Bead Soup Blog Party

Participating in BSBP has been quite a learning curve for me.   When my bead soup parcel arrived I spread out the beads and findings and quite honestly had no idea where to start as I am more used to working with seed beads.

Lots of setting out, adding and subtracting and looking through my myriad books and magazines did not really offer much inspiration.  I eventually went through my large stash of beads picking out complimentary beads which was not easy as I did not have many of the same shades of sea green/blue. The wonderful Shibuichi luna fairy focal is made by Green Girl Studios and my first thought was to perhaps try and wrap it around a donut bead.   After some research I discovered that Shibuichi is a mixture of silver and copper and is very strong, certainly not flexible enough to bend.   The Swavroski crystals and seed beads were similar enough in colour and I peyote stitched a ring of beads and added a  brass circular Vintaj finding.  Brass chain and various beads from my soup mix completed the necklace fastened with a very basic hook and jump ring clasp.

I am pleased with the result, perhaps not what I had planned originally but it rather took shape in stages! 

 

The flower Shibuichi clasp did not seem right with my necklace and I made a bracelet using this lovely finding, some of my left over beads, brass chain and two tiny Vintaj butterflies.

This is my first attempt at working with wire and I do need to improve my technique. Although I work with my hands continually stitching I found that turning wire loops requires a lot more strength and was not as easy as it looks. I also used some head pins from recycled vintage jewellery which were quite thick.

A further learning curve has been photographing bead work as the colours in digital photography can be misleading. The little glass drop bead on the necklace is actually quite blue/green but in the photo it looks green. The circular beadwork looks very deep blue but is actually quite similar in colour to the beads in the necklace. Took photographs using a black necklace display stand which drained the colour from my beads. Think I will have to recover it with white fabric!

A big thank you to Lori Anderson of Pretty Things Blog for organising the Bead Soup Blog Swap.  I have had a loads of fun, learnt a lot and feel a little more confident in designing my own jewellery. Looking forward to visiting blogs to see what other participants have created.

There are 364 bead soups to see, click here to start visiting. Have fun