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