Bead Soup Blog Party! Time For The Big Reveal!

Today is the day! You get to see what I made with the fantastic stash Tina Bosh  sent me. First, instant replay. Here is the luscious focal from a souvenir swoon, I mean spoon. There was also a fabulous sterling toggle clasp. Those pearls are to die for and there were oodles of vintage goodies (note the hematite facsimile glass in the lower right -- one of my favorite vintage beads.)

Drum roll please! Oh, wait.

Here is a close up of the beads. I used the vintage pink crackle glass rounds she sent with some Chinese gemstone cuts in a hematite finish. I also found some of my own hematite facsimile glass in an oblong shape, and there are some titanium plated hematite stars sprinkled here and there. There are seed beads in a gray AB finish. I used the larger vintage beads from the soup and the pearls. Two strands are knotted but the one with the bird is strung.

This is the clasp. I added a couple of links from an acid etched brass chain in a silver color. It made it easier to combine all three strands. I am loving this clasp!

© 2014 Theresa Buchle "Fly Me Home"

Now for the drum roll! Open the photo so you can see the details, like the stars and the tiny faceted beads that add a bit of sparkle. I included a silver finish brass bird and I called the piece Fly Me Home.

The inner strand is 19 inches long, the outer strand with the pendant is 23 inches. The pendant strand and the center strand are hand knotted on gray silk. I used silver-plated copper core wire to make the loop to hang the pendant. The bead tips for the two knotted strands are plated silver. The crimp beads have nickle colored crimp covers over them. All in all I wanted a slightly vintage look for everything so I tried to stay away from bright, shiny silver. The only beads sent to me by Tina that I did not use were the bronze seed beads. I am in love with what I did. There, I said it, fully admitted it.




Now, a little about my partner, Tina Bosh. She has traveled all over the country (47 states!)  but has spent most of her time in Northern California. She's very much like I am regarding Texas -- she wouldn't want to live anywhere else.

She has two children, a boy and a girl, both in their 20s. They have done their mama proud with their degrees. He went into Industrial Technology and she went into Event Planning. And Tina was a school librarian for a while, which explains her love of books. She has been married for 27 years and has four dogs: three dachshund mixes and a chihuahua who help fill her now empty nest.

Now for the other thing she and I have in common (the thing other than beads, of course):  finding other people's junk and making something else out of it! You know, junktiques, upcycling, repurposing. Only she has actually made a teensy bit of money doing so. Also, for the past four years she has made it a point to take an art class each semester (and a P.E. class which puts me to shame!). I love all of this about her.

This part is in Tina's words: "I love making jewelry. I have taken college classes in casting, making wax models and then casting in metal. One semester I took glass fusing and enameling. I have made many focals in the classes. For beads, I pick up thrift store necklaces, deconstruct them and make something new.  I work in stone, gem or glass beads.  My style is a bit Bohemian/Hippie.  While I think seed beading is lovely it is not my thing . . . . As far as art, I work mostly in mixed media.  Collage is another favorite.  The watercolor bird on my blog is a very beginner effort.  I am taking watercolor this semester and am only a few weeks into the learning." By the way, I love the watercolor bird! What I took out was that she doesn't like seed beads. *sigh*  I just couldn't bear to see the words again, sniff!

And here is what sent Tina. I cannot wait to see what she did and to find out which soup she used. My original post about the goodies is here.

The first soup was built around an ammonite. I included some mother of pearl drops, carnelian daggers, some white jasper pillow beads and faceted crazy lace agates (I love those - saved some for me!). There is a lovely sterling clasp along with some ear wires. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

The second soup was built around that sexy rose quartz pendant. I included more rose quartz beads (I love those acid etched faceted drops & have some of my own), fancy fire polish in green/gray/pink, some green glass gemstone cuts, and some tiny faceted labradorite. There is also some brass chain, a Vintaj dragonfly and a Vintaj filigree ring and toggle. Last, but not least by any means, I added a length of hand died silk ribbon in pink/green, gray. This is actually my favorite of the two. No wait, the other one is. No, wait . . . .

And I sent her a pair of earrings with niobium ear wires in copper, copper chain and bead caps, mookaite, and tiny orange glass beads on copper head pins -- just because.








Bead Soup Blog Party links are found here on Lori Anderson's blog. Warning! There are several hundred links, so be prepared.

