Nicki's Reef

My partner for this bead soup party has been the wonderful Jackie Ryan of Kydo jewellery. She lives in England, in a wonderful small town, Ilfracombe (no, I have not been there, but along with the beads, she sent a wonderful towel that was handmade by a lady from her town, and it shows the harbor - so pretty).
Jackie is a very talented artist, mainly working with Polymer Clay, a medium I always loved (I have tons of this raw stuff, but somehow all my "creations" look as if a 2 year old has spent an hour with PlayDough). Jackie does these great pieces - check our her store here.

She sent me a really cool selection of beads, totally my colors (very earthy). I got a wonderful Jasper / silver pendant, a beautiful silver S-clasp, unakite, onyx and agate beads, some fancy jasper leafs, some pewter bead caps and silver spacers... plus one of her wonderful polymer clay pendants. Isn't this gorgeous? I want to put it in a bracelet where it shines by itself, with a lot of colors and ribbon - but as I am always late with my bead soups - this is for another post.



I need to say I felt challenged though. While I love the color and wear a lot of brown / beige, the rose color in the beads made it hard for me to chose a matching color. I wanted to put more color, but nothing seemed to match (in my pretty much "monotone color schemes). I usually wire wrap everything, but to wire wrap a chain with those onyx beads seemed too delicate to carry the pendant. The hook attached to the pendant is very wide, yet delicate, since it is not solid. that was my biggest challenge. I love how it looks. But it needed a larger strand of beads or ribbon or leather cord....... which was all not what I wanted. So in the end I decided for something classic. Stringing. Elegant. One strand. I found a strand of garnet chips and it clicked. Added some of the jasper beads, spacers, some wire beads and chain from my stash and here is the result......


I need to say as usual I created this in the last minute. Friday night. in between a metalsmithing class that I am taking this Friday and Saturday. I am so looking forward to later today - when I can continue my class and when I get home, that I can see all those wonderful creations from all my bead sisters.

Check out all the other designs by following the links on Lori's website - there is actually 362 (!):
http://lorianderson-beadsoupblogparty.blogspot.com/

Thank you Lori for another wonderful time, for making us get in touch with all those wonderful people. You are not only a super talented designer, but such a sweetheart. You totally rock. Did you ever think this would become this big? I guess not.

My dear friend Amy from Copper Diem has challenged us with something new - to create a piece of jewelry (any kind) inspired by a treasury, one specifically chosen for each participant.

The treasury she picked for me is called IN THE GARDEN and I really liked it from the first moment I saw it. I knew at first sight that I would create something white and green.


I wanted to challenge myself as well though. First thing that came to my mind was: "oh I could saw something from copper and then hammer it....." but.....I have neglected my beads. I am so in love with sawing metal right now that I do not want to touch my piles of beads anymore. No good. So my challenge for myself was: no metal. I need to say I had issues with coming up with something "just" out of beads. But in the end I decided for light and simple - something that I will wear.



The pendant is made from howlith and silver wire, with a technique that I learned in a class in Pam's Bead Garden in Plymouth, MI (we actually made bracelets with this technique). It is delicate and I did not want to add more / heavier stuff to it.


The ring is a glass ring that I have been keeping forever. I wrapped again some silver wire around it and added some dangles made of freshwater pearls, svarowski rounds, a lady bug and a dragonfly dangle.
I think they both turned out very cute.



Thanks Amy for making me play with my beads again.
Please visit Amy and the other people who played along and give them some love for all the pretty pieces they created:

Copper Diem
Fuego, metal y color
Silver Nik Nats
Beads and Bread
Copper Penny Designs
Green Shoot
Wild Sally Road
Mamas Got To Doodle
Beads for Busy Gals
EBS Jewellery
Cianci Blue
Beads for Brains
Nicki's Reef
Sweet Girl Design
Nicole Rennell

And stay tuned for some more reveals in the next weeks. I am participating in Lori's 3rd BSBP and I am all excited about my lovely partner and the beads I am going to get.

Today is my birthday - and..... good news - I got a new camera! So blogging frequency will improve. It was about time, since I have done quite a few cool pieces that I would love to show you guys. I still need to figure out the whole download thing, but hey, I already took some pictures at the party today. 


