My bead soup - with updated photos!!

***Photos updated 26.02.11!!***

Here is my bead soup creations! One made on Thursday and one today (Friday!!). I'm a seat of my pants type of girl in case you hadn't guessed!!!

  

I am going to post the photos tonight but will take some more tomorrow {done!!} and replace them as I see fit...I have no light box and as it is actually 00.10 on Saturday morning, there's not a whole lot of natural light.....however, I don't want to miss the big day itself so you'll just have to bear with me photo-wise.

My bead soup partner is the wonderfully talented Patsy Evins, lampwork artist extraordinaire....when I saw I was paired with her, I felt a little overwhelmed....how on earth was anything I sent her going to compete with anything she might send me???!!! I feel terribly guilty that I never posted about the beads I received - I have been having big camera troubles and there's just no good light here at the moment....so you will have to put up with just the photos of the beads as jewellery!

I received four spectacularly crafted lampwork beads in a sea theme - a fish,



a jellyfish,

 a starfish

 and a conch shell.

Now that I've taken better photos, I have to show you  both sides of this pretty bead - I love this one!

Beautiful. I think my favourite is the jellyfish, even though I find them very scary - it is so delicate! Patsy also included a beautiful brass (?) clasp (really gorgeous and my favourite of all the elements in fact!) 

and two bags of beautiful multi-coloured fibres. 

Now, I must admit I felt quite nervous when the package appeared....I love colour and I love fibre but somehow these fibres seemed off my beaten track! Hence my procrastination....but I am really pleased with my final creation! I think I got through my beaders' block ok.

I used a selection of fibres (including much waxed cord) to create a statement piece necklace including three of the lampworks and some tiny czech crystals knotted onto the cord. I combined this with some lovely antique brass chain and the clasp from Patsy - although it's a dramatic piece, the construction was relatively simple once I had the idea. I imagined the sea elements washed up on a multi-coloured tide somewhere exotic....

The bag charm was along similar lines - multi-coloured seaweed spewing from the tail of the wee guy.



I knotted some tiny Swarovski crystals onto the cord for this one and attached a huge antiqued copper lobster clasp.

I'm so looking forward to checking out everyone else's blogs and seeing all your creations! Very exciting. Please check out everyone else's blogs here. For now, however, I must to bed....it's been a long day at work and I am ready for sleeeeeepppppp..............

***Update 26.02.11 - I have realised I forgot to blog one important thing - my bead soup giveaway! I have decided to give away the cute (I think!) bag charm. Just leave a comment here to be in with a chance! I'll include all commenters already as it's my fault that I didn't write about it last night - I was just sooooo tired! Draw will happen next Sunday 05.03.11. Have a great day hopping!***

ABS February Challenge

Finally, I have got my ass in gear and entered an ABS challenge! When I saw the glorious John Singer Sargent picture at the start of this month,

I knew I had to try (in fact, I'm thinking of getting a print to put in our flouse - isn't it just such a glorious work of art?) but didn't know if I would manage what with Into the Woods and everything. However, yesterday I knuckled down and came up with both a necklace and a bracelet!

The big Czech faceted rounds are perfect for this in my humble opinion because they really do have the same glow and luminosity that the JSS has. I totally haven't captured them well in a photograph (I really struggle with necklaces - anyone else have the same issue??) and I will keep going with that one, but for now you can get a rough idea of what I've managed. I've used MissFickleMedia flowers in both pieces, and added a sweet clay Gaea bead to the bracelet. The lace is pretty old and a little stained with age - I would say it adds to it's vintage charm but let's be honest, it would be nicer if it wasn't stained!! Other than that I am very pleased, so much so that I have both on today. Let me know what you think! And any name suggestions......I've got one in mind but it might be a little random....I thought of calling the necklace The Art Teacher after an absolutely wonderful Rufus Wainwright song of the same name (on his album Want 2). He sings about how (the protagonist's) art teacher took them to the Metropolitan Museum and how he liked the John Singer Sargents. I kind of like random!

