The bead soup I sent

As promised, here is a picture of the soup I sent to Joanne.

Joanne had told me that her skin reacts very sensitive to copper and brass, so all metal in here is solid sterling silver. The sea urchin (epoxy clay) , the cotton pearls and the clasp were handmade by me.

Bead Soup, again ;)

Oooops, did I really forget to show you the lovely silver clasp that Joanne sent along with her bead soup as a "little" extra!?

I love it! It's so fine! Thank you ever so much, Joanne!
If you would like to own one of her beautiful handmade jewellery supplies, you can buy it here!

"You got Royal Mail" - Bead Soup is here!!!

When I came home from work yesterday, there was an envelope waiting for me on the kitchen table, and it had a British stamp on it.

My first thought was: "Finally Mr. Bond asks me to be his new Bond Girl!", ....

... but then I turned the envelope around and saw that it was from Joanne, my incredibly talented Bead Soup partner.

(Okay, Mr. Bond, don't let me wait too long, because next time I might say NO! )

Just kidding.

I won't say no.

But back to topic:

When I opened the envelope, I found ths pretty card in it.

And a beautiful brown organza bag (unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it, but I took 6 pictures of the envelope...ts,ts) with little packages in it, carefully wrapped in brown paper.

Here's what was in the packages: Three most beautiful lampwork beads (made by Isabelle Anderson), matte white and sparkling purple czech glass beads, some round copper beads, some copper rings (handmade by Joanne) and one of her georgeous handmade copper clasps!

The colour scheme will challenge me (that's part of the fun, you know) , but I love everything about my soup. You should see the lampwork beads - in reality they are so much more beautiful!

And I can't stop touching the copper clasp. It's perfect.

The dust on the czech glass beads was not in the package... it was in the bowl I put the soup in. If there is something that I am not, it's a good housewife ;)
If you would like to see the soup that I sent to Joanne, you can either wait for my next blog post or visit Joanne's blog :)

If love is shelter...

Playing around with my new cotton pearls. These ones remind me a bit of old mercury glass - they are of warm, silvery color and one of them seems to have sprinkles of black patina on its surface.

"If love is shelter, I am going to walk in the rain."

My Bead Soup partner and what she'll receive from me

This time, my bead soup partner is the fabulous Joanne Tinley (Daisychain Designs) from the UK. If you don't know her already, please go to her blog by clicking here! You won't regret it, I promise!!! She also has two etsy shops: one for supplies and one with her beautiful jewellery creations.

When I first saw who my partner was, I (honestly!!!) shoutet out: "Jackpot!" - we say that in Germany, too.

Obviously she and I both have different styles, but I really love her jewelry... oh, sorry, she lives in the UK, so it's jewellery of course... ;)

Here are some examples of her work:

Isn't she fantastic!?

I also really love her blog. She offers a lot of free tutorials there, and the pictures of her two little boys are too cute!

And here,

finally,

...

tadaaaaaaaa,

...

as promised,

is the bead soup I am going to send her:

Ooooooops, what's that!? Oh no! Something must be wrong with my camera! I'm so sorry for that! Hopefully I will manage to take some better pictures for reveal day... ;)

Some more Cotton Pearls

I tried so hard to capture the beauty of these, but the picture can't do them justice.

DIY Cotton Pearls

Do you know these adorable old japanese cotton pearls? Aren't they the most beautiful beads you have ever seen? Yes, they are. But they are also quite rare and expensive. Besides that, they often come in bigger sizes and I always wanted to have them a bit smaller and in different colors.

Inspired by Marina's (fancifuldevices) cooooooool UTEE experiment, I thought I'd try to make my own cotton pearls.

Okay, I didn't have any eye shadow powder like Fanci (really have to try it one day!!!), so I took the boring normal stuff instead: Ranger's "Perfect Pearls".

I used the colors "Pewter", "Biscotti" and "Perfect Pearl" and mixed a small amount of each with either black or clear UTEE. White UTEE would have worked great with Perfect Pearl and Biscotti I'm sure, but I didn't have any white handy.

I took some paper cotton balls in different sizes (10 and 12mm are pictured), rolled them around on a Perfect Medium stamp pad, dipped them into the UTEE mix of my choice and picked them on an awl. One at a time, of course. Then heated with my heat gun, dipped again, heated... and so on till I was pleased with my "pearl".

Okay, my cotton pearls are by no means comparable with the real Japanese Cotton Pearls. But these are also beautiful, don't you think? And like the originals they weigh next to nothing, so they are perfect for earrings.

The white one looks quite matte in the picture, but it is actually very shiny.

I absolutely LOVE (LOVE, LOVE) the texture of the two larger beads. To receive this texture, just stop heating the last layer of UTEE before it has melted completely.

If you try this, please let me know! I am looking forward to see what you'll come up with!!!

Sign up for Bead Soup Blog Party NOW!

Twice a year, the amazing Lori Anderson is hosting her legendary Bead Soup Blog Party.

This time it's going to be the biggest Bead Soup Party ever! Right now, there are about 250 participants - and sign ups will be accepted till tomorrow, August 3rd!!!

To participate, you only need to have a blog, a focal, a clasp and some coordinating beads. You don't have to make your own beads and yes, it is international. So don't hesitate and join in the fun!

To read more about it, just go to her page!

I hope to see your creation on reveal day September 17th!!!