The 8th Bead Soup Blog Party is here!!

A reminder of what I was fortunate to work with from Genea (click on her name to visit her blog and see what she made with the soup I sent her!):

Packaged so neatly!!

THE NECKLACE

No matter how I looked at it, Genea's soup screamed "BOHO"!! So I first whipped up a herringbone tube, which I threaded a piece of wire through for stability. At each end are lampwork beads from my stash (made by Patsy Leblanc of Killer Beads). 

I square stitched a golden bail and hung the "sea urchin" focal from it with a swarovski crystal and some copper spacers. I then hung a MOP leaf from it. 

Wooly wire is wrapped around the tube and up past the beads. 

The copper chain Genea sent me is attached to the wire threaded through the tube, and then her recycled sari silk forms the ties at the end so that it can fit any size neck.

focal by Genea

wooly wire wrapped around my herringbone tube

THE BRACELET

Next, I created a bracelet using more of the antiqued copper chain. The sea urchin wing ding and silvered ivory spacers were joined by more of Patsy's lampwork, lampwork by Amber Ballard and flat discs, all from my stash. The button closure made by Genea is part of the clasp that holds it together.

wingding by Genea

lampwork button closure by Genea

Here is a link to the other participants in the blog hop (500 links is a bit long for one post!!) 8th annual Bead Soup Blog Hop

Meet my Bead Soup Bead Party swap partner

This is Genea

And she makes beautiful lampwork glass beads (check out her blog)

I love the headpins. Wow.

And she is sending me a package with beads in it so I can make jewelry and show off what I make!! I'll be sending her some, too. It's all a surprise, what's in the package. Sometimes surprises are good. I'm pretty sure this one will be.

A bit of glassy goodness from Carolina Sherrill

As I was checking on my Susan G. Komen auctions on justbeads.com, I happened to click on the banner ad at the top of the page for Carolina Sherrill. What a treat!

I especially love the beads pictured below. Check the auctions out by clicking on the pictures, or visit her website which will point you to her other venues.

Metalle Focal

Matrix Focal

Bright Spots from Michal Silberberg

modern times by Michal S.

Since I'm not at my own computer or even near my own creative tools, I decided to browse my contacts' photos in flickr and find the first photo that really grabbed me.

I guess I'm desperately in need of some color therapy because Michal's gorgeous lampwork beads are just the ticket to cheer my soul and make me smile deep inside. Visit her flickr photos for a real treat... again!

Lampwork beads... hmmm... polymer clay ideas...

Kye, originally uploaded by melaniemoertel.

Lampwork beads by Melanie Moertel.... and I can totally see some of this working in polymer clay...

I have some beads waiting to be baked, and ideas flying around my head... and a house that is in desperate need of cleaning (and I don't mean simply running a vacuum cleaner, either) so that my college age son can invite friends in. He says, and rightly so, that it is isolating our family to have things in such a state. Also, that perhaps it's because we are all fairly introverted that we create this isolation. Darn. How'd he get so smart?