Out of my comfort zone - what a wonderful thing!

Here it is at last, 3rd Reveal of the 7th Bead Soup Blog Party, hosted by the gifted Lori Anderson. The reveal has been postponed because Lori has been ill; hope she is feeling better by now.

As you might remember, we sent Bead soups to each other and made something of the soup we received. My package came from Karin King in Calgary, Canada. Karin is a lampwork artist and she sent me a lovely package of beads and findings in golden shades. See her creations here: http://maverickbeads.blogspot.fi/

As lovely as Karin´s beads were, the colour gold was something of a shock to me as I am out of my comfort zone there.

This is the bead soup I received:

To my amazement, I came to love the colour when working with these beads. I managed to use quite a few of them, even with my wrist in a splint most of the time.

The first set uses the lovely clay connectors from Karin, for an asymmetric short necklace and a bracelet. I added chalcedony, pastel blue lampwork beads and a copper-plated clasp from my own stash. The short piece of leaf chain was purchased from New York. The colour is gunmetal, just like the Artistic Wire used to make the connections.

Doesn´t baby blue make a lovely combination with brown?

For the bracelet I used the same materials, adding a lovely cloisonne bead from Karin and the smaller of the clasps she sent me.

Love this leaf chain! 

The centerpiece of my second set is the lovely big toggle clasp from Karin. For the first time in months I did some metalwork and created a bracelet. I did saw a piece from bronze sheet, hammered it a bit, finished the edges with a file and hammered it again to fit a wrist comfortably. I do not own a bracelet mandrel but a rolling pin made of marble is an excellent substitute. I connected the pieces with leaf chain in gold colour and added some crystals from Karin. They look a bit like grapes, do they not? The crystals a lovely purple colour with golden tones.

By far the most beautiful clasp I ever worked with!

The golden leaf chain was an easy choice for the earrings as well.

My last piece took ages to make because I kept changing my mind all the time. I absolutely wanted to use the lovely lampwork beads made by Karin herself but could not figure out a good way for that. I can´t say I am completely happy with what I created but here it is anyway.

The lampwork beads have been wrapped with bronze wire, like are a couple of crystal beads, also from Karin. These beads are a bit larger than the ones used in the previous set. I also stringed some of the crystal beads with the glass pearls from Karin, for the back part of the necklace. There are still a few beads left fot a bracelet and a pair of earrings but I did not have the time to finish these.

The large lampwork bead is made by Karin. It does have beautiful purple undertones which do not show well in the photograph

That´s all, folks!  Greetings from Miss Tweety, our beloved Tyyne the Clumber Spaniel.

Here she is, after winning a CAC and Best of breed in a local show.