My Bead Soup party Partner and my Soup reveal

I'm finally getting a chance to post about my great partner for the Bead Soup blog party.  Her name is Katrina Taylor from 'Is the Babysitter here Yet?' blog.

She's a veterinarian from Pennsylvania, which is cool, since we do Wildlife management on our small Texas ranch.  She loves metal work which is great, because I love metal, especially copper and she created this great flame-painted copper clasp for my soup. But she hasn't been able to work as much as she likes because her work area is in a cold area of her house and the winter there has been exceedingly cold. But she put together a great soup for me.  Isn't this great?  (And she kindly left out any BLUE, since I told her I'm not a fan of blue.)  It contains a Natural stone focal bead, Czech glass beads and pearls, Swarovski butterfly, copper and brass components (clasp, beads and chain) and amethyst chips.  I love it all.  Now the challenge is what to do with it all to do it justice. (As usual I forgot my before pic, but Katrina had a great picture of the soup she sent me so she let me use it to show you this great soup.)

And here's the soup I sent her.  I wanted to send her a Texas themed soup, so I cut out the state of Texas with my saw, flame painted it (it turned out a great red, which I felt was very appropriate as we're always HOT here in Texas, LOL)  and riveted it to a textured brass background. I enclosed some lava beads, some hand created copper double-balled headpins, some Picture Jasper beads, some of what I call my Texas Tornado copper wire beads, a small brass clasp and a hand created Texas Yoke toggle clasp that I hammered and also flame painted, plus some teal leather.  I wrapped it all up in this Orange bandana, since we were/use a lot of bandana's in Texas. My thought was she could use some or all of the bandana in her creations, but she told me her son loved the bandana and confiscated it and she may not be able to get it back to use. LOL  So for all of you wondering what the theme was to my soup that I posted on facebook, here it is: TEXAS!  :)

Be sure to come back on May 3rd for the reveal of what I made with my soup. And for more of my jewelry kreationz or my Stained Glass, Mosaics and Fused Glass kreationz for your Home and Garden, check out my shop, KayzKreationz.

Create Three Dimensional Jewelry book review

Kalmbach sent me another great book to review. This one is 'Create Three Dimensional Jewelry' by Heather DeSimone. Heather lives in Maine and has been taking apart and putting together jewelry for 35 years and has been co-owner of The Beadin' Path and beadinpath.com since 1993. She was influenced by the work of Miriam Haskell and realized she didn't have to 'string' beads, but could 'build' her jewelry. She dabbled in vintage beads, but got an e-mail from a man in the Lucite bead business that had some beads to sell.  She decided to check it out and came back with 3 semi-tractor trailer trucks with 40,000 lbs. of beads, plastic hoops, bangles and other components and decided to meet the challenge of using the brilliantly bold plastic pieces in her jewelry and inspiring others to use them, too.  She has done a great job of that in this book. She starts with materials (small beads), nailheads, sew-ons, filigree, beads and buttons and more.  Then she gets into the tools you need for stacking all the layers in your jewelry work and explains the Building Blocks of stacking and working in layers. In fact, she has other building blocks for stitching and creating surface adornment and constructing custom components, before you get into the projects. She describes elements you may use to incorporate into finished jewelry, then gives step by step projects for you to make. Along with that comes Tips to make your work go more smoothly, tidbits that are facts about jewelry or fashion for fun, and alternative projects based on the elements that are introduced in the projects. They are fun ideas to get your creative juices flowing.
I've been trying to work with/add leather to some of my jewelry, so I really enjoyed her 'Boat seats to Begonias' project. They found some overstock vinyl at a fabric warehouse and used it to create upcycled vinyl flowers to mix with metal, Lucite flowers and other materials for a fabulous Statement necklace.

One of my favorites, though was the Memory wire Cuff. I've been working with memory wire quite a bit and I loved the way she built on this cuff to make this wonderful bracelet.
The Silver Lining necklace is featured on the front of the book and another favorite of mine is the 'Down by the Sea' stitched cuff where she stitches found seashell beads and frosted glass to a copper cuff. I love it. Be sure to check out the book for both of these projects.
All in all, this is a great book to add to your repertoire for jewelry inspiration and learning how to 'build' your jewelry to make it unique and find your own style. I loved it.
If you're looking for some of my jewelry or Stained Glass, Mosaics and Fused Glass kreationz for your home or garden, check out my shop, KayzKreationz.