Happy hopping! And have a Happy Mother's Day if you happen to be a mom. I have a great weekend planned and might just have pics for you next week.

Beads!

My soup came! The box of beads was waiting for me when I came in the door. I love boxes of beads.

Vintage glass, fresh water pearls, a toggle clasp, just enough seed beads and, oh my stars, this:

Tina told me that it was from a souvenir spoon that she flattened and drilled. It's going to make a lovely pendant and I already have an idea for the necklace. What did I send to her? I'm glad you asked.

She actually got two soups. One is built around rose quartz and the other around an ammonite and some jaspers and agates. I will provide more details on everything later. I can't wait to see what she makes. I also included a little pair of earrings I made just because. Those are niobium, copper, mookite, and glass.

And the sweetest picture this week:

Luke had a big welcoming reception when he got home. It is just too sweet how his big brothers can't stop touching him and kissing him. I really didn't want to leave but I'll be going back again soon.

Bead Swap One

Lori Anderson has very recently hosted a straight-out bead swap. That means no blog hop is involved, but the next Bead Soup Blog Party is coming up. I love bead swaps. My partner is Michelle of The Cabby Crafter. Michelle and I are a little late to the party but that's okay. She was traveling and I was happy to wait. I got busy and she has been patient with me. This is what I'm sending her today. I was feeling pearly and liking green this morning. Since Michelle and her family are moving from the Windy City to Texas I thought the greens might prepare her for what's going on here. It will be a nice change. So, she has some dark olive glass pearls, some lovely green Czech glass, some seed beads in decidedly spring greens, and some vintage pearlized glass. I also threw in a stretchy bracelet made from some of that same vintage glass. I did hold out a few pieces so she'd have a bit of a surprise when she opens the box. I've had a sneak peek at what she's sending me and I can't wait to get my hands on those beads! I love a swap!

Creative Thoughts

This is a "skewered dragon-fae" necklace that I made for my dear friend Michelle back in July. It was a special request, right down to the beautiful blues. Michelle and I met way back when I belonged to the fantasy/medieval role playing group (the same one wherein I met the love of my life). Once upon a time, Michelle and I did not speak to each other for years, which was a very sad time for me. We have since found our way back to each other, for which I'm exceedingly grateful. It's not easy to find good friends. It's even more difficult to hold on to them. I kept forgetting to post the picture of her birthday present! Her birthday is three days after mine, and her celebration was absolutely fantastic -- it was at a CHOCOLATE AND WINE BAR in Austin! Heavenly!!

And I've been trying to take my mind off my pain. It's a little worse this time, but this knee was in worse shape. Anyway . . .

I'm looking more at fibers. I left off fibers a while back, thinking that I just didn't have time to play with them. I might be wrong. I'm still hungering to work with wire more. I feel that if I make more of my own findings, the pieces will belong to me even more so. Of course, that might make parting with them even more difficult. Then there is metal. Geez, I love copper and bronze and etching seems not so difficult to do so I really, really want to.

But I also have to consider what I've chosen to do for a living and try to work all my little desires into the time I have left over when not coaxing little bits of glass into pleasing shapes and then writing down how to exactly that for others. And I couldn't leave those infuriating bits of melted sand if you held a gun to my head. As a result of all this musing, I've also been trying to think of ways to meld a few of the "I wants" with the tiny beads. Aha! (Believe me, it's probably much more difficult for me than it sounds.)

I'm also trying to come up with little items to stock in the Etsy store that folks might like to purchase for holiday gifts, and I've made the monumental decision to offer my patterns, tutorials and kits in the Etsy store. At this point I would like to open the floor to you, beadlings, to find out what you would like to see out of my repetoire of said patterns/tutorials/kits. Just remember that I'm still not up to full steam, so it will be a trickle of goodies, not a huge flood!

Have a beadiful weekend!

Why Seed Beads?

So, Marcia had a great question today: Why seed beads? Why do we choose tiny, infuriating bits of glass as our medium?

Have you noticed that most of us who work with seed beads are not exactly known for being patient? Take note the next time you are in a group of seed bead fanatics. Take me for instance. I am hardly patient. When I want something I want it NOW. I want results immediately, yesterday even. I like easy recipes that have little prep time and almost no cook time. I speed read, skimming the pages. But I can take the time (anywhere from two hours to six weeks) to work with the tiniest beads to create something like this:



Comment: Oh my gosh, you must have really good eyes.
Response: I just use very good lighting while I work and wear my glasses.
Comment: How long does it take?
Response: Well, that depends on what I'm doing, how I'm feeling and how many mundane interruptions occur.
Comment: Wow, you must have a lot of patience!
Response: See above.

