Bead Soup Ingredients are on the way to Germany!

Hi Y'all,

I mailed Sabine's bead soup ingredients off to her today it should take, if all goes well, seven to ten days to reach her in Munich, Germany.

Yeah I know not to pretty, but what's inside is beautiful and that is what counts, right?  Would you like a sneak peak?  I bet you would!  Okay you twisted my arm so here you go....

Just

a

little

peak

a

pooh!

Now did you think I was going to really let you have a peak!

Y'all have a great weekend and to those of you in the USA have a happy and safe 4th of July!

Happy beading Y'all,

Therese

I have a Bead Soup Partner! Do you want to know who it is?

Hi Y'all,

I am participating in the 6th Bead Soup Blog Party and mine and my partner's reveal date is August 11th.

Who is my partner you ask?  Well it is Sabine Dittrich.  Sabine lives in Munich, Bavaria (Germany).  I once traveled through Munich back in the late 60's when I was a young girl, my Dad was in the Air Force and was stationed at Hahn AFB Germany.  Germany is a beautiful country and I have many fond memories of there.

Sabine is a lamp work artist and she does beautiful works with glass rods and fire. Sabine told me that working at making glass beads is a way to relax after a long day of teaching.  I love glass in all forms, so I am very excited that she is my partner and so looking forward to what she sends in her soup.  Don't get me wrong I would have been just as excited no matter what type of beader or bead maker Sabine was, it is exciting getting to meet someone new and from another country.

I am collecting the ingredients for Sabine's Bead Soup and will post a teaser of the ingredients before I ship them off to Munich.  You can visit Sabine at her blog and her Etsy shop.

Lori Anderson the creator of Bead Soup Blog Party, an awesome Lady, asked us to blog about, how/why you became a jewelry designer.

It all started for me when I picked up a beading magazine late in the year of 2004, that was in a pile of craft magazines, that a friend of my Mom's had given me.  I have always been some sort of a crafter, from making doll clothes when I was a wee little girl from scraps of material, which led to all kind of other crafts through out my life time, but I must say out of all I have done jewelry making is my passion.  I was fascinated with what I saw in that magazine, so I sent off for a subscription. The name of that magazine was Simply Beads.  Here is a picture of the first piece of jewelry I made.

(This picture was just taken the other day by my Sister. Held up pretty good huh!)

When I saw this necklace I just knew that I had to make it and give it to my Sister for her birthday. She loves bright colors and I thought this would be perfect and besides it did not look that difficult to make. I started looking for places to get beads.  I first went to Michael's, but they did not have what I was looking for. Then I went to A.C. Moore's ( I miss that store) but they did not have any of the beads I was looking for either. So I went back to the magazine and looked at the ads in the back.  Checked out the websites and Fire Mountain Gems had everything I was looking for, Yay!  I ordered way more beads then I needed, which I still have some left today.  I gave this necklace to my Sister in March of 2005.  

It was when I looked at a Bead and Button magazine that I became fascinated with seed beads.  I started out with the peyote stitch and made my first peyote bracelet in 2006, it took off from there.  I would flip flop back and forth between bead weaving and stringing, but since I have joined Beading Babes I know now that my true love is bead weaving.  I will still take a break form seed beads and string a few pieces, but I will go right back to bead weaving.  

I started blogging in May 2010, after a I read an article in Beadwork magazine about Bead Soup Blog Party.  Since I have been blogging I have met so many interesting and kind people, and a few that I have met in person, that I never would have met if I was not blogging.  My life is richer because of all of you, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Happy beading Y'all,

Therese

Beading Babes Project 5 May/June 2012 Reveal

Hi Y'all,

I am so excited to be able to reveal the Beading Babes Project 5 for May/June 2012.  Karyn White chose Echoes of Nefertiti designed by Helena Tang-Lim, that can be found in the  June 2012 Bead and Button magazine, for one of our pieces.  When Karyn contacted Helena to ask if it would be okay for us to do the necklace, Helena was thrilled and offered us one of her other patterns to do as well.  Helena offered us the Four Leaf Clover cuff with one condition.  If you wanted to do the cuff you were to purchase the pattern at full price and Helena would refund half of the price once you showed that you completed half of the cuff.  I found the pattern very easy to follow and easy to stitch.  I ended up making four cuffs.

