Time flies when you are having fun designing. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 10 weeks since I received my wonderful bead soup from Heidi Kingman. You can read about that HERE.

She sent me SO many wonderful things, and I really tried to use them all! I still have a few items left, but I put a pretty good dent in the soup. Here’s what I came up with:

First off, is a very hip bracelet featuring Heidi’s hand-wrought copper clasp, rings, twisted jumprings, Baltic amber drops and a beautiful fire agate stone. I added some lampwork frit beads in orange blossom and some lampwork iridescent gold discs.

 

Next up is a choker made with three of Heidi’s beautiful sesame jasper drops and several matte blackstone rondelles. I added my own wire wrapped beads and chainmail.

Here is Heidi’s wonderful Viking knit chain (I really must learn how to do that!) and super cool copper BIG hole bead caps. So obviously I needed to cap some BIG hole beads! I made three of my Tiger pattern beads, and finished off the chain with some copper cones and a hammered toggle.

 

Heidi sent me these really cool copper twisted wire headpins. I had many visions of what I wanted to do with them, but they seemed to just want to be cool dangly earrings. I could do these in tons of colors!

And for the pièce de résistance: The Guitar Bracelet.

Is this not The. Coolest. Thing. Ever??


I was SO excited to receive Heidi’s Strike a Chord Guitar piece, which was featured (as a leather bracelet) in the gift bags at the 46th Annual Country Music Awards! I really struggled with what to do with this. I could have made an elaborate necklace, but I really wanted
to just feature the guitar. So I decided to create a wire bangle, and added a touch of color with some tiny lampwork aqua beads. I fashioned a simple copper clasp to finish it off. Isn’t it the bomb?So, I still have a sea urchin shell, yellow quartz, and Chinese porcelain donuts left, along with some faux leather suede and a smattering of copper findings. I’m sure they will find their way into some jewelry in the future.I really had a lot of fun with my first bead soup. It was definitely a challenge, but so much fun breaking out of my usual design routine. Thanks Heidi! And MANY thanks to Lori Anderson for coordinating this EXTRAORDINARY Bead Soup Blog Party. I’m so honored to be a part of it. 🙂 Please check out the other 200+ participants in this 3rd reveal: http://lorianderson-beadsoupblogparty.blogspot.com/2013/04/welcome-to-3rd-reveal-of-7th-bead-soup.html