Color of Dreams Blog Hop

Today is the day. I signed up for Rita of Jewel School friends' Color of Dreams blog hop. She graciously sent all the participants an orphan/ooak bead from Patricia of Color of Dreams Boutique to create with. We were to share a dream that has come true, one we are working on now, or one we hope for in the future. The one goal of the hop: we'll focus on our dreams as entirely possible, with the idea, "If we can dream it, we can achieve it". I love her pillow beads. They have so much color in them. This is the bead I received. Isn't it wonderful?

 I love reds and pinks so this was great. It also has a touch of yellow/orange and brown in it, plus a very pale green. Reminds me of Spring when everything is starting to grow, be born and bloom again. Which is kind of appropriate for my dream. I dream or hope one day that my jewelry will bloom, flourish so that people will want to buy it and wear it for themselves. Plus I also hope for a time when I have more time to play, experiment and create more jewelry and glass items than what time I have now. Anyway, I thought about what I wanted to create with my pillow bead. And since I had just gotten a new stamp set from PJTools (more on that in another post) I knew I needed to stamp a tag with dream on it, since this was about our dreams. Plus I wanted my bead to dream itself or fly on its own. So I created a 'dream' tag and a focal/dangle with the bead to hand together from this memory bracelet. Then I found beads I had plus a few I bought to bring out all the color in my bead. So this is my 'Dream' bracelet. I hope you like it.

 

To see what all the other participants created, go to Jewel School Friends blog and check them out or click on the links below. (Hopefully they work).

Honorary Artist: Patricia Handschuh
Patricia's blog:            The Color of Dreams        
Patricias Etsy:             The Color of Dreams
Hostess: TJ                Jewel School FriendsKay Thomerson           KayzKreationz (you are here)
Audrey Belanger          Toki No Hourousha
Alicia Marinache          All the Pretty Things
Terry Carter                TappingFlamingo
Lori Schneider             Bead Addict
Jenny Kyrlach             Wonder and Whimsy
Asri Wahyuingsih         Asri's Beadwork
Dini Bruinsma              Angaza by Changes
Karla Morgan              Texas Pepper Jams
Debbie Rasmussen        A Little of This, A Little of That
Veralynne Malone          Designed by Vera
Kathy Stemke               Vintage Memories Jewelry Design
Mowse Doyle               Mowse Made This
Heather Richter             Desert Jewelry Designs
Lori Poppe                   Adventures in Creativity with LorilliJean
Jayne Capps                Mama's Got To Doodle
Andrea Glick                Zenith Jade Creations
Kathleen Breeding         99 Bottles of Beads on the Wall
Becky Pancake             Becky Pancake Bead Designs
Karin Martinez              Fairies Market
Miranda Ackerley          Mirandack
Penny Houghton           Smelly Nelly
Carolyn Lawson           Carolyn's Creations
Chris Eisenberg            Wanderware
Christie Murrow          Charis Designs Jewelry
Monique Urquhart        A Half-Baked Notion
Eve Shelby                  Raindrop Creations Jewelry by Evelyn
Cryss Thain                 Here Bead Dragons
Jasvanti Patel               Jewelry By Jasvanti
Nan Smith                   NanMade Handmade Jewelry
Sue Kennedy               SueBeads
Jean Yates                   Snap Out of It, Jean! There's Beading to be Done!
Debbie Rogers             Debbies Treasures
Marybeth Rich             A Few Words From Within the Pines
Shirley Moore              Beads and Bread
Shaia Williams             Shaiha's Ramblings
Kathy Lindemer           Bay Moon Design
Linda Anderson           From the Bead Board
Judy Turner               Silver Rains
Gloria Allen                Gloria Allen Designs
Regina Wood              Ginas-Design
Robin Reed                Artistry HCBD
Mary Goovars            MLH Jewelry Designs
Marlene Cupo             Amazing Designs
CJ Bauschka              4 His Glory Creations
Robin Showstack        The Crazy Bead Hoarder
Cynthia O'Toole          Sparkles and Sweets
Jael Thorp                 Jael's Art Jewels
Renetha Stanziano      Lamplight Crafts
And if you're looking for Stained Glass, Mosaics or Fused Glass kreationz for your Home or Garden, check out my shop, KayzKreationz. You will find some of my beaded, wire-wrapped jewelry there, too.