BSBP 4th item: The Indian Flower necklace

If you are still hopping on the BSBP second reveal, here is the link . I'm showing my BSBP pieces one by one all over the week, here is the 4th one.

This necklace has been an ever changing project until the very last minute. This beautiful clasp is not so simple to use, and those freshwater pearls were great to match it, but other than this I didn't know what to do with them.

I was making a multistring bracelet, when I found 2 beautiful ceramic green flowers in my stash. They have the same size and shape of the clasp, so I decided to make some sort of big leaves with these flowers in the centre.

I wanted to put the toggle between them, so it would have been on the frontal part.
But the leaves were too big and I didn't like the first one, the second I liked more but wasn't sure about the shape...
I was confused, until I decided to make 2 small leaves and use the clasp as focal. Something simple.

But then I cut the big leaf making it a big flower shape, and decided to use THAT as focal.

I like this color combo with green and fuchsia/purple, which is by the way the color combo I offered my partner.
Finally I needed something to put in between the pearls, which have a semi-spherical shape. I added some green crystal to mix together the 2 main colors and voilà:

I'm still looking at those leaves, can't realize I actually made them. I won my fear of bead embroidery pretty fast!

BSBP 2nd item: The Green Leaf set

If you are still hopping on the BSBP second reveal, here is the link . I'm showing my BSBP pieces one by one all over the week, here is the second one.

My partner has been generous to provide me with multiple focals and 2 toggles, both floreal.
One of the focals was this beautiful leaf

She sent a huge variety of green beads: crystals, big rondelles, green turquoise, glass little leaves...

I wanted to use the rondelles but didn't know how. I decided to knot them with some grey waxed thread instead of a plain stringing.

I also decided I didn't want a symmetrical necklace, so I needed something different on the other side; I made some beaded beads with the green crystals and brown seed beads, also I made 2 more with orange/lime beads from the previous neclace to give some contrast.

As usual the final part of a necklace is always the most difficult for me. There were already so many different elements, I didn't want the necklace to be too crowded, and I didn't want to sacrifice some beautiful stones in a part of it that is usually hidden by hair.

I suddenly remembered a gift from a fellow beader: sari silk ribbon!

I loved the contrast of this mustard colored silk. I was saving it for something special...I think I waited until the perfect moment. Plus it is really comfortable to wear on such a sensitive part of the body.

I also made this simple knotted bracelet

with some lilac and a beaded bead in contrast color. I was inspired by my spring bracelets and so I made one more 

I love so much these big lentil beads, both color and shape attract me.

Stay tuned for more details on my BSBP pieces!

Bead Soup Party 2nd reveal: here I am!

I'm so thrilled this day has come!
This is my first Bead Soup Blog Party and I was lucky to have a European partner, so soups arrived within a week! I had a lot of time to think about each of these creations, but you know: best ideas come at the very last moment!
My partner is Dorota Żerańska from Poland and she was hugely generous with her soup:

My whole production is dedicated to Spring!
I tried to use as much as I could adding just indispensable things. And I committed to working with techniques I had never used before. Like bead embroidery.
So here is the first one, which I call Red Lady necklace:

I had never made a piece like this.When you have such an amazing, bold focal, you can either keep it the most simple you can, or you need to go even bolder. So I created embroidered matching pieces (Dorota had sent some of the beads she had used to bezel the focal cabochon) adding only some golden beads and orange rivolis. I started with bigger, richer pieces and made a dwindling effect with some RAW rings up to the small toggle.

Second piece, the Leaf necklace, also featuring something I never used before: sari silk ribbons and knotting with waxed thread.

I used this gorgeous leaf focal here and also one of the two toggles. Look at the amazing variety of green stones in here...I made some beaded beads with the crystals in the soup and the seed beads I had used in the Red lady necklace, which are orange with a lime green lining, to break all this green nuances. I also made a matching bracelet adding a beaded bead:

and using the same knotting technique, mixing some lilac for a change.
Made another one with these other gorgeous lentil beads

Third necklace, I made some more beaded donuts like the smallest of the first necklace.
I only used beads from the soup and just added some chain maille beads...yes! I tried chain maille for the first time! I know it's nothing special, but jump rings are my sworn enemies, so it's a big deal for me.
What I made is a Cherry Blossom Necklace:

...and looks like in the end a couple of blossoms actually produced some fruit!

Forth necklace, the MultisPring necklace made with some of the remaining beads from the first one:

I used another focal here, put it on one side and on the other there's a ceramic connector from ScorchedEarth, which was the perfect color. The news here is the leather cord I've had in my stash forever and never used before.

