Soup Time is here!!

This year's Bead Soup exchange was a challenge for me.....a definite challenge.  Let's face it -- I'm NOT a jewelry maker.  I prefer to to get my creative jollies by personally torching the beads and components that others can utilize in their fabulous creations and leave the jewelry making to the experts.  So it's fair to say I had to stretch my imagination a bit to incorporate the gorgeous blown glass Orchid focal bead that my talented partner Karen Tremblay sent along with some exquisite free-form pearls, blue & gold crystal beads and some lovely, delicate seed pearls.  Throw in a double-strand gold clasp and I fell off my safety platform altogether.

I played around with several necklace designs and tried (I mean I really REALLY tried!) to do the beautiful focal justice and I failed.  Miserably.  Horribly.  Embarrassingly failed. 

So when Lori sent the post giving us permission to make something other than jewelry with the beads, I went for it.

The beautiful glass orchid focal became the dangling charm of a mixed-media winged, wooded heart with the hand-made enameled crow centerpiece called "Create Beauty."

Some of the seed pearls and crystals were added to more crystal beads to use the double-stranded clasp Karen sent.  The I wanted to make a pendant using something gold so made a fused glass "Goddess" that is precariously hanging from the strands.

Last came a simple set of earrings using the free-form pearls, blue and amber crystal beads. 

So here's what I did -- one of these days I'll learn how to take better photos! 

There are over 360 participants in this year's Bead Soup Exchange.  Click here for a complete list of all of the participants and please feel free to leave comments!!