Bead Soup Reveal - 7th Blog Party Woo Hoo!

Today is the day for the third reveal for the 7th Blog Party that Lori Anderson, the "hostess with the mostest" at Pretty Things Blog is hosting.  Lori is such a lovely person and she puts so much of herself into this bead swap blog party.  This is why this blog party is so successful and popular.    After I signed up for the bead soup party, I almost backed out due to some time constraints on my part.  The lovely partner that I was assigned, Laura Guenther of Blue Antiquities, and Lori persuaded me not to and I'm glad now that I stuck it out.  

This was the second time that I had Laura as my bead soup party partner and I think it was fate that I was matched up with Laura again.  Laura is such a lovely individual and I am happy that I had this additional time to get to know her.  I received a beautiful package full of beads from Laura many of which she made herself, Laura is very talented at enameling and I hope someday to develop a portion of Laura's skills.  Here's a refresh on what I received from Laura - the packaging is always awesome. 

The first piece that I made is a necklace using a copper focal and some coral colored beads along with some dainty hand painted glass beads.  I decided to try my hand at hand knotting these beads onto some waxed linen that I had in my stash.  After I had all of the knotting done the dilemma set in as to how to finish it off.  I tried leather, I tried chain and nothing seem to work.  I was reading Laura's blog about the beads that she had sent me and I was looking at the pictures.  Laura had made a super cute decorated cone to package my beads - as I was looking at the picture I noticed how great the sari silk that Laura had tied around the cone matched the beads.  I'm not sure if Laura intended for me to use this silk but I took it off of my package (it pained me a bit to take it off the gorgeous packaging) and used it to finish off my necklace along with the hand forged clasp that Laura sent.

In the second piece, I used the multi-colored ribbon in shades of blue and brown, along with the Czech glass beads, crystal beads and the enamel focal that Laura had made.  I also combined the patina rings  Laura had included and added some antique brass chain from my stash.  I made wired bead components for this piece. I think it turned out lovely and I have already worn this piece - it was the accessory for my Easter ensemble.    

Since I had a little extra time with the delayed reveal, I managed to make several pairs of earrings with the other beads and components that Laura sent.  Laura had included some really cute bead caps in the mix and they called out earrings to me.  I also used Laura's enamel headpins in some of these earrings.  

Here's the list of additional participants.  Please visit their sites and enjoy the wonderful creations created.  

Thank you Lori for hosting this event and thank you to Laura for all the wonderful beads and for her friendship.  

Here's the link to our hostess Lori's blog, Pretty Things, where you will find the full list with all the links to all the other participants of the 3rd reveal of the 7th Bead Soup Blog Party (whew that's a mouthful).  Enjoy!