Why do I love seed beads? Have you looked at the color choices available to us today? Delicas® alone are available in almost 900 colors! That kind of boggles the mind, doesn't it? I also love the fact that I can take that little bit of glass, a needle and thread and then make the most luscious creation:



If you work with seed beads, tell us why. Why did you choose them? Why do you stay with them? Could you live without them?? Inquiring beaders would like to know!

Lots Of Words And A Few Pictures

First there is the necklace made from goodies from Carol, modeled by my darling Natalie. Just so we are clear, I don't do wire and chain work. This is made with a Vintaj bronze hook and ring clasp, two types of bronze chain, 20g wire in vintage bronze (wire wraps by yours truly), some beautiful glass rose beads (she has these in several colors!) and a flower which adorned a bracelet in a previous life (there are quite a few of these in the booth). She even has all the tools you need to create your own wearable work of art. I'll be wearing this next week at the Bead and Button show. I'm making another pair of earrings today (in addition to two pair I have already made -- pictures next week) and I'll lay out another necklace to be put together this weekend.

Changes! Okay, no changes here yet but changes in ME! Yes, me. Be prepared for what happens next. I want you to be sitting down and not have anything in your mouth. You know how I dislike pictures of myself, but here you go:

This picture was taken by Clara back in March. Yuck. That is NOT me. That woman CANNOT be me. Then we went looking at bridesmaid dresses Wednesday and Natalie shows me what she wants me to wear at the big celebration next year. Oooookaaaaay. Hmm. Add to all this a visit with the doctor yesterday and changes are going to be made. I found these Ezine articles, which I absolutely love. You would not believe what a difference it has made to just tell myself that this is going to be done and it can be done. I feel like the Not-So-Little Engine That Could. So, you'll get a new picture of me every month. What did T-man say? He said "Good. I can't wait until we can get back to doing things we used to love to do." Crap. He had that "let's go rock climbing" look in his eye. Do you think it's like riding a bicycle? And bicycles! He wants to ride bicycles! So, here I go getting back down to my fighting weight and I have until November 2010, if not sooner. And no, I won't tell you how much needs to come off. You'll just have to check the pictures each month. And you know how I love moral support, so lay it on me! And I hear you over there, wanting to know what miracle I found. Nope, no miracle and I'm not deluding myself into thinking this is going to be easy. It's going to be a lot of hard work and a totally different way of thinking.

It's apparently a holiday weekend (my days just run together, you know) so I want you all to have a nice, relaxing time and be safe! Oh, and work in some beading while you're at it!

Who Lives Inside You?

No, it is not a weird question. It's a very important question. We all have someone living inside us, someone a bit different from the outside persona. Think about it. Is there a part of you that wants to spring forth, a part that you keep tucked quietly away in the recesses of your mind, a part that you firmly believe is just a fantasy? And no, I'm not speaking in terms of personality integration. I will elaborate.

Inside me there lives an artist. She is an artist who paints with watercolors. She paints delectable, dainty tableaux in muted Victorian colors with oodles of blossoms and lace. She paints portraits of elegant women with translucent skin like the one above, and babies swathed in lace christening gowns and little girls with ringlets caught up in huge satin bows. She sips tea out of fine china cups that let the light shine through, and she lives in a loft in Paris and watches the world stroll by her windows that face north, because that's where the best light lives. And she cradles a white Persian cat while she watches and sips and dreams.

Me? I can't draw a straight line. Okay, so maybe I can draw a little. This is one of my drawings. I live in a world littered with tiny bits of glass, and most of my cats are Russian blue or coal black. I work with needle and thread, and watercolors just frustrate me (yes, I gave them a try). My windows face east and west, where I get to watch glorious sunsets. And no one walks down our road, but we do get to hear the coyotes sing almost every night. It's a long way from here to Paris, unless you mean Paris, Texas. I also have a writer who lives in there (I have written and have won small awards), and a singer (once upon a time), and a photographer (I try), a free spirited hippie chick, and a gypsy queen who dances in the moonlight (did that, too). They all get along quite well, not that I'm talking to my other identities or anything.

