The Big Day; Revealing of my design!

by ©Peggy Gabrielson

Bead Soup Blog Hop Party 2013 for me... is over! It was a pleasant but challenging experience for my first BSBHP, unknowns to me who my partner would be I registered with excitement without hesitation two months ago. Has it been really that long?

I Just Wanna Be Me...

Close up of the end caps that were altered in color... Thanks Gail Crosman Moore!

Lori Anderson, the originator and author of the Bead Soup Blog Hop Party is the mainstay of this annual event, where artistic individuals from all over the world are partnered by pairs handpicked by Lori herself, to create and design unique jewelry from beads and findings. The challenge forced me to think out of my comfort zone; the only rule to adhere to was to use the pendant and clasp that my partner sent me in her mix. 

My Bead Soup mix came in the mail!

The picture alongside shows the selection of beads Paula Hisel of Simplybeadiful took time to beautifully wrap and mail to me. I was so excited when I received the package in the post that day. Opening it as if it was a special present on Christmas Day; I laid out each piece in front of me, first by color then rearranging them by shape, leaving them on my desk so that I could take a peek at them as I sat typing on my keyboard. Each day I would glance over to my right, stop my writing, pick one up, then try to imagine how I would use it in a design. 

This scene continued for several days more. I finally picked up my camera taking several shots of the beads together, some with and without the pendant and clasp. Still not satisfied I took some of the beads away to help make the decision of designing easier, for me being a visual person, too much information can confuse my thinking pattern. My final piece came from my experience of many years of being a bead weaver, by combining old traditional style of crochet and using a modern twist of changing metal into different colors, all becoming one necklace. 

My focal pendant and clasp design was inspired as I previewed Artist Gail Crosman Moore promoting her latest DVD on how to colorize metal. I planned to enamel the pendant and clasp, but decided to use colored pencils as Gail mentioned to do. I was unsure of the content of the base metals in them. I tweaked her technique to give all the components an opaque quality, complimenting the string of seed beads used to crochet the beaded rope. The layers of colors were then sealed with a matte finish spray.

The end cap before altering with colored pencils

After the sealant dried 24 hours I then wrapped the pendant with a multi-colored fabric ribbon, securely fastening by stitching to it one bead at a time to the focal piece. The beads I chose to use for embellishing the fabric ribbon works well with my hand woven beaded bail pendant and enhances the iridescent shaped beads that Simplybeadiful included in my soup. The same beads and ribbon were used to hold the end caps and toggle clasp together. 

I have torch fired enameled metals, used alcohol ink on them, but have not use colored pencils to alter their look. It was a fun and great new adventure! I loved the inspiration I picked up from artist Gail Crosman Moore, sending me in a creative journey that I will explore more!

Another piece using the soup mix purple beads in my design, I added my enameled beads to it.

Inspiring Creative Minds! Learning Something New Every Day! 

Lori Anderson
Simplybeadiful

Gail Crosman Moore