The bead soup is simmering

I am happy to report that my bead soup has arrived and I am totally up for another challenge.  My partner, Tanya Wiles at Tenebrous Hollow Studio, is a fiber artist and she makes some really interesting pieces.  She also hand forged the tiny little clasp!  The focal is really unique and I have never worked with anything quite like it.  This should be an adventure once again. 



Here is another shot after I stirred my soup.  Look at all that handy work in the flower, really neat. There are so many interesting little bits and pieces, an idea is beginning to brew...  If you have no idea what this event is all about, please hop on over to Lori's blog and read all about the fun.   



Now that Tanya has her parcel, here is a picture of what I sent to her.  I can't wait to see what she comes up with, and the blog hop is always fun. 



The reveal date for my group is August 11, so be sure to come back and check out the results of this fabulous exchange.

Cheers,

Rhea

Making some Bead Soup

I have had so much fun the last two times, I decided to play once again in the Bead Soup Blog Party, hosted by Lori Anderson. 

This time around my partner is Tanya Wiles.  Her blog can be found here.  I am excited to see what she sends as her personal style is still a mystery to me.  I hope she can find use in this little batch of beady soup!  Here is a teaser that I will reveal once she gets her parcel.

The whole idea is to send some bead soup (a focal, a clasp and some complimentary beads) to your partner, make something from what they send you and then show it off on a blog hop.  It is such an inspiring exercise.  You never know what you will get and it really helps you work outside of your traditional supplies.   Here is what I conjured up the first time around.  To read more about it the post is here.

The second round was really tough, but I was up for the challenge.  I really learned a lot from my second round.  To read about my doughnut saga read here.

I hope you will all tune in to see what this year will bring for both me and my partner.  This round there are three reveals and mine will be on August 11th.  

Cheers, 

Rhea

Bead Soup Teaser

I was lucky enough to be selected in the lottery for this installation of the Bead Soup Blog Party.  This is hosted a few times a year by Lori Anderson.  As the hostess, she connects fellow bloggers and jewelry artists and we exchange "bead soup."  This consists of a quality packet of beads which has to include a focal, a special clasp and some complementary beads.  Participants are challenged to use at least the clasp and focal in a project.  Then we all post on the party day check out each other's work.  I have done this once before, and I really enjoyed the process. 

My partner this round is Cory Celaya.  I am really excited, as her style is quite different than mine. Her work is absolutely lovely.  She has a real boho/tribal/gypsy style, from what I can gather.  Hopefully this connection with a different genre of work is inspirational for both of us.

We are allowed to post teasers of what we send prior to our partners getting the beads.  Here is a sneaky peek of what Cory has coming to her.

I will post a full reveal once she gets her beads and I receive mine.  Thanks for following along!

Cheers, 

Rhea 

Holiday Charm

I have still been in a bit of a creative lull.  I managed to finish up a swap I started a little while ago for a charm group I am in.  The challenge was to create a tiny altered ornament, one and a half inch or smaller.  I am going to enter one set into Simon Says Stamp and Show's challenge of upcycling. 

The first set I created were made from vintage ration chips.  These are small tokens made of vulcanized rubber.  They were perfect for altering. 

I started with two chips.  They were glued together and a piece of wire was added inbetween to create a hanger for the jump ring.  I topped them off with tiny images from Tim Holtz's seasonal paper stash.  The edges were covered with metal foil tape and then I sealed the top with a layer of Glossy accents.  I added a touch of tinsel at the top for texture.  The chips themselves are smaller than a dime, so these are pretty tiny. 

I signed up for two sets of ornaments for my swap.  This is a sample of my second mini ornament set.  These were also quite simple to create.  The glass domes make for easy altering.  A bit of holiday paper was glued with a touch of Glossy Accents and a dab of stickels. I also cut a bit of aluminum flashing with a round punch to cover the paper on the back.  I considered another bit of tinsel, but decided against it.  As I look at them online I wish I added it, they are missing a texural element. 

I also indulged in a round of monthly color swapping with the Art Charm group.  This month, silver findings with white and clear beads were our source of inspiration.  I made a bunch of extras, so that I can create a charm bracelet when I receive all of them back.  This way there will be at least a few common beads throughout the piece, tying it together.  My little dangles are made from a small selection beads, but, they are not all the same. 

I also finished up a project I am using to barter.  My collegue recently requested a bracelet created with green and white.  She is a big fan of the Michigan State Spartans and she wanted an elegant way to show her support on game days.  We are swapping jewerly for antiques.  How fun is that!  She has an old typewriter for me to start. I think this is going to prove to be a very fun arrangement. 

Until next time...

Rhea 

A serving of Bead Soup

I hope you all are hungry for some jewelry inspiration.  I am partaking in a really great art event called the Bead Soup Blog Party.  Recently my partner Kari, over at Pearl and Pebble sent me a lovely mix of beady ingredients.  We were challenged by our hostess, Lori Anderson, to use our ingredients and make a lovely item to post on our blogs today.

The pendant, which is so lovely, is from Muddy Fingers.  This would be a challenge for me, as I have never really utilized ceramic in my beading endeavors before.  I do love the color, the pattern and the exquisite texture this pendant has.  I also received all kinds of wonderful stones and a clasp that is way too pretty to reside on the back of one's neck. For this reason I made two pieces and used both the clasp and the focal as center pieces. 