First up is Echoes of Nefertiti necklace.  I made two necklaces one in green and the other in gray.

I was not sure that all the different shades of green were going to go together, because I had to order the supplies from three different sites, but as you can see they all went together very well.

This was the first one I made and I gave this one to a good friend of mine for her birthday on May 26th.  She was very happy and excited to be able to wear it with an outfit that she designed and made.   She will be going to open call on July 21st in Atlanta, GA for Fashion Star.  I wish her the best of luck with her interview.

Four Leaf Clover cuff by Helena Tang-Lim

This is the first one I made I could not decide on which color seed bead to use, so I used all three colors teal, blue, purple and lime green for the accent bead with 3mm Copper Swarovsky crystal pearls and 8mm crystals for the clasp.

The second one is made with 3mm Turquoise round beads with silver and iris brown seed beads the clasp is  size 8 mm died Howlite.

The third one is made with 3mm Garnet Czech crystals, bronze and iris brown seed beads, the clasp is 10mm copper colored fresh water pearls.   This one I gave to my Sister-in-law for Mother's Day, her birthstone is Garnet.

This one is made with 3mm dark bronze Czech crystals, blue and bronze seed beads. The clasp is a bronze flower made by Lesley Watts THEAtoo Etsy shop.

The last one I am going to show you was not made by me.  It was made by Marla Gibson she gave it to me as a gift when we met on May 30th.

 I like the colors Marla used and the clasp is so cute, I love it!   Marla added bi-cone crystals to the edges of the cuff and in the center gaps between the clovers.  Thank you again Marla.

Thank you for stopping by and viewing what I made for Project 5.  The Beading Babes are really growing since Karyn started this group.  In the beginning there were 5 or 6 members and it now has 126 members since Karyn started a Beading Babes group on Facebook.  I am looking forward to seeing everyone's pieces.

Looking forward to finding out what will be up for us in Project 6!

Happy beading Y'all,

Therese

A Time To Stitch Challenge - Hosted by Therese Frank and Christine Altmiller

Welcome y'all to mine and Christine's first stitching challenge.  There are 22 participants in this challenge including Christine and myself.  The rules were simple, make a piece using herringbone or peyote or both.  If you were new to bead stitching, it did not matter if you finished, just show what you have done.

I did two pieces one using herringbone and the other peyote, both of my pieces are in tubular stitch form.

The first piece I did was a pattern that I found on Ellad2's Etsy shop the name of the tutorial is The Peacock Necklace.  This was a pretty easy pattern to follow and fairly easy to bead.  I chose iris blue size 11 seed beads, bronze colored size 8 seed beads, 4mm blue and bronze Swaroski crystal pearls, a bronze butterfly button I purchased from Lesley Watt's Etsy shop THEAtoo for the clasp.  The peyote band above the embellished center is silver lined blue Delica size 11 and bronze size 15 seed beads.

The only problem I had with this necklace was to try and keep the herringbone sections from twisting, but I could not, so I just let them do what they wanted.  Once I got a hang of the beaded beads in between the herringbone sections this necklace beaded up quickly.  I did not time myself, but if I were to guess, I would say this necklace took me between 12 and 15 hours to make.  I am very pleased with the end results.

My next piece is a peyote spiral done in red, white, and blue size 11 seed beads(I did not use a pattern for this one).  The focal is a pendant I made with one of Juli Cannon's lamp worked beads, you can find Juli's work at StudioJuls.  

I call this piece "I Love The USA"

The clasp is a silver base metal heart and I used different shaped glass beads for the dangles.  You might wonder what is the challenge in this?  Well for me this is the first time I have ever peyote stitched a rope long enough for a necklace.  I would always stop at 71/2 inches and make a bracelet or at 9 inches and add stringed beads for the rest of the necklace.  I pushed myself this time to do 20 inches.  Now I have a necklace to go with the flat peyote stitched bracelet I did last year for July 4th.

I hope y'all like what I have done for this challenge and that you will now take the time and visit the rest of the participants in this challenge.  

