Bead Soup!

Hurray, hurray! It's time to reveal what I made for this year's Bead Soup Blog Hop!

As a refresher, my partner was the amazing and talented Keri Lee Sereika of Pink Lemonade, and this is what she sent me:

So talented! That focal, and that clasp, and those enameled beads, and those
etched disks? She MADE all of them!!

And, yeah... I used everything that she sent me!

I started out simply enough--I had an idea for one necklace. Then, I got an idea for another one. And then another one. