Waiter, I'll have the Bead Soup, Please.

I was lucky enough to get the amazing Julianna Canon as my bead soup partner and wanted to share some pics of the incredible beads she sent me. Even more incredible because she's a lampworker and made them herself:

When she told me she was sending me something "funky" - I had no idea what to expect, but this gorgeous and dramatic set of glass definitely exceeded my expectations!

There's so much detail here - lots of silvered ivory with swirls of transparent wine-colored glass, plus black and white zebra stripes, dots of silver and, my favorite, an incredible reactive glass that sparkles with metallic aqua, turquoise and purple depending on which way the light hits it. The extras are awesome, too: beautiful Bali silver clasp, bail and beads along with some sparkling faceted black onyx and purple pearls.

Here's a closeup of the focal, the clasp and the bail.

Purple pearls (I would have taken them out of the plastic, but it was quite breezy when I was shooting the pictures and I was afraid they were going to roll away) and an extra focal bead.

Yeah...I totally did the blurry thing on purpose. It's a new style of photography which I'm sure will catch on any day now...

With the kid away at cub scout camp, I had a nice and relaxing weekend. Caught up on my sleep big time which was SOOOO needed. I feel like I haven't gotten enough sleep for about 2 years now. Also caught up on my Tivo'd shows and my Netflix (I'm sure they're glad to finally get back that disk they sent me in December, 2009) and even went out to dinner and a movie: The Prince of Persia. It was only so-so, but Jake Gyllenhaal (sp?) is pretty cute. Scruffy, but cute.

Of course, I found some time for making more resin pieces (yeah, it's official, you can stamp the word obsessed right on my forehead) which I'll post more about tomorrow. My other goal was to get some actual jewelery made up using my resin stuff and I even managed to accomplish that. Finished one necklace and have a bracelet almost halfway done.

Here's the necklace:

I'm actually quite happy with how this came out - I loved those resin bezels when I first made them and they are a perfect match for some of the bright stones I've been collecting this year.

I just love turquoise. I should do more with it. This brio picks up the aqua color in one of the bezels just perfectly. The other stones are dyed purple jade and dyed yellow quartz and some copper spacers.

Closeup of one side - including a carved coral flower bead.

Sour apple green dyed quartz picks up the green in the bezel PERFECTLY. And y'all know how I feel about the matchingness.

Closeup of another bezel.

The back of the necklace is simple - just some copper chain and a copper toggle clasp.

All in all, I think it came out quite well. I've got to make some more pendants and charms using the same materials as this set as I think the colors are really something outstanding.

Wish I had something interesting or funny to tell today, but after all that rest and relaxation, well, I'm feeling very Zen today :-)

But, there are workmen painting my front door and shutters today while I'm at the office so, depending on the outcome of that little project, I may have fuel for humor tomorrow...

Stay tuned...

KJ