Therese Frank and Christine Altmiller

Katherine Gale

Emma Andrews

Karin Slaton

Kim Bender

Lola Surwillo

Amy Severino

Bobbie Rafferty

Sally Russick

Tanya Goodwin

Paula Kramer

Sarah

Karen Williams

Shannon Hicks

Andra Weber

Beth

DW

Marla Gibson

Lisa Stukel

Mandy Duffy

Cynthia Machata

Shirley Moore

Happy beading Y'all,

Therese

Challenge of Literature - Hosted by Erin Prais-Hintz

Hello Y'all and welcome to my second blog post for today. (If you are looking for the Tiny Tin Challenge click here)

When Erin announced that she was hosting another challenge and this one would be based on literature, I said what the heck I will give it a try.  I knew exactly what series of books I was going to base my pieces on.

I chose Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels.  I love this series of books I have read all but 17 and 18 and I have those downloaded onto my kindle waiting to be read.  I love these books!  These books have made me laugh out loud and bite my finger nails in suspense of what will happen next, and even cry at times.

The antics Stephanie Plum and the other characters, such as Lula an ex-prostitute, who happens to be my favorite character next to Stephanie of course, get into are gut busting hilarious.  The on again off again love affair between Stephanie and Joe Morelli, a handsome Italian Homicide Detective with Trenton, NJ Police Dept., has been going on between the two since they were in high school.  To throw a little spice into the mix Stephanie has a serious crush on a tall handsome Cuban Carlos Monoso aka Ranger, who is the number one bounty hunter for Stephanie's Cousin Vinnie.

This series starts out with Stephanie looking for a job.  Her Grandma Mazur, a very colorful character, recommend that she go see Cousin Vinnie that owned a Bail Bonds business.  Stephanie was to late for the filing clerk job so Connie, Vinnie's secretary, gave her the job of bounty hunter and Stephanie's life would never be the same.  If you have not read any of these books, I recommend that you get one and read it, but be careful once you read the first one you will want to read the next and so on.  Here is a list of the Stephanie Plum novels-

Stephanie Plum Series (in order written)

• One for the Money
• Two for the Dough
• Three to Get Deadly
• Four to Score
• High Five
• Hot Six
• Seven Up
• Hard Eight
• Visions of Sugar Plums (between-the-numbers holiday novella)
• To the Nines
• Ten Big Ones
• Eleven on Top
• Twelve Sharp
• Plum Lovin’ (between-the-numbers holiday novella)
• Lean Mean Thirteen
• Plum Lucky (between-the-numbers holiday novella)
• Fearless Fourteen
• Plum Spooky (between-the-numbers novel)
• Finger Lickin’ Fifteen
• Sizzling Sixteen
• Smokin’ Seventeen
• Explosive Eighteen

I based my challenge pieces on Stephanie, Lula, and Connie.  I based my pieces on what I knew of these characters from Janet's descriptions of these three women.  Here is what I created.

First up Stephanie...

Stephanie is not a very flashy character she mainly wears tank tops, t-shirts, and jeans. This necklace is light weight and will go with just about any thing. It would look good on Stephanie whether she was dressing down or up.  Stephanie is a natural type of female, but not your average type of female that is why I chose to use potato and dagger fresh water pearls in red and bronze.  Between the pearls are gunmetal color metal 4mm beads and gold colored 3mm bi-cone beads. I connected the two strands of pearls to a gun metal colored chain, then I added a silver tone heart shaped toggle clasp.

Next is Lula...

Lula is the complete opposite of Stephanie.  Lula is large and in charge! Lula is very flamboyant Black woman and loves to show it in her outfits.  I picture Lula with big and chunky jewelry.  I created this necklace using these large green stones that measure 21/2 inches long by 11/2 inches wide.  I also used 12mm Aventurine and 15mm silver tone filigree beads I added some 4mm green crystal bi-cones, bead caps, spacers, and a big funky toggle clasp.  I had two of the large green beads left so I made a pair of earrings to go with this necklace.

I did not have headpins long enough for these large beads so I took some 22 gauge silver tone wire and made a spiral on one end and the 4mm crystal bi-cones and 12mm Aventurine beads then wire wrapped the earring wires onto the earrings.  They are heavy, but that would not matter to Lula as long as they looked good.

