when I started, as we all do, first mistakes and all that.) I don't usually post these since they are simply... well, structure work, so to speak.

Sometimes you make a piece that you love, a piece that you are rather proud of. But you realize, in time, that the piece is, well, a little flawed.

 

I do adore this piece, I really do, but there were many things wrong with it for many reasons. There was just too much... stuff. The focal was very heavy, the wrap around part kept coming up to choke me from the weight of the focal... So while i did adore this piece, I rarely did wear it.

So I decided to see how I could tweak and improve it. For one, my wire wrapping skillls have evolved a lot ever since I have made this piece, and a lot of things needed to do. By the time I had unwired everything that was on it, plus the bracelet I had made at the same time that I never wore for similar reasons, this was what I had.

o.o;;; I like my things big and loaded, but... yes. Overkill. This is what I wanted to accomplish -

1. Resolve the weight issue, most of all. Neck pains while wearing necklaces is bad juju.
2. Resolve the focal pulling up, while still allowing it to be seen

So, I got to work.... And this is what I came up with :

 

There's a lot less things wired up on there, for one. I used Iced Enamels on the star tag, I used less of the titanium quartz spikes but bigger ones, and I wire wrapped them up a little more elaborately. Instead of wiring everything up. I used spare bits of chain to create volume and movement. The bookchain was a chance stroke of genius, and I am rather pleased with it.

The Secret-Seeker

This is my first cuff, inspired by the lovely cuff that Cathy Trummer Buckley made in the B'Sue Creative group. :)

The Secret-Seeker, for Febuary's challenge - such as it can be a called a challenge for me << Someone should tell me NOT to use Vintaj patinas or Lumiere paints, now that would be a challenge ! 

All components are B'Sue's beside the key, the bead caps, and the mood beads. I actually made the focal part of this last year (see second picture) but couldn't really make up my mind on how to use it - it seemed cumbersome for a necklace focal, even by my standards. Seeing Cathy's owl on that cuff was kind of the AHA moment.

The actual owl started life as brass ox, I believe, which I painted first with the nouveau silver vintaj patina, then with a layer of glazed down black to tone down the bright shiny silver a bit and have it match the silverplated wings. The very first attempt at this owl had eyes in mixed beads resin, which... in retrospect, was not the best idea ! So I filed and cracked all the beads out and made him crystal clay eyes instead.

When I picked the focal up yesterday, I knew I wanted a different feel, so I went over it with pearl white lumière paint. I thought blueish would be best for the eyes so I repainted over the crystal clay. The cuff itself was, I believe, rusty black - I went over it with emerald green lumière paint, just one layer so that some peeks of the plating underneath still showed up, then sealed it. The filigree was painted purple similarly, but split in two so that the owl would not cover it completely and I could move and overlap the two halves as needed. The flowers are simply spectra beads inside bead caps, I do believe this is a B'Sue technique that is in one of the older videos. Punched an hole in the key, strung it up with chain, glued the bead in, glued the whole thing to the cuff, and VOILA ! You have a birthday gift for your friend ! Who will probably see this and know who she is ! Ah well, can't win them all. ;)

I do live... somewhat

/feebly attempts to knocks off some dust from blog

Hi. Yes, I am still alive. I've been better, but I am still alive. A lot of things happened in the last... eight months, I do believe ? Needless to say, those things weren't jewelry. It feels like so much has changed since I was gone, but I am hoping to be able to start making more things (be it more jewelry, or other art endeavors) if only to distract myself a little. It would do me some good, I think.

The assistant definitively missed being an assistant, I think.

I do not have much to offer for this post, only just a bit of word to say that yes, I am alive, no, I am not completely alright, but hopefully things will change for the better soon. I need to remember that hopefully this, too, shall pass.

I actually made my first jewelry piece in those eight months a week or so ago. I believe I shared it on facebook, but I wanted everyone who follows my blog (hopefully there are still some of you lurking about) as well. It came out a lot nicer than I expected it to, given how long I have been out of the loop.

On another note, I will be entering the Bead Soup Blog Party again this year. I am hoping some new components will be able to kickstart my brain once again, and I am hoping to reconnect with others as well. Working on my soups has been a blast, and hopefully choosing which one to send won't be too complicated. The signups start at midnight and go for all day tomorrow - February 9. This will be the only day for signups, so make sure to drop by tomorrow if you are interested.

Color Challenge Blog Hop - REVEAL !

The last two months have been... Well. Kind of heretic, as I scramble with balancing work while my dad is trying to find out what is wrong with him, so I've been quite a bit out of it.

Which is exactly why, when Lisa posted her reminder on Facebook, The first word that came to mind was 'well'.

The second word was 'SHIT !'

Needless to say, I had nothing done and about six hours to do something. For someone who is usually done a week in advance, this was a little terrifying. I also got red beads, and red is not a color I use often.

Well.

I think I managed to do justice to Shelley's adorable little owl.

I seem to be in a tassel mood lately...

Enjoy, and please visit everyone else, too !

Your Hostess: Lisa Lodge, A Grateful Artist

Chris Eisenberg, Wander Ware

Audrey Belanger, Dreams of an Absolution

Mary Govaars, MLH Jewelry Designs

Melissa Trudinger, Bead Recipes

Monique Urquhart, A Half-Baked Notion

Beti Horvath, Stringing Fool

Charlene Bausinger Jacka, Clay Space

Tara Plote, The Newbie Beader's Blog

Renetha Williams Stanziano, Lamplight Crafts

Leah Mifflin Tees, My Beady Little Eyes

Kathy Zeigler Lindemer, Bay Moon Design

Toltec Jewels, Toltec Jewels for Jewel School Friends

Molly Alexander, Beautifully Broken Me

Alicia Marinache, All the Pretty Things

Laurie Vyselaar, Lefthand Jewelry

Eleanor Burian-Mohr, The Charmed Life

Julie Lockhart, Copar Aingeal

Dolores Rami, CraftyD's Creations

Elizabeth Bunn, Elizabeth Beads

Mowse Doyle, Mowse Made This

Veralynne Malone, Designed by Vera

Candida Elkins Castleberry, Spun Sugar Beadworks

Shaiha Williams, Shaiha's Ramblings

Christie Searle Murrow, Charis Designs Jewelry

Andrea Glick-Zenith, ZenithJade Creations