      



I picked up the spacers and the larger green faceted beads in a lovely shop called Bead Heaven in Downers Grove.  I splurged on something I probably would have not usually purchased for myself, as I was on vacation and I had the blog party to complete.  I think my investment paid off.  When stringing this piece I used color blocking, which is something I have never done in jewelry.  I love how the blog party has stretched me creatively.



The clasp is one I have been hording for quite some time, many years in fact.  I purchased it at Bead in Button and loved the little moon on it.  Again, I justified the specialness of this project to use a quality item.  I used blog party as opportunity to read up a bit more on photography and display.  I think I may have learned a little as the close ups are more interesting picures. 

                         

 

For the second piece, I wanted to showcase the clasp.  The focal here is from Bead Heaven and I used a few more of the accent beads from Kari.  I pushed myself again and did not do a symmetrical pattern.  I made lots of mini patterns in a slightly random way.   This necklace had to be strung twice.  The first time I made it, I put the pendant really close to the focal and my clasp would not lay correctly. I took it to an artsy gathering and consulted with my pals.  They were able to advise that the clasp move up a bit.  I am grateful for their input, as it really made a difference.  Can you see why I did not want to hide that clasp?  It is so pretty!



I still have some beads left from this wonderful exchange.  The large white ocean jasper is totally stumping me, due to their scale.  I hope to use the momentum of this experience to stretch myself to use them in something soon. 

Thanks for stopping by!  There is so much more soup to share.  Please stop over to the Bead Soup Blog Party to see the links for all the other players, they would love to have you!

Cheers,

Rhea

Bead Soup is on!

I am participating in my first ever Bead Soup Blog Party and I am loving it!

My partner's name is Kari and she has a lovely blog called Pearl and Pebble, where she documents her creative life.  She even makes her own beads from scratch!  Please stop by and check out her art. You will also be delighted by pictures of two little baby boys who are simply adorable.

Kari send me a wonderful bead soup that I can hardly wait to play with.  The ceramic centerpiece is by Muddy Fingers on Etsy.  There are also salway nuts, ocean jasper, white fossil stone and a gorgeous sterling clasp.  She is so cute, she wrote me a little bead soup recipe in the box.

Stay tuned and before too long the actual blog party starts and all of us will be posing our creations. 

Back to my creative roots

I have to say that making all these Chotski pins had me hankering for bead work.  This is where I started on my creative path.  In fact, I have a very clear memory of the first time I beaded as a young girl.  I was at a baby sitters house and I made a white and clear seed bead bracelet on a piece of dental floss. 

Pictured above are some of the Chotski Pins I pins I have made.  I seriously can't stop making them.  The one on the bottom I had "completed" previously, but after blogging about it and seeing the pictures I decided it was not done.  I use hardware such as washers, nuts and bolts alongside charms, broken jewelry, Tim Holtz embellishments and found objects.  I have also used odd watch parts and hardware that I have no idea what the correct use is.  They are so fun and eclectic.   

As promised I will be randomly choosing one lucky winner for one of these pins, as promised on a previous post.   I will be doing the drawing this evening, so there is still time to enter. I think I may join in another round of swapping these dandies over at Red Lead too.

Since I was so inspired from the use of all my old tools, I stopped in a local bead shop and picked up a few strands of affordable pearls.  I whipped this out in no time and hope to make an additional complimentary necklace today. 

A huge thanks to Red Lead for all this inspiration!

Altered Corsage Pins

I thought this was such a cute idea and so simple.  I added a few cyrstals from old broken vintage jewlry along with a few bead spacers.  I tried to "stop" them with crimping beads, but that did not work.  I resorted to a dab of Glossy Accents at the bottom over the cripmed beads and that worked fine.   I plan to use these in other projects as well as for pins on my vision board.

I considered adding glitter to the pearl portion of the pins, but decided against it for this batch.  I think that this would be a good addition though.  I also think using different types of beads would yeild a totally different effect.  

Winter Inspiration III

While I am so tired of winter, I still continue to strive to take inspiration from it.  I created these little ornaments some time ago, but I decided to drag them out after reading this month's issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors (CPS).  This magazine is such an inspiration to me.  When it comes in the mail, I always have to wait to read it until I can be with it for a while because I savor each project, each image, even the advertisements are eye candy.

I am always stuck by the constant call for art.  I often wonder if I am good enough to submit and fantasize about doing so.  Well, yesterday I took the plunge.  I stopped thinking of all the reasons not too, stopped listening to that critical inner voice, and I just simply took action and did it. 

CPS was calling for several genres of art including holiday gift projects, as well as wired art submissions.  This made me recall these sweet little ornaments I recently created from wire, broken jewelry, found objects, buttons and beads.  So simple, so forgiving and so elegant.  So submitted!  It was an easy process.  I hope for this to be the first of many submissions.  Perhaps one day, I will grace the pages of my coveted zine! 

I have gifted these ornaments many times to family and friends and find they are usually happily received and displayed year after year.  I love the feeling I get when I see a bit of my artistic musing out in the world being enjoyed by it's recipient.  When this happens I feel affirmed on a very deep level.  It is important for me to create beauty in the world.