Bead Soup Blog Hop - Bead Hoarder's Edition

Dusting of my blog must mean it's blog hopping time!!!!

It's been a hot minute since I've done a blog hop, but as soon as Lori Anderson posted that she was revamping BSBP, I signed up!  This year is a Bead Hoarder's edition.  Not sure why she thinks jewelry artists hoard beads...as if??

I was matched up with Bridget Torres.  Bridget also lives in VA and is also British...what are the chances?  I'm always excited to package up and send out my picks to my partner, so excited that I NEVER remember to snap a picture beforehand!  Thankfully Bridget did!!

I sent her one of my own polymer clay focals because I never seem to use them!  Usually an hour or more to create one and they just sit on my table.  I made sure to add in a few other options, because there's nothing like a "bead buffet!"

Photo Credit:  Bridget Torres

Bridget in turn sent me a beautiful selection of beads.  Red adventurine, and turquoise blues/teals...probably one of my favorite combinations...earthy tones with water blues!  I love the chunky copper ovals (center of photo) and the bronze discs (center far right.)

Photo Credit:  Bridget Torres

Red Adventurine Teardrop and Turquoise Shell Focal

I decided to go out on a limb and play with the turquoise shell focal with the silver foil designs. While not something I would gravitate towards, it looked so Springy...and I'm SO ready for SPRING.  I'll be really honest and admit that I played the "I have plenty of time" game when it came to creating for this hop.  To be completely truthful, beads and creating jewelry have taken a back seat in the past few months, and I was hoping this hop would help pull me out of a creative slump.  So you could have bought me for a dime when this happened:  

I was SICK!!!  Many creative curse words were created to boot!   I've since regrouped and started to repair and plan to turn this into a double sided polymer clay mosaic pendant.  I started prepping the clay when I realized that I still needed to create something!!!!

Electroformed Reversible Red Adventurine Necklace

I used the teardrop adventurine focal, sculpted epoxy on both sides - one roses, the other an unidentified turquoise stone from my stash.  Then I slowly electroformed the piece to keep as many of the details from the epoxy roses as I could.  I also added the aqua magnesite dangles and wire wrapped a few more red adventurine before adding a copper chain.  

I plan on working through my gifted soup next week and seeing what else I can come up with.  Until then, please visit this LINK to hop through all the participants!