Come 'N Get It!

Bead Soup is ready! Whew! I thought this would never come to a boil, but it's finally time for me to do my reveal. And yes, for those who are wondering, this soup IS resin-free!

I posted a while back about the incredible set of beads that my fabulous swap partner, Julianna, sent me, but here's a refresher picture in case you missed it:

Do you ever watch that show "Top Chef?" It's one of my favorites and on that show, they talk a lot about "honoring the ingredients." You want to let the flavors of the main ingredients shine and not overwhelm them with too much other stuff. Yet, at the same time you have to create a recipe that is sophisticated and worthy of a "Top Chef."

As soon as I saw these beads, I knew that was going to be my challenge. All that gorgeous lampwork just had to be the star of the show. But how to put my own stamp on the design without over-complicating things?

Although my first thought was to put everything into one large necklace, all the beads are fairly sizeable and I was afraid it would be too heavy so I ended up making two pieces.

First off, I created something fairly simple to showcase that incredible focal bead, amazing silver bail and the matching silver swirl clasp:

This lovely dyed black silk ribbon happened to already be hanging out on my workstation from another project so I grabbed that and some sterling silver chain and ran them through the bail. Julianna had done a pretty silver wire spiral to string the focal on, but the shipping process was not kind to it and I also wanted to add a silver spacer at the top so I re-did the wire spiral, added my spacer and then wire-wrapped it onto the bail.

Here's a closeup on the detail of this stunning bead.

I added some of my own Bali silver beads and spacers to the faceted onyx and wine-colored pearls that Juls sent me and wire-wrapped 'em all into dangles which were then attached to the sides of the necklace with jump rings.

I've always seen pieces with ribbon, leather or other fibers attached with wire-wrapping, but have never actually used the technique before (I usually use cones or ribbon ends) so I thought I'd try it. I kind of like the contrast of the bright silver with the black silk ribbon. The lovely spiral clasp was part of the soup that Juls sent me.

Then it was time to see what I could do with the rest of the beads:

I named it "Merlot at Midnight." It's pretty much just the beads Juls sent with a few dashes of Bali silver from my stash thrown in.

A closeup on the lampwork. The Bali silver flower-shaped beadcaps in the center are from my stash.

This toggle is from my own stash - I like how the squiggly designs on it mimic the patterns in the lampwork beads. And, of course, I always finish off with a dangle on the clasp whenever possible. Actually, this was not how I originally intended to finish off this piece. I had this crazy idea that I would put a lobster clasp on each end so you could hang this from the spiral clasp on the first necklace and be able to wear them both together OR separately if you wanted to.

But then I decided I was just being crazy sooooo...toggle clasp it is!

I wish my photographic skills were up to getting better pictures of this necklace! The reactive glass really shimmers in the light and the camera just can't capture it very well.

Okay, so, I had to take ONE picture to see if my "wear it all at once" idea would have worked. I dunno...that's one FULL pot of soup!

Thanks again to Juls for such awesome ingredients to play with. I hope I did them justice! And thank you to Lori Anderson for hosting such a fun event. To keep on hopping through today's Soupers, you can click on her blog here.

Lastly, thanks to everyone who took the time to hop through all the Soup entries and leave comments. It's fun, but definitely takes some time and I appreciate that you stopped by. If you decided to stick around and become a follower - awesome! I've got some fun contests planned for later in the summer and, if you don't already know, every Friday is Bead Porn day around here with lots of eye candy to drool over so feel free to come back by and check it out!

KJ