And yes, we had a little party today - the weather was ok except a few raindrops, we had cake and a BBQ with a few friends. Somebody asked me today who gave me the best present. It was not easy to choose with so many cool things I got.... but here is the answer.... TO YOU, dear friend, who gave me my best birthday gift, you made my birthday really special. And I hope I saw how happy you made me. So dear birthday-present-giver, to you, I send you hugs and kisses.

normally I would show a picture of my dirty running shoes right now, my very new best friends. I used them a lot since I got them and have to put them on the shelf where they won't be touched for some time right now, since my knee cap twisted out of my joint this tuesday. it is a pretty common problem I have with my knees, but it is still shitty. it hasn't happened in almost 20 years right now, and obviously this needs to happen right now where i have been training for a run that I wanted to participate in mid June - well that's not going to happen. But I shouldn't be whiny, it is really not that bad compared to the last times, not too swollen, no cut ligaments etc. Except the running will have to stop, and my weight will go back up :-(


But I will have more time for jewelry and blogging again... once I finally get a camera - well maybe here is an idea for a birthday gift... so I should have it soon :-)


when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
happy weekend.

... is absolutely no fun to me. But when I was in Paris last week, my camera died. Which meant that I had to buy a disposable camera to at least be able to take some more Paris pictures, and which means now that I can't show you my latest "la lune" necklace (which I am so in love with). But I will either steal Nick's camera or buy a new one this weekend.
Have a happy Mother's Day on sunday in any case....

here is a song that is close to me today - so i share it with you...
and remember that you, and only you, decide what you host. 


landslide - smashing pumpkins


i took my love, I took it down,
i climbed a mountain and I turned around
and i saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
till the landslide brought it down


oh mirror in the sky what is love
can the child within my heart rise above
can i sail through the changing ocean tides
can i handle the seasons of my life


well i've been afraid of changing cause i've
built my life around you
but times make you bolder
even children get older
and i'm getting older too


well i've been afraid of changing cause i've
built my life around you
but time makes you bolder
even children get older too
i get older too


i took my love and took it down
i climbed a mountain i turned around
and if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
the landslide brought it down
the landslide brought it down

I am one day delayed, but I hope this still counts....

I am sooo sorry, but I am not sure if I can post my bracelet today. I was on a business trip in France and lost some major data of my most important work file right now. I have a presentation on Tuesday and am trying to reconstruct it. This plus a bad flu has kept me away from my beads.


I know this is a bad excuse. But I will post it later today or latest tomorrow, so please forgive me and come back to see what I made.

I have to say I am becoming a bit unfaithful to my beads. Because I have started a relationship with Metal. And it is pretty entertaining.

Ok, we decided since we are 3 bead babes, we will have three giveaways. 


And my sweet baby was so nice today to pick the winner of my giveaway:




So she picked......







***  Maryse of GlassBeadArt Lampwork ***


Congratulations, Maryse, and please email me your mail address and I will send you my surprise giveaway.
And sorry that I am not poting a picture of it, but if I would, it would not be a surprise giveaway ;-)


And if you have not won mine, please check out Janna's and Stefanie's blogs and see if you are one lucky winner over there. And thanks to everybody for your comments, they mean so much to me.

My favorite song
There are a million songs that I could have chosen. I am addicted to music, all kinds of music. But although I have hesitated to change my song last minute to one of the French singer ZAZ, I stayed with the original plan - ADELE and her wonderful "Rolling in the Deep". If you don't know it, listen to it, but I think it is almost impossible that you don't know it.
Es gibt eine Million Songs, die ich hätte wählen können. Ich bin süchtig nach Musik, alle Art von Musik. Aber obwohl ich noch kurz gezögert habem in der letzten Minute mein Vorhaben zu ändern und einen Song von der  französischen Sängerin ZAZ zu nehmen, bin ich doch beim Originalen Plan geblieben - Adele und ihr fantastisches "Rolling in the Deep". Wenn ihr das nicht kennt, hört es euch an, obwohl ich mir kaum vorstellen kann, daß ihr das Lied noch nicht kennt.


Why is this special to me? For very many reasons. Adele has kept me company for quite some time, her voice touches my soul, and I have gone through a lot of emotions in the past months with this song in my heart.And recently when the video starts on TV, my 19 month old starts screaming of excitement and hands me the remote control to increase the volume. And if it's over she begs me to restart it - which is quite difficult to restart a video on MTV ;-). She loves Adele as much as I do. Buy her albums "19" and "21", you will not regret it.
Warum ist das Lied etwas besonderes für mich? Aus vielen Gründen. Adele ist seit längerer Zeit bei mir, ihre Stimme berührt meine Seele, und ich habe eine ganze Menge erlebt in den letzten Monaten mit diesem Lied in meinem Herzen. Uns seit kurzem fängt meine 19 Monate alte Tochter an zu kreischen, wenn das Video im Fernsehen läuft, und bringt mir die Fernbedienung, damit ich das ganze etwas lauter drehe. Und wenn es vorbei ist, bettelt sie mich an, damit ich es nochmal anschalte - was etwas schwierig ist, ein Video auf MTV neu zu starten ;-). Sie liebt Adele genauso wie ich. Kauft ihre zwei Albums, "19" und "21", ihr werdet es nicht bereuen.