Last but not least, the main clasp!
Too beautiful to put it on the back of a necklace, too simple on a multistring bracelet, I changed my mind a thousand times on how to use it; finally I decided for something to complete it, some embroidered leaves

But then I found this old ceramic green flower which looked similar and decided, in the end, to put the toggle in the back. The beautiful freshwater pearls and green crystal from the soup complete the piece and match both the flowers.

This is all for now! I still have plenty of soup left, so I'll produce more until it's finished!
I'll blog about every piece in a more detailed way, one each day, so stay tuned if you'd like to know more about the creative process.
Thank you so much Dorota for being so generous and open to communication, and...for sending chocolate! LOL that is why I love swapping. You get to know some really amazing people!
And BIG thanks to Lori Anderson, our amazing hostess!
Now go see what my partner made and take a nice blog hopping on all the other partecipants, you'll find the list here!!!

Spring bracelets

I'm making tones of these to fight the "rain-blues"

Simple, bright and can be stacked all together

Just something quick to make while watching a bedtime movie, hoping for the morning not to bring rain again...

My soup arrived!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This morning I received my soup from Poland!!!
I almost hugged the postman. He had some sort of big baby in his arms!

I was beyond excited and was jumping up and down in my kitchen!
When I opened it, a lot of chocolate jumped out of the huge envelope....

There was a beautiful floreal box too, with a lot of goodies inside...basically, I received 3 soups!
Colors are gorgeous, the first is orange (my favorite)

Then brown and yellow

and finally green:

How can a person be so generous?!!! I'm in shock!
And look at the amazing cabochon Dorota made, embroidered with amazing skill. I'm speachless.
Thank you so much my friend!
Take a look at Dorota's blog to see what I sent her and her beautiful works.

Zoisite

I just made new can tab earrings with the strangest color combo.
At least for me. Not for nature. It started some days ago, when I discovered ruby in zoisite

Source: Pinterest

I'm in love with this stone.
The result is a bit quirky for me, but I so love it

I obviously felt the urge to also buy some matching miyukis and voilà..."damage" was done!

As usual, I'll take better pics in the morning. Lately (really???!) I'm kind of a night creature, I'm always impatient to take pics of my items as soon as they're finished.
BAD IDEA.
I'll buy more of these beads.

Chestnut bracelet

I just finished this bracelet, called Chestnut, after a very long hiatus:

Its pattern is from Monica and is really simple and beautiful, but pretty long to make.
I had received some triangular beads in one of the swaps and accidentaly found this pattern almost at the same time (I have quite a perfect timing with beads/pattern finding).

I also had some size 15 seed beads in exactly the same color of the triangle beads. It was destiny.
Unfortunately it's a very difficult color to photograph (a Matte Iris Brown, which looks like green to me) and also the rondelle color, an AB lilac, is pretty hard to catch.
But together they look amazing and that's the only thing that matters!

EBW Spring Swap 2012

This year I took part again in the Etsy Beadweavers Spring Swap.
As usual we were provided with some info on our partner for whom we had to create something, and we had our data sent to a mysterious doner.
My partner was Skylar Bre'z and this is what I made for her:

Among her favorite colors were blue and green, so I got carried away with all the tones I have in my stash. And decided to use some can tabs to give a quirk attitude to the necklace

On the other side, here's what I received from my doner, Ginny Brecht

This necklace was on my neck 10 minutes after unwrapping the envelope! I really love grey and the style of it really suits me.
Besides, look at the closure:

How clever is this??!!
If you want to take a look at all the other creations from this swap, visit the Etsy Beadweavers Blog and don't forget to also look at Skylar's and Ginny's shops, they're worth it!

Mint pitaya earrings

I bought the golden loops, very simple since the pitaya beads are already pretty bold...couldn't find my pliers to shorten the wire, so I just left them this way...

...and I kind of like them.
Just bought a top in the same color and I'm pretty happy after so many black clothes and silver earrings to finally move towards some lighter colors!

Heal the world

Finally I started beading again after a long break!
This month's EBW challenge was so interesting I couldn't avoid to partecipate!
The theme was "Heal the world" and, being a Michael Jackson huge fan, I really wanted to make something. There was a lot of choice...

Since this is something we deal everyday with, I chose the recycling/reusing theme.
What if we indulged ourselves with, let's say, a coke only if we take the pledge to re-use the bottle for another purpose? What if, in our everyday life, we tried to produce less garbage not only by buying loose stuff (food, water, cleaning liquids) but also by reusing everything we can several times?

Sounds stupid but I don't see many people doing it.
So I used a simple item, can tabs, to make this:



Can tabs are washable and versatile, there are thousands of ways to use them!



Thay also give a silver-y sparkle to the finished piece.

Do you know how many things you can make with tabs? Just look on youtube for tutorials and you'll be amazed! And take a look at this gorgeous website!

I also amde a pair of red earrings Bollywood inspired



That's all for today!
Can't wait to see all the entries for the challenge!