Soup Du Jour

Lookie Looksee what arrived just for me!!

Yesterday in the middle of all the hurricane preparations a sweet package arrived to brighten the day!

Inside the envelope was this great tin all decorated and labeled for the bead soup blog party.

Kari Carrigan of Wee Gems is my bead soup partner and I hope she recieved her soup mix today too!

Opening to see just a glimpse of all the surprises that await-

I am SO EXCITED that Kari sent me some of her gorgeous lampwork beads to cook with! Aren't they incredible? The blues and greens with silver accents  *swoon* and the others look like she captured the colors of the beach inside!

She also sent me 2 options for focals, a beautiful lampwork shell and a heart, a silver toggle clasp, matching pearls and czech glass and 3 of her charmed pennies pendants!

Oh look, a chicken!

Kari must have been reading and really paying attention because one of the pennies has chickens on it, one has a bird in a nest and the other says Photography chick on it.

Thank you Kari for taking the time to make your selection for me personal and for your generous lampwork.

I can't wait to get started!



***Update***
I just heard from kari and her soup arrived today too and she hopes to blog about it soon so in the meantime I will show you this-

This was the teaser picture that i posted when it mailed out

And here's what was in the soup mix. Looks like kari and i are kindred spririts when it comes to colors huh?

Looking forward to the big reveal on Sept. 17th

You can check out Kari's blog here

BTW- The Beadfest Version

My bead table this week is full courtesy of my recent trip to Beadfest Philly

First up is a gorgeous collection of Elaine Ray beads from Ornamentea.

I tried to win one of Heather's books in their giveaway but i guess I'll just have to buy one since i didn't win it!

Next up is beautiful lampworked flowers from the talented Lisa Kan and some Italian wire mesh ribbon.

Then I found the coolest recycled glass, rings cut from vintage coke bottles by Cathy at GlassGardenBeads.

I can't get out of the Hands of the Hills booth without some antiquity. I am most excited to have found these blue Peking Glass melon beads, very rare from the 1800's. I picked up some more of those beautiful aqua trade beads too.

Then just for fun we found some etched glass rounds and daggers reminding us of beach glass and look at those cool colors!

AAAhhhh, aqua terra jasper

An earthy variety of ceramic, jasper, lapis and shell

Some pretties, prehnite, chalcedony,green amethyst, amethyst, moss amethyst, moonstone and cherry quartz briolettes. Knowing my palette, those cherry quartz stick out like a sore thumb don't they?

 My favorite is the moss amethyst which has greens, purples a little brownish and clear moss filled stones. Love.Them.

Some dagger shaped labradorites, prehnite and amethysts.

Are these chrysocolla cabs just amazing???

The ones with the darker areas are called Sonoran Cactus chrysocolla.

Chrysocolla beads were on my have to buy list and believe me they were hard to find so imagine how thrilled I was to find these?

I think my palette is pretty evident, blues, greens and purples but I went outside my box a couple of times and picked up some crab fire agates, garnets and tourmalines ( which really still fall in my palette)

Plus some aquamarines, blue topaz and blue apatite faceted rounds.

Been There-

I took 2- 3 hour classes while there on Saturday.

The first was Rockin Rivets with Kieu Pham Gray ( in the center) along with 2 BFF's Carol and Bette.

We learned to drill holes in river stones and glass and set with a sterling silver tube rivet-fun!

Kieu is a hoot and we did a lot of damage in her booth Urban Beader , she had a bunch of must haves.

The second class was a jewelry photography class with Jim Lawson who does a lot of work for Interweave publications among other things. look for his name by photos, you'll be amazed how much he does.

Done that-

My 2 river stones from class

That black one was tricky as it wasn't flat and the rivet is set in a ridge.

Got the T-shirt-

Isn't this funny? We got these t-shirts from Kieu's booth, sounds better than tool junkie dontchathink?

Then after braving some wicked storms on the way home, arrived to find these waiting for me.

I have THE BEST husband.

I'm sorry that i don't have more pictures from the beadfest floor itself, i did carry my camera with all intentions of taking lots of pictures but got caught up in the moment and shopping frenzy and never took the camera out - was too busy fishing for my credit card all the time :)

But we did get to see a lot of people and enjoy the company of friends old and new, over dinner and I might add we had our share of "Oh look a chicken" moments as we all got sidetracked by the shiny things surrounding us!

So, what's on your table today?

Head on over to the Flickr group to see what's on everyone elses' table today! 



What the?

Ok this is a first for me, i was just sitting here working on some photos when my chair started to rock and the beads in the cabinet starting shaking and it felt like someone suddenly had their hands on my house shaking it from side to side!

My first ever earthquake, have to say, not a fan.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usc0005ild.html

Bead Soup To Go

I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date

The bead soup mix was supposed to be mailed out on Aug 17th but my bead soup partner and I agreed to send them out a few days later, the first of this week.

With everything that has gone on in the past few weeks, I wanted to get it right and was too rushed last week with work and getting ready to go to beadfest.

I was stressing in a big way, nothing ever goes right when you rush,  but now am very happy with the soup mix I put together for Kari and hope she likes it.

This is the container I am sending it in, (wrapped in bubble wrap and a box of course) and below is a tease of the mix inside!



Oh Look, A Chicken!

When our nephew and Godchild was younger, he had a t-shirt that said

"They say I have A.D.D. but I think they're full of....

Oh Look, a chicken"

Well, this quickly became the punch line anytime one of us has a moment where we quickly change thoughts and conversations mid stream while someone is trying to follow along.

The person who is trying to follow along will call the talker back to reality by saying "Oh Look, a chicken" bringing to the talkers attention ( what little there is of it) that they abruptly went off on a tangent mid stream.

My nephew I will add, now grown, has an acronym on his license plate that spells, oh look a chicken.

Getting to the real story here ( and proving my point just a little bit) the other evening , my husband and i took a quick dip in the pool and shortly thereafter heard the dog barking so we looked around and this chicken was walking into our yard.

We have no idea where it came from and it wandered all around the yard and garden for awhile.

I couldn't help but say, yup, you guessed it. 

Then I guess the heat combined with 12 hour workdays are getting to me, but I just had to ask,

" so tell me, why exactly did you cross that road?"

Then i thought of taking a picture and jumped out of the pool to grab my camera saying " I need to get a picture for Patty"

At which time my husband said "who's Patty?"

They say my nephew is a lot like me but I think-

We noticed it wandered down the street to my studio and stayed around for a few days leaving piles of unpleasantries on the steps before disappearing.

"Oh Look, chicken s---"

Weird huh?



BTW

Things have been so crazy around here i can't even remember when I last participated in bead table wednesdays. ( actually checking back it was 7/13) This week my bead table has actually been my kitchen island where I have been doing some etching.

These are some of the pieces that have come from it. I am working on some Art Nouveau designs and so far am pleased with the results. Hopefully I can post the finished jewelry in another upcoming BTW!

Join the flickr group to see what's on everyone's table today



I Heart Macro

This morning is I heart Macro over at Studio Waterstone, won't you join us?

These are the buds of my tuberose plant. The perfume I wear is velvet tuberose so I thought it might be fun to grow a few this year. It is said that Cleopatra wore tuberose.

I planted the bulbs in pots on my steps so that when they bloomed I could enjoy their fragrance each ime I walked by.

This bud had been growing and expanding for 2 weeks now. I just hope it blooms before a strong wind in the upcoming thunderstorms snap it off before I get to enjoy it!

Most of the flowers have succumbed to the extreme heat we have had over the past few weeks/month but the phlox still has some pretty blooms on it.

Have a beautiful Sunday!