Welcome to the third and final reveal of the 2013 Bead Soup Blog party. Here's a reminder of the fabulous soup mix I received from my partner Silke Grober from Germany who, as you can see makes gorgeous lampwork beads. Silke was incredibly generous sending me not one, but three of her own focals as a matching set and some spacers along with some lovely brass and Rudraksha beads - thank you so much Silke for sending me ingredients that were such a pleasure to work with. I certainly had plenty to play with so I'll get on with it and show you what I made.
I love the earthiness of Silke's beads and they remind me a little of aerial landscapes, autumn seasons and for some reason vineyards. The first piece I made is this necklace using the 'elongated bicone' focal (not sure what the proper name for this shape is) set on a hand made bronze pin and bail.
I particularly like the dark plummy accents on the focal and wanted to try and pick this up in some way so I dug out some lovely matte peanut and seed beads from Smitten Beads and strung them with some of the accent beads from the soup. The Rudraksha beads and the gorgeous brass filigrees add a lovely warmth and although It's a fairly traditional design I think it's very pleasing to the eye.
Next I wanted to do something which incorporated the copper clasp Silke had made which I felt was crying out for a bracelet. I decided to go asymmetrical and fairly casual and went for Waxed linen for the stringing material, randomly adding beads from the soup mix along with a few of my own bronze discs.
I finished the cord tails off with some more of the peanuts beads and that was it - simple but effective.
For my next piece I chose the round focal bead which is probably my favourite but it is rather large so it took some thinking about. In the end I decided on a very long necklace with simple accents to show of the full beauty of the focal. The chunky Vintaj chain is interspersed with lovely sea green crystals (again from Smitten Beads) and both these elements are repeated as dangles below the focal.
I also added one of my bronze flying birds as a dangle and a few matte and shiny peanut beads to the bail to highlight the colour on the focal. This piece did prove somewhat difficult to photograph clearly but I hope you can get an idea.
Last but not least, I used a couple of the smaller lampwork beads to make some earrings which will go with any of the other pieces. The beads are wrapped in bronze wire with a length of chain suspended from the bottom. I added some more peanut beads ( can you tell I rather like these peanuts...) to small jump rings and attached these to the entire length of the chain and finished off with the sea green crystals. These have a lovely sense of movement and texture and I liked them so much I've made some similar styles since.
All pieces now in my ETSY Shop.
I'd also like to offer a huge vote of thanks to Lori Anderson and her helpers for organising yet another epic event and being a huge inspiration to us all.
To see the designs made by all the other participants just use the links below and start hopping.
Have fun!
Lesley
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