Speaking of names, thanks to those of you who took the time to come up with suggestions for my pieces in this post. I really liked all of them and haven't decided which ones to go with (I will let you know) but I would like to send each of you who wrote a litte gift of some beads....including some art beads....so email me your addresses to andersonrebecca [@] mac [dot] com. And thanks to you all!!

Green Girl Studios Giveaway!!!!

Go over to Andrew's blog immediately and enter this AMAZING giveaway!!! Look at these stunning beads from his family - I so want to win!!!

Bead Table Wednesday

Back stage at Into the Woods....

The results of Bead Table Thursday

Here you go Malin!

Messing around with Picnik

Thanks to Heather of Humblebeads (a new beady obsession!), I have recently discovered Picnik.com, a photo editing website. Now, photography is not something that comes easy to me (especially when my camera is lost...!) as you probably gather if you have read my blog before - my photos are definitely hit and miss! More often somewhere in between the two, but I know it's something I have to work at. A course one day, perhaps....when time and money permit! I'm also not the most techno-savvy of folk either - I'm only 29 but somehow I feel like the lost generation when it comes to computers and the like - I did a little computer work at school but my pupils are much more au fait with such things I think. And even my Mum (60) seems to know her way round her computer and camera at least, more comfortably than I do, maybe because she had to start from scratch in her own time. Perhaps that little bit of knowledge I received at school was a dangerous thing...I can't be bothered to learn any more! But I'm getting there, slowly but surely. 

So, getting around Picnik hasn't been very easy for me (I'm sure it is really, just not for me!) but today I have come up with a couple of collages of recent pieces! And I'm pretty pleased with them. I have often wondered how folk on other blogs managed such things and now I have too - hurrah! Let me know what you think - of the jewellery and of the collages!

Gaea ceramic beads, vintage czech glass and mocha lace ribbon

You  can see I started playing around with inserting the text after I made that first collage. I couldn't work out how to go back and re-edit it! And couldn't be bothered to upload and re-do....see what I mean about my bad attitude?! 

I'm feeling inspired by out latest spate of givewaways in our wee beady community (Lori and Malin in particular), I'm going to offer up the best type of prize....beads!....to anyone who can come up with some names for these three pieces. I am rubbish with naming my titles as I find the balance between charming and vomit-inducingly cheesy a hard one to strike. So, leave me some names...nothing too corny...I'll pick my faves and post you out some beady goodness from my far too vast collection! 

Hope you are all having a great weekend! x x x

PS I've recently become obsessed with vintage lace ribbon and trim....how did that happen???!!! I don't need anything else to hoard!!

Bead Table Wednesday

Ok, I know it's Thursday......it wouldn't be right if I actually posted on the day I was meant to! Just a quick post to show you the ingredients I have been working with this evening. One of my gorgeous porcelain buckles has been put to good use!

Today's arrivals

Phew! I just got in the door tonight at 9.30 and will be up again at 6.30 and out the door for 7.15! Into the Woods' current schedule combined with work and college is a punishing one but there's only a 8 days til we open so it's worth it...Our run of four nights has completely sold out now - fantastic but a little daunting! - so we are all working extra hard to make the run a success.

However, don't worry - I'm not going to bang on about Into the Woods for another post but instead I will share some of today's postal arrivals. Our postman seems to like to save up our parcels (however big or small) and bring them all at the same time....so we got quite a few today! Two of them were from Nancy Schindler of Round Rabbit and Heather Powers of Humblebeads, respectively. 

Here are my first ever Humblebeads (very exciting, are you impressed Malin?!)

and some super cool porcelain buckles and a gorgeous teardrop shaped crackle glazed pendant from Nancy (not my first Round Rabbit beads by any stretch of the imagination....!) There are more where these came from but I didn't want to make you all too jealous....

Still dodgy iPhone photos I'm afraid....once ITW is over, I'm going to scour the flat (or flouse as we like to call it - it's technically a flat but we have a floor and a half of our building :-)) for my camera. I really hope I haven't totally lost it but I fear that may be the case....buying a new one may have to wait a wee while if that's necessary; a bit of a potential bugger. 

Hope you are all well and enjoying February! Bring on the Spring....