The big reveal
So here is what I made. I took some of the lyrics and created my piece around it.
Das hier ist meine Kreation. Ich habe einen Auszug aus dem Text genommen, und mein Stück danach kreiert.


"You had my heart inside of your hand, and you played it to the beat..."






I sawed and files and made this copper hand. It is a copy of my baby's handprint when she was 6 weeks old (yes, her hands were huge when she was born). And I soldered a heart on top, cut some of the words to put them in there and filled it with resin. I wanted to keep the chain quite simple and let the pendant stand out by itself. And maybe I will add some ribbon or a few beads, we'll see. That's it, simple, but straight from the heart.
Ich habe gesägt und gefeilt, und diese Hand aus Kupfer gemacht. Es ist ein Abdruck von der Hand meiner Tochter, als sie 6 Wochen alt war (ja, genau, sie hatte schon damals riesige Hände). Darauf habe ich ein Herz gelötet, den Text hineingelegt und das ganze mit Resin gefüllt. Die Kette selber ist einfach gehalten, denn ich wollte, daß der Anhänger der Star der Show bleibt. Und vielleicht ergänze ich noch etwas Stoff oder ein paar Perlen, mal sehen. Sehr einfach, aber es kommt von Herzen.


... and a giveaway
Thank you, all Bead Babes, to play along with us. We had a lot of fun. And to make it even more fun, we will draw a winner of our surprise giveaway tomorrow, Sunday, the 9th. So stay tuned. And now, hop around and check out all the great pieces that we have made, and leave a comment if you like (we love them).
Danke liebe Bead Babes, daß ihr mitgemacht habt. Wir hatten viel Spaß mit euch. Und damit der Spaß nicht so schnell aufhört, ziehen wir einen Gewinner für unser Überraschungs-Giveaway, und zwar morgen, am Sonntag, den 9. April. Also kommt wieder und seht, ob ihr gewonnen habt. Und jetzt, macht euch auf, und hüpft zu den anderen blogs und guckt euch die anderen Stücke and, und schreibt einen Kommentar, wenn ihr Lust habt (wir lieben Kommentare).


The Bead Babes:
1. Janna Harttgen - Palimpa-Lim

Janna - Palimpa-Lim.blogspot.com
Stefanie -
Stefaniessammelsurium.blogspot.com
I love jewelry - chunky, bold jewelry. I also like mystery-novels and cooking.

This is just a quick note that I will be announcing my first challenge on sunday.

So if you are sad that bead soup party is over and look for something to do in the next weeks, then come by on sunday and check what we're planning :).

And for all the lovely ladies that have left me a note on my bead soup post - thanks a ton, your comments mean so much to me. I will be visiting and leaving comments on all blogs (at least that's the plan), but I will take some more time hopping...
Have a happy week.

So not only did I receive a package from Janna, I also sent her one. And I need to say, with this one I had the most fun of all three bead soups. You might remember one of my previous posts where I explained about the metal-smithing class I took at the end of last year.


So I decided that I will not only challenge Janna in terms of my beady components, but also myself in getting her something handmade. You know Janna is talented, she makes really nice enameled beads and resin pendants, so I thought I should make something just for her. She told me she liked brass, so off I went to buy some and sawed, filed, sanded and polished a little flower pendant for her. The same process led to a tiny copper heart, which I attached in the end to the flower pendant.What you see in this picture is the pendant in an unfinished state, since the drilling of two holes became a major event (i.e. my dremel multi-tool came without drills, and when I finally got the ones I ordered, the fixture of the tool was too large for the tiny drills, so we had to buy a new fixture, plus obviously that I was not very skilled in drilling...) The whole time while I was making this, I was thinking of the words "un coeur pour une fleur" (a heart for a flower - with Janna obviously being the wonderful flower :) - yes, I know this is kitsch....)....

But for sure the bead soup wasn't complete with that. I showed the pendant to Stefanie of Stefanie's Sammelsurium, and she had the perfect matching clasp - thanks again !


I need to say that I head a hard time finding matching beads for the brass pendant. I have not been working with brass very often (= never), and that yellowish color is not something I use in general. So I went with greens and browns, hoping that one of them would suit Janna's color scheme. I got her a variety of gemstones, ceramic beads and a pendant from Indian Creek studio, lampwork beads from Kelley Wenzel and an unknown lampwork artist based in Plymouth, MI, some industrial chic components from Michaels (which you can't get in Germany, so my dear US friends, if you ever want to make a German girl happy, you know what you have to do, right, Janna and Stefanie?). 


