Time for Bead Soup!

Reveal day is here!  My wonderful partner Beti sent me some awesome soup.  Here's the review of the goodies:

If I would have thought ahead, I would have taken a picture of all my ingredients together before I began creating.  I remembered that I hadn't done it halfway through my piece. Oops.

I decided that since the color palette was already challenging for me, I would add another twist.  (Maybe not the best idea in hindsight.)  I really admire all the pieces that I see that are asymmetrical, so I thought I should try my hand at it.  Here goes nothing . . . 

I was really torn for awhile about making two separated pieces with the focals, but I thought they looked good together.  The only things I added to Beti's soup are the Matsuno seed beads and the two metal beads in the bead caps on the pendant.

Well, what do you think?  I'm not quite sure I pulled off the asymmetrical look, but I'm proud of my first effort to try something outside of the box for me.

Please go check out what Beti did with the soup I sent her!

Go check out the rest of the wonderful participants in the 2nd Reveal Group for the Bead Soup Blog Party.

It's Holiday Bling Blog Hop Time!

This by far has been my favorite hop to date!  I was paired by with the amazing Sarah of Pookledo.  Our challenge was to pick a holiday in either February or March, and create something inspired by that day.  Sarah and I decided we wanted to pick a fun, unique holiday.  Did you know that February 26th is Tell a Fairy Tale Day?  I didn't, until I found this awesome website.  Now, off to create a Fairy Tale piece.  This shouldn't be too hard . . . .  Note to self: stop thinking that anything shouldn't be too hard.

Immediately, I wanted to do a Snow White piece, probably because of the Once Upon A Time show on ABC.  I thought about that for a couple of days, but for some reason, Little Red Riding Hood kept popping up in my head.  I had many ideas involving the hooded cape, the basket, and the wolf's teeth that were getting a little too complicated to incorporate in one piece.  Next, I moved on to Alice in Wonderland.  I had some ideas about creating a piece about the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, the Cheshire Cat, and the Queen of Hearts.  Then, I got stuck again.  I started to think about the name of the holiday, and wanted to take it literally and try to tell a entire story with one piece.  After many google searches, I stumbled upon The Princess and the Golden Ball.  

I began the piece by creating the pendant.

The beginning of the story

The frog (ceramic pendant by beadfreaky) is lifting the golden ball (Czech glass) out of the lake to the princess (crown).  Eventually, after some turmoil (short version, lol), they fall in love.

The Princess and the Golden Ball Necklace

Sarah was inspired by Sleeping Beauty and created a gorgeous bracelet that I love.  Do you want to see it? You'll need to hop over to her blog to read about it.

I want to thank the wonderful dynamic duo of Marlene Cupo and Shelley Graham Turner for hosting this swap.  You ladies put on quite the party!

Here's the list to all of the amazing ladies taking part in the hop!  Please go check out their creations. :)

Alicia Marinache 

Catherine King

Chris Schlicht

Cynthia Machata

Dyanne Everett-Cantrell

Gina Hockett

Laura Reed

Leanne Loftus

Lennis Carrier

Lori Bowring Michaud

Marti Conrad

Mary Govaars

Renetha Stanziano

Rita/ Toltec Jewels

Sandra McGriff

Sherri Stokey

Sonya Stille 

Tammie Everly

Therese Frank

Tiffany Goff Smith

Marlene Cupo

Shelley Graham Turner

Introducing Beti & my Bead Soup ingredients

My partner for Lori Anderson's 7th Bead Soup Blog Party is Beti of the Stringing Fool.  Beti not only makes jewelry, she's also paints.  I had a lot of fun coming up with ingredients for her soup.  I had four different soups cooking, until I decided on the final one.

Beti's Soup ready for shipping

I love dressing up packaging.  It is so easy to do.  If you want to see what I sent Beti to work with, head over to her blog.  Hint: the packaging does relate to the beads. :)

Now, for the ingredients Beti sent me:

This soup is a good challenge for me.  I usually work with bright colors, and not a lot of stone.  Come back on April 6th to see what I come up with!

Lucite & Clay Blog Hop Reveal

The Challenge

I was really torn when I signed up for this hop between receiving lucite or clay beads to work with.  I finally settled on lucite, because I thought it might pose a bit more of a challenge.  So, when I opened the package, I knew this was going to be interesting.  Orange and Red!?!?  I love color, don't get me wrong, but these are two that I usually don't work with.  Here's what I created:

Because the orange beads are so much smaller than the big red ones, I decided to circle them with seed beads.  The seed beads do have a rainbow finish, but I don't think you can see that from the pictures.

I think it came out to be a little elegant, do you agree?  It's choker length, which I usually don't make, but I think it works for the piece.  I reversed the pattern when I made the earrings, and circled the smaller red beads instead of the orange.

What do you think?


Please visit the other talented ladies on the Hop to see what they created!

