8th Bead Soup Blog Party

So the 8th edition of Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Party is officially underway. We've all received our partners (and hopefully our beads).

My bead swap partner for this round is Kim Hutchinson, a very talented mixed media artist. Please check out her blog at www.jumbledhutch.wordpress.com


These are the beads and extra goodies that Kim so graciously sent to me for our swap.




I found a lovely butterfly tin and two bags of candy with my generous helping of beads.
I've already dug into the cinnamon bears, I had no idea Jelly belly even made those, yummm.

This was what I found inside the tin, I love how the beads are all subdued colors and the sari silk is vibrant and bold.

The required elements; as per BSBP rules, there must be a focal and a clasp in each soup, and those are the only two pieces we receive from our partners that absolutely must be used. Kim made the focal in my soup, isn't it lovely?

The hand dyed sari silk ribbon is, I think, the only thing that might give me pause...I know it's expensive, and I know it's fragile, and I know I'm going to have to do some research on how to treat it properly....but aren't those colors fabulous!

And these are the complementing beads, I already know what I want to do with the matte grey hexi seed beads in the upper right corner, but if I can pull it off, those dark metalic purple match a leaf in the focal and one of the silk ribbons.








I'm going to go ahead and post what I sent Kim, she's gotten them, just not posted photos as of yet, I'm hoping her's come out better than mine did. I didn't do a great job of getting them lined up and focused.

This is most of it, though not all. There was another strip of black leather cord, about 6ft at least. And I forgot to add the 4 mm matte white sea glass rondelles to the pile before I started snapping pictures.

I sent her one focal really, but also two minor focals instead of my usual two clasps, you'll see why in the next photo. These were handmade by me using white polymer clay, homemade alcohol ink, and then coated in Ice Resin. I used a stamp for the image, in fact the same stamp was used for all three pieces, just turned this way and that to get different impressions.

The clasp is also handmade by me, using 20 and 34 gauge bright copper wire and 2 mm tourmaline. I really wanted to be sure that she used this clasp, so I only sent her the one...not that I thought she might not like it, but it is kind of weird looking if you stare at it too long.

I sent some 4 mm tourmaline to go with the clasp, and the greens and pinks go well with the dark purple of the focals.

These are some of my favorite beads from Znetshows.com, Chinese Tiaria crystal rondelles. I barely had any sunlight that day and yet just look at how much they sparkle!

These are just some garnet chips to tie in the color on the focal with the rest of the beads, you couldn't tell it in the light I had to work with, but the color on the focals are that deep purple/brown color of these gemstones.

I sent her some findings as well, the brown in most of these photos is actually a scrap of suede leather. There is also an unfinished 16 inch cord necklace hand wrapped in bright copper; two 3 inch lengths of bright copper chain; bright copper cord crimps to go with the two pieces of black leather cord; and two pairs of handmade petite french earwires.











Please come back to see what I come up with using Kim's bead soup. And check out Kim's blog for more about her art and jewelry, and to see what she makes with the bead soup I sent her. For a list of all the participants, and more about the BSBP, please visit Lori's blogs Pretty Things, and Pretty Things-Bead Soup Blog Party. Also you can check out what a lot of what the participants have swapped by browsing the Pinterest page set up just for the BSBP8.

The reveal and blog hop is on May 3rd, don't miss it!