There is also sari silk, rubber tube, and a alcantara ribbon, nut beads, wood beads, a nut charm and a bronze bead and some glass beads from France, chinese lacquered paper beads and a copper dragonfly charm from Summersstudio.
So Janna - ready steady GO!
Let's see what we can come up with. I am so ready for beads again - work has been keeping me away. Worked the entire weekend last week, this past weekend was purely dedicated to taxes, but now I am having a break before I need to go to Valencia, Spain (hello sunshine!) for work next Monday and Tuesday... so this weekend will be very beady.......

This is a picture of my shoes.
The story behind it is that they are new (see the part that is still shiny and white). I just bought them when we were in the US, at DSW (THE store, I just love it). They are Ryka's, running shoes. I didn't buy a new pair of running shoes in, let's say, 10 years? Or more? Why? Well because I did not need them - did not go running. But since November, I got on this trip, that noise in my head that tells me that my "youth" is almost over, and if I do not get slim right now, nobody will care in 10 years from now. So those shoes became an icon.


I started my fitness program in November. And it is working. Ok, slow in terms of weight loss (plus it keeps me a bit away from blogging you might have noticed), but it took quite some time to collect all of it, so I guess it is only fair that I need to be patient. I do my little hour every day, and added running to the plan since the weather is getting a bit dryer (not nicer, but dry at least).
That heavy mud on the bottom actually makes me proud, that I can do it, and stick to it. And eventually get to where I want to be. So to you, my friends who are hesitating of going where you want to be.... if I can do it, you can do it too.


The only suggestion: if you go running, make sure your cell phone stays at home or is secure in one of your pockets, otherwise you will lose it on the way, and have to re-run all the path, only to discover somebody else has picked it up before you. But if you are lucky, this person who found it will actually answer the phone when you call her, and let you know that you can pick it up at her house. Ok, you might be stepping into a deep puddle of mud while getting out of the car when you pick it up, as you are so excited to get it back. And your (formerly suede) shoes may look like that... But that's life.
Have a happy day and keep smiling.
And don't forget to kiss your valentines.

I know, work, baby and all that daily life stuff is keeping me really busy. And yes, I know this is no excuse to stop blogging...
But I have been active in the meantime. I prepared a bead soup for my wonderful partner, the lovely Janna of Palimpa Lim. She lives in Germany too, although a few hours away from me, but it is soooooo nice to finally meet some more people that have fallen for beads as well. 
Janna makes beautiful jewelry and I really like her blog as well. But I won't tell you too much about it, I would rather like you to hop over there yourself, and read and shop and leave comments (because in the end, that's what this is all about, right?)
So more about what I sent her in another post, but in the meantime, I need to share this package she sent to me.
This is so cute, I do not even have words for it. But looks at it yourself.


 This is what I saw when I opened the envelope. The large package even include a tiny sweater for my baby from the store where Janna is working (it is really really cute, but she hasn't worn it yet, so I do not have a picture to share - but it will follow....).







And when I opened the envelopes (with Stefanie by the way, and these are her pictures - yes, I know the quality is a bit different :) ) - there were lots of ooooohs and aaaaaahs. 
I love the colors of this soup (Janna was kind with me and did not send me bright pink flower and heart beads), but I got pearls in a wonderful brown and dark blue color, enameled beads (by Janna), a number of gemstones (Onyx, Nephrit, Prehnit, Howlit and Garnet - no guarantee for gemstone name translation into english). What you can't see well on this picture are the beads in the lower right corner - cast glass beads - GORGEOUS ! Then there are a few bone beads, metal components, and these cute glowing "Atlas" seed beads - I love this color. Janna took them from her treasure box as her source for them is drying out, so I feel really honered to get some of them. The glow is just great. And sari ribbon.
And I know - I saved the best for last, as I realize I do not have a close up shot of the pendant and clasp that Janna made for me - Copper with resin - TOP! If I ever learn to do resin pieces like those, I will get rich. I thikn we need to convince Janna to start to sell them, so I finally get a source for resin pendants in Europe and do not need to buy them always in the US (I am learning, but it will take some time until I get there).
The pendant is a leg - so cute, and the clasp is a toggle with the word "unendlich" which means infinite in german. This soup is perfect as it is. I don't even know what I would want to add.... I need to get close ups of that too.
Dear Janna, thanks a ton for this lovely soup. And I am so glad that I have met you. I can truely say you feel like a new very close friend, even if we have just met a few weeks ago.
And to Lori - thank you for hosting this party. All of my bead soup and bead swap partners have become really close friends. And who does not need more friends.
Have a good night all you beaders and readers.