MaryHardingJewelry Bead Blog: blog hop

Saturday, March 03, 2012

5th Bead Soup Blog Party---The Reveal

Bead Soup From Shannon LeVart aka Miss Ficklemedia

Welcome to the 5th Bead Soup Blog Party--The Reveal-- and blog hop-- organized by our Hostess Lori Anderson the day we have all anxiously awaited to show what we created with the Bead Soup sent to us by our Party Partner. I am lucky to participate since this time the cutoff of 200 participants out of about 400 who signed up to share beads and create and blog about was determined by the famous Random Number Generator. My very talented and generous blog partner is Shannon LeVart aka Miss Ficklemedia. Some of the beads she sent me are in the photo above. You will meet more of them as we go along. Just in case you have never met Miss Ficklemedia, you can visit her Etsy shop and see the rustic components she forges with her torch and hammer. Her talent is one you will not want to miss.

I have had a great experience working with her components and I have written a Bead Soup Blog Party Diary to give you a real time experience with my creative process. I have even included a video. You can see all of this here on my blog. Click the page tab above titled Bead Soup Blog Hop Diary --The Making. Since you have lots of artists to visit I want to keep this part of the blog for the pictures of what I made.

I made a wrist wrap bracelet with the lovely deep red Sari Silk that Shannon sent. I embellished it with the pearls, copper beads and verigris charms from my Bead Soup. They are attached to wire wrapped bands and loops that I attached along the bracelet. It wraps around my wrist twice. The clasp is one of my handmade ceramic toggle clasps designed especially for fibers.

Patinaed shells and sandollars from Miss Ficklemedia surround this fiber wrist wrap bracelet

I then went on to work on components for the neccklace and earrings. I wire wrapped the pearls and copper beads Shannon sent with the sweet ball head endpins she included in her package.

this closeup shot lets you see how cool Miss Ficklemedia's ball end ear wires, soldered rings and earwires are. The turquoise beads are some of my handmade matte glazed porcelain beads. They fit right in with the color palette.

More of the sweet components from Shannon

The necklace was my challenge and my joy. I wanted from the get go to integrate the veridgris chain into a freeform peyote stitch necklace. I had no idea before I began working with the beads how I would do this. If you have ever done free form peyote you know it can be quite nervewracking if you have a deadline looming. You either come up with a piece of jewelry that works out or you have to start all over. No taking it apart and redoing once you have done it.
About the beads I used. I only used the bright turquoise porcelain ceramic beads and the seed beads from my own stash. The rest came from Shannon.
Starting with some closeups, here is my necklace:

Gorgeous chain wire wrapped to the toggle clasp Shannon sent. You can see the tiny seed bead loops I made to attach the chain and wire wrapped beads to the peyote stitch core.

The copper beads are stitched into the free form peyote stitch part of the necklace. Shannon's components hang from different beaded loops in the peyote base.

Lots of nice drape from the graceful components. They are small and delicate and rustic all at the same time. They helped me give the necklace a nice flow. I could feel Shannon's presence guiding me as I worked. Thank you Shannon for all the beautiful pieces you sent me.

Now I hope you will hop along and visit as many other beaders as possible on this list below which has live links. Thank you Lori for making this wonderful event possible. I have loved participating.

Hostess, Lori Anderson

Special Book Sneak Peeks, Cindy Wimmer

1. Adlinah Kamsir (Singapore) and Hajer Waheed (Kingdom of Bahrain)

2. Adrienn Lukacs (Hungary) and Agata Grygiel (Poland)

3. Agi Kiss (Hungary) and Carolien Muller-Genger (the Netherlands)

4. Agnes Asztalos (Hungary) and B.R. Kuhlman

5. Alesha Conklin and Becki Mendivil

6. Alice Peterson and Carol Dillman

7. Alicia Marinache (Canada) and Dita Basu

8. Amanda Dittloff and Brandy Thomason McNair

9. Amanda Tibbetts and Andrea Trank

10. Amy Freeland and Kay Mallery

11. Andra Weber and Christine Murrow