Last but not least Connie...

Connie is Cousin Vinnie's out spoken secretary.  Connie is your typical Jersey Girl that likes to dress in Jersey Girl fashion.  I created this necklace with Connie in mind.  This necklace is just enough to make a statement and not be all in your face.  I used 22mm round pink stone beads and paired them with fancy cut rectangle wood beads, between the big beads are 6mm round brown shell beads. and silver tone spacers. I used a grape leaf shaped toggle. 

I hope that you like what I have created for this challenge and that you will pick up one of these books and read about these wonderful and colorful characters.

Here is the list of the other participants, please go by and see what wonderful creations they have created.

Erin Prais-Hintz

Rebecca Anderson

Rose Binoya

Lori Bowring Michaud

Shannon Chomanszuk

Marlene Cupo

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Kim Dworak

Beth Emery

Therese Frank

Amy Freeland

K Hutchinson

Jennifer Justman

Susan Kennedy

Linda Landig

Lisa Lodge

Lisa Lowe

Kirsi Luostarinen

Beth McCord

Melissa Meman

Sharon Misuraco

Tracey Nanstad

Melinda Orr

Kashmira Patel

Alice Peterson

Sally Russick

Niky Sayers

Pam Sears

Amy Severino

Tracy Stillman

Emma Todd

Melissa Trudinger

Lesley Watt

Shai Williams

Thank you Erin for hosting another great challenge.

Happy beading Y'all,

Therese

Tiny Tins Challenge - Hosted by Michelle Mach

Hello Y'all,

This challenge is the first of two challenges I will be posting today.  Back on April 27th Michelle put out the call for participants in her Tiny Tin Challenge.  The object of this challenge was simple, for a small fee you purchased two little tins and all you have to do is decorate one of the tins did not matter which one and you could decorate it any way you wanted.  

Okay the rules sounded easy enough, uh yeah well, before the tins came I was thinking of all kinds of things I could do to decorate the tins, but when they arrived I went blank.  So I set them aside and told myself I have plenty of time to decorate the tins.  I will just work on other projects and think about this one for a while.  

At one point I thought that I would glue a gemstone to the top and bead a bezel around the stone and lid, but I could not find a stone that fit the lids.  I had ordered some seed beads and a shell inlaid pendant.  When the package arrived I thought yeah this pendant will look good on the lid of the large tin, but then I thought what was I going to put with it, I can't just glue it to the lid and be on my way. What kind of a challenge is that?

I remembered that I had polymer clay.  I looked in the bag of clay and found navy blue. Well really I thought that it was black until I took the wrapper off and saw it was navy blue instead.  I rolled out the clay and cut a piece to put onto the lid and pressed the pendant down into the clay to make an indention, so after baking I would just glue the pendant onto the lid.  Okay that took care of the lid now what about the rest of the tin.  I covered the bottom portion of the tin with the clay and put both lid and bottom in the oven and baked the clay per the instructions on the clay wrapper. Oh I know what y'all are thinking about me using the oven to bake the clay, but it is all right I covered the tin so the fumes from the clay would not contaminate the oven.

OK the tin is baked and cool and I glued the pendant to the lid.  Still it was just not good enough yet. What to do, what to do? I walked away from it for a day to think and work on other projects.  It hit me the tin needed some bling!  I had some clear AB flat backed 4mm crystals.  I glued those around the rim of the lid and then I had some beaded ribbon I glued that around the lip of the lid added some Mod Podge for some shine.  

While I was playing with the large tin I kept looking at the Mother's day card I got from my Mom.  It had a light blue back ground and embossed flowers on it.  I picked out a few of the flowers and drew circles around them and cut them out.  I chose one of the flowers and glued it the the lid of the small tin. After a couple of hours I came back and I covered the flower with some Mod Podge. I let that dry then I added some resin.  The next day I glued some light blue ribbon around the lip of the lid and the bottom of the tin.

I hope you like my tiny tins.  Please go and see what the other participants did with their tiny tins.

