TealwaterDesigns: bead soup blog party

It's Reveal Day!!!

This is my third year to participate in Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Party. Lori pairs 500 people up to swap some beads, a focal and a clasp are all that is actually required to send and to use but there's always more...were all bead lovers, you know!!

My partner this year is CJ Bauschka, read all about our swap.

CJ sent me a focal connector with loops for hanging. I have been working with polymer clay a lot so I decided to make something special to go with the focal. Some ideas were created and I tried different things out but eventually I decided to make some organic style "spikes". I have made lots of custom colors with clay but this time I used the clay color right out of the package, it's called Peacock Pearl...I love it!

I wanted the clay spikes to be textured so mixed up some molding clay and made a texture stamp from the focal. Using the stamp I made, I pressed the clay drops and got a nice texture you can see here.

And here is the finished necklace.

To fill in the loops on the focal I dangled the beautiful teal button pearls CJ sent on each side of the spikes. These were wire wrapped with micro faceted Apetite gemstones I have been hording for several years.

I draped green stick pearls separated by the bronze firepolished beads CJ sent to expand the design a bit. On each end of the focal I wire wrapped a polymer clay connector matching the spikes in color and texture.

I draped more of the teal pearl and apetite dangles between the focal and chain on each side. The chain also included some Swarovski bicones CJ sent.

The clasp is pretty neat, you squeeze it to open, I finished it off with a few more dangles...I really love those pearls and gemmies!!

So...I had these two clay spikes left over and I really wanted to make some earrings with them. The color went really nicely with some polymer clay textured squares made by Lennis Carrier of Windbent.

I connected everything with some slate gray waxed linen by Jewelry Accord and used a few more of those little pearls!

CJ also sent me a pretty stamped metal focal,

I haven't come up with a worthy design yet...but I will! Visit me again to see what I come up with!

Now, let's go see what CJ made...

Cory

Time for the 6th Annual BSBP R-E-V-E-A-L...

If you didn't see my post about the bead soup Jami Shipp sent me check this post out first: http://tealwaterdesigns.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-bead-soup-has-arrived.html

The agate focal I received in my bead soup is very much outside of my color comfort zone since I usually lean toward brighter colors. I was really glad though because one of my reasons for joining this party is to stretch my creativity.

I wanted to really jump in to this bead soup so I looked through my bead stash to see what I had that would work well with the focal and I decided to pair it with some turquoise beads (howlite maybe).

Here is the necklace I made...

The toggle was copper which was great because I have been playing with copper lately. I was thrilled to use a metal I haven't used a lot but I really love!

The copper wire I had was very bright and shiny which was not going to work. I decided to antique it to match the toggle color better. I put the wire into a bowl of vinegar and sea salt for a minute then let it air dry without wiping it off which worked very quickly in turning my wire dark and giving it a patina very quickly.

The tiny brown disks are shell beads from Michaels. I love the deep turquoise color of these little beads.

I got the silk pieces from Suzanne Berk a super sweet lady, a fellow artisan and HUGE animal activist...love that!!

I went much more artsy than I usually do and I got to use some new materials and techniques that I am happy about.

I also wanted to use the beautiful flat shell coins I got so here is a bracelet that also has some of the same tiny shell disks I used in the necklace.