My point is this. If I did not have all those other creative personae screaming for attention in the back of my mind, would I still have the strong streak of creativity that drives me to do what I love to do? So there, beadlings, is your question for the day.

I am working on a little "thank you" for Miss A, who had to load the car for Mommy and help Daddy set up Mommy's booth at the ASG exhibit and show. She's such a good kid! They are both good kids. Aw hell, let's just throw T-man in there too! I'm a lucky, lucky woman!

Look Pooh, It's a Blustery Day!

You know, it kind of sucks being a human barometer. Whenever the weather undergoes a drastic change, I get a migraine. Hurricane season in Houston was sheer torture for me. Tornado and thunderstorm season on the prairie isn't much better. And a blue norther will knock me down every time. It's a bit better today, but the wind is blowing all kinds of stuff around, so I'm not sure how I'll feel this weekend. T-man wants to take a ride Sunday if the weather holds. Oh well, I'll just take cold medicine and try to hold on!

So, the bead stash. I got lots of charlottes and the new permanent galvanized finish seed beads and, of course, some rivolis from Beyond Beadery. Chatting with Betcey was great, and she had a wonderful helper with her. We had several things other than beads in common. I could gleefully have stayed in that room all day. I got some interesting fancy jasper crescent moons and carved leaves plus a strand of the richest apatite coins I have ever seen from Zeka Beads and handfuls of wonderful glass from my beady pal Melissa (who does not have a web site). Plus I hit LB before I left to pick up some size 15 cuts --- very yummy, those are. I am a happy beader.

Marveling at the Marvelous

We are marvelous.

I am acquainted with quite a few bead artists. These are people who make art beads -- lampwork, polymer, PMC, etc. I marvel at their ability to take a rod, glob, slab, whatever, and turn it into a work of art that I can hold in my hand and then set to music with my tiny beads. If not for them, a lot of my artistic pieces just would not be. I know that they all have a box of not-so-perfect pieces. I know that they sweat, literally and figuratively, trying to create their visions. I marvel that these artists can work wonderfully well under pressure. They can, at the last minute, churn out a table full of marvelous things. I cannot do any of this, but it is marvelous.

It takes me days to chart a graph for a patterned piece, weeks if I work from a picture. There is a lot of tweaking, a lot of refining, and then if I'm really smart, there is a test strip to make sure the colors work. This is not marvelous, this is time consuming. But for the customer who purchased the pattern, the beaded piece which is the end result can be marvelous.

For the art pieces that don't follow a pattern graph, there is still a lot of angst involved. Again, there is a test strip. Then there is the ripping something apart three or four times before it becomes what I have envisioned. Sometimes a mound of thread or bent wire or culled beads is the only testament to days of blood, sweat and tears. But in the end, when it's placed in the display case at the show, and someone walks by and simply says "marvelous", I marvel that they are talking about a little piece of me.

For kits, there is the sending off of a bag of beads and scant instructions to an angel who takes my vision and stitches life into it. Weeks of work and rework go into these. This is not marvelous, this is exhausting. But for the stitcher who must have that special kit, the end result can be marvelous.

Perhaps the most marvelous thing of all is the look on someones face when they find that perfect art bead, or that perfect pattern, or that perfect kit, or that perfect piece of jewelry. And better still, they marvel that we, humble bead makers and beaders, are able to create marvelous works of art from a bit of nothing.

We are marvelous!

One Bead At A Time

It's just a tease, but this is part of the sample for the kit I'll be announcing Friday. In an effort to get some commentary on the posts, I'm offering a prize in the form of a lovely bracelet kit. Details will be posted on Friday. As you can see, it is stitched in shades of purple/lavender and green, which seems to be a trademark for me. It contains pressed glass flower beads, fire polished beads, Delica beads, and seed beads.

I love this color combination, perhaps because it reminds me of spring. You know, grass is growing, flowers are blooming, birds are singing and very few things are pollenating? I will bet that you did not know that green is not my favorite color (I do have a favorite shade of green), nor is purple a big favorite. My favorite colors is teal. When if finish up some more business beading (NOTE: business beading is not nearly as much fun as personal beading), I will bead myself a nice piece of jewelry using teal beads and a lovely teal glass goddess pendant I've been holding on to. But for now, I'm off to bead with green and purple.

He won't tell me how he got them home on the motorcycle. But they were a lovely anniversary surprise!