Finally! The day is here for the Cup of Bead Soup Blog Party!
A couple of times a year in between her big Bead Soup Blog Parties, Lori Anderson organizes a smaller Cup of Bead Soup Blog Party. This time the Soup Cup was filled with the following beautiful vintage beads from Crystal of Bead Happily Ever After. As soon as I saw them on Lori's blog I knew that I had to sign up and I was ecstatic when I discovered that I was one of the lucky recipients.
I fell in love with the black/gold flower and felt that it would pair beautifully with the black/gold ring. The colour mix was fantastic and I knew that I wanted to use all the beads in one necklace.
Immediately I was challenged as I've not worked with big hole beads before. What was I going to do ?
After playing around with wire I happily discovered that the wire could fit through some of the holes multiple times. However, I didn't care for the antennaed looking creatures that came out of the experiment and I gave up on that idea. Next I took out some leather cord and played around with putting the beads onto it. I found that only ten of the beads had big enough holes for the leather.
So I took the plunge and threaded on the ring, beads, and the S-clasp I had made with the rose bead and looked at it. Then I wired up the blue beads with some copper beads and small black onyx beads that I had and liked the links. The necklace was starting to come together. Next I worked out where the rest of the beads would go and ended up with a much longer necklace than I wanted. However, I liked it and decided that I didn't need a clasp as it was long enough to fit over the head, so I took the clasp apart.
After fiddling around with the cord and the other beads to make more links and wire wraps I put it all together and this is what I ended up with.
Here's another picture of the necklace being modelled by my beautiful teenage daughter who did not want to show her face.
If you haven't already please visit the other four jewellers participating in this Cup of Bead Soup!
Cheers,
Cheers,
Vicki
Very cool!
ReplyDeleteLovely bold design
ReplyDeleteNice! Thanks too for sharing your creative process.
ReplyDeleteIt's so cool that we both made long necklaces but they're totally different -- the thing I really like about these challenges! You did a great job! Thanks so much for joining!
ReplyDeleteLove the look, and to think you all started with the same ingredients. I love where you took it and how you wrote about your trial and error process - thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteLove that you worked thru what to do about the big holes. The creative process is asking yourself...what if?
ReplyDeleteVicki, I absolutely love your Bohemian-looking design. I can see why your daughter you and your daughter just might end up sharing it! :-) I loved seeing it in person - the design is so clever how you attached different sections not only with leather, but with wire. Looks like you are now the big-hole-bead design expert! :-)
ReplyDeleteI like that part of your necklace is strung & part is knotted. It makes for an interesting necklace.
ReplyDeleteThat turned out really cool! I was surprised when I scrolled from the photo of it laid out then to the photo of it on your model. It's a lot longer than I expected!
ReplyDeleteLove your style !
ReplyDelete