Isolina Perez, Isolina Perez

Jennifer Reno, Musings of a Crafty Jenny  ***You Are Here*** 

Charlene Jacka, Clay Space 

Therese Frank, Therese's Treasures 

Kay Thomerson, Kayz Kreationz 

Ashleigh Kleinhans Becker, Sela Designs Jewelry 

Mary Govaars, MLH Jewelry Designs 

Alice McCarthy, Northwoods Creative Studio 

Rebecca Sirevaag, Becca's Place 

Toltec Jewels, Jewel School Friends 

Emma Todd, A Polymer Penchant 

Kathy Lindemer, Bay Moon Design 

Annia Failde, AnniamAe 

Lisa Lodge, A Grateful Artist - The Hostess (who is running a giveaway!)

Thanks & Almost Time for Soup!

I've been so overwhelmed with all the nice comments that were left on my last post.  Thank you to everyone who posted, and everyone who visited!  I'm now up to 490 views of my blog!  If you here to check out my post for the Memories and Thanks blog hop, click here.

I have a couple of fun blog hops coming up.  My first one is the Lucite and Clay Hop on February 2nd!  I'll give you a little tease of the goodies I was sent to work with, but you'll have to come back next Saturday to see what I created.

The second hop I'm doing is the Holiday Bling Blog Hop 3 hosted by the wonderfully talented Marlene Cupo and Shelley Graham Turner. This hop is unique because you and your partner get to decide the holiday theme of the finished item you want to swap.  You can choose from any holiday that takes place in February or March.  Now, if you think that limits you to Valentine's and St. Patrick's, check out this site for all of the quirky ones: Days of the Year.  The link will take you to March, but you can easily see the rest of the year by clicking on the top of the page. In March, there's Pig Day, Earmuffs Day, and Quirky Country Music Song Titles Day, just to name a few.  If you'd like to sign up, go visit Swaps by Marlene and Shelley for all the details.  Signs up end on the 27th or when they get 30 participants, so please check it out now if you're interested.

The third hop I'm participating in is the 7th Bead Soup Blog Party hosted by the awesome Lori Anderson.  This hop is the reason I started a blog in the first place!  I'm super excited to finally get to participate.  I could  explain to you how it works, but Lori did that already much better than I could on her blog.  If you want to know the details, visit Lori here.  She also had a great post about what you should include in your soup that you might what to check out.  Sign ups start this Friday and end on Sunday.  Last time, there were over 400 participants!

On a sales note, I haven't had my first sale on etsy yet, but I know it will happen!  I'm working on a couple of custom pieces right now for my best client.  I'll share some pictures of those after my hop on the 2nd.

Memories and Thanks Blog Hop

I'm going out of town, so I'm posting this a couple of days early to make sure it shows up. :)

I've had so many different ideas about who I was going to thank or a memory I wanted to share, so I might make this a monthly blog post.

I'm so thankful for all of the wonderful beaders I've met on the internet.  It's so much fun to be able to get to know you all in different parts of the world.  When I first started this blog, one of my first followers was Tanya from Thailand.  I entered a contest on her blog called Free Beads for Blogging and won!  I was very excited to receive goodies from her.  If you'd like to read my original post, click here.  After that, Tanya and I became email buddies.  We exchanged bunny and cat stories, and vented about issues in each others life.  Then, how it sometimes happens, we both got busy and the emails stopped.  You know how you think that you really should contact someone, but it always seems to never happen?  Please, please contact them.  You never know when the time will come when you won't be able to do so.

As many of you reading this know, Tanya past away on the 2nd.

I've been holding aside the beads she sent me, because I wanted to make something really special with them. In our last email, Tanya called me 'angel girl.'  I don't know what else to say, this has been very difficult to write.  I made this for Tanya, and while it's not perfect, I think she would like it.

Angels for the True Angel

The green pearls, peach Swarovski, and the milk glass beads all came from what Tanya gave me.

I hope to remake this bracelet next week with some miyukis and get a better photo.

Thank you, Lori for hosting this hop!  Also, thank you Lena. :)

Crazy Busy!

I know, I'm a slacker with this.  I'm still getting used to the idea of sharing my thoughts with others.  It's a little weird sometimes for an introvert.  This will be a quick update though.  I plan on doing a longer one with pictures later in the week (for real, I mean it).  I had my first ever craft show a few weeks ago, and it went really well.  I'm planning on doing another one in the spring.  The more exciting news is that my etsy shop is finally open!!!  Now that I think of it, I might have to do separate posts for some of these.  ;) 

Until later in the week, here's the link to my shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/JenRenJewelry.  I would appreciate if you check it out.  If you have a shop too, I'm happy to add you to my circle.  I love promoting handmade!

Really, I mean it.  There will be updates.  If I don't, I'll let you throw snowballs at me or something.

Although, if you choose to throw the pink ones, I'll send you my address.  I promise I will throw them at myself. ;)