1. Michelle - Beads & Books - Hostess
2. Amy - Amybeads
3. Brenda - B'Sue Boutiques
4. Dawn - Morning Glory Beading
5. Debbie
6. Jeannie - Jeannie's Blog
7. Kay - Palm Coast Art
8. Kim - CianciBlue
9. Mary - MLH Jewelry Designs
10. Mary Shannon - Falling into the Sky
11. Michelle - Firefly Visions
12. Molly - Beautifully Broken Me
13. Pamela - The Crazy Creative Corner
14. Patricia G. - My Life Under the Bus
15. Patricia L.
16. Robyn - A Ponderance of Things
17. Shelley - Fabric of My Life
18. Terry - Pink Chapeau Vintage Jewelry
19. Therese - Domestic Goddess Enterprises
20. Therese - Therese's Treasures (you are here)

Thank you Michelle for hosting another wonderful challenge.

Happy beading Y'all,

Therese

Sharyl's Bead Packet Design Challenge - Hosted by Sharyl McMillian-Nelson

On April 5th, Sharyl put out the call for participants in her first Bead Packet Design challenge.  Five names would be drawn from the ones leaving comments.  On April 7th the names of the participants were revealed and I was one of the lucky one chosen to participate in Sharyl's challenge.  Sharyl sent out our packets a few days after announcing the participants.   Mind you we did not know what the beads looked like only that there were 16 beads of these 16 there were 6 different types of beads.   Here is what was in the packet of beads.

The guidelines of the challenge were simple. They stated that we were to use at least two of the different types of beads in the packet in our design.  We were required to make one design, but we could make more than one if we wished. After the contest the design that we made and any left over beads were ours to do with as we pleased.

When I received my packet I took the beads out and looked at them and wondered how I was going to uses these beads, but nothing came to mind.  I worked on other challenges and projects and would come back to these beads, but still nothing.  I knew I needed to have at least one idea, because I was not sure of our deadline.  I finally thought I could make earrings, but no that was not enough of a challenge.  

Then I thought why don't I make a bracelet, but could not make up my mind what beads I would uses. I thought I could use the drops as the focal and the aqua beads for the spacers. But I really wanted to use more of these pretty beads.

Okay so use the drop beads and the aqua beads for the focal the on the side I could use the two 12mm disk beads and the 6mm rounds.  Then I can use a herringbone stitch rope to connect them together.  Hmm that is going to make the bracelet too big.  Ahh heck I will just make a necklace.

So I started stitching a twisted herringbone rope using size 11 bronze and teal seed beads.  I got two and a half inches done and decided to put the first bead in the design. I chose the 4x8 mm roundel and continued to stitch another two inches. Then I strung the 6 mm round bead, a 4mm bicone crystal from my stash, the 12mm disk bead, a 4mm bicone, and a 6mm round. Stitched one and a half inches of herringbone then strung the aqua beads and the drops and stopped and looked at it.  It just was not right something was missing. So I tore it apart, yes all those little tiny beads.  I started over got the first section with the 4x8mm and stopped again. Nope do not like this, so I tore it apart and went to my local bead store where I found the brass bead caps and spacers.  When I got back home I decided to just bead the herringbone tube fist in sections then string everything together with flexible beading wire.

I used the large disk bead as part of the clasp. I strung crimp beads onto the beading wire then the large disk bead, a 4 mm bicone and a bronze 11 seed bead, strung the beading wire back down the bicone, the disk bead, and the crimp beads and then secured the beading wire with the crimp beads.  I strung all of the components on to the beading wire and when I got to the other end I strung on two crimp beads and 35 bronze seed beads.  I looped the beading wire back down through the crimp beads and the herringbone tube. I made sure every piece was in place and no gapes and secured the beading wire with the crimp beads.

The two herringbone tubs near the drop beads I used 3mm Palace Green Opal Swaroski bicone crystals. In each one inch tube there are 24 crystals.

I hope you like my challenge piece.  I want to thank Sharyl for letting me participate in this challenge and I hope to be able to participate in her future challenges.  This one proved to be quite a challenge for me, but I am loving the end results.

Please take the time to go by and visit the other participants in Sharyl's Bead Packet Design Challenge.

Sharyl McMillian-Nelson   Host

Therese Frank you are here

Marie-Noel Voyer-Cramp

Kristi Jaro

Shirley Moore

Kashmira Patel

Happy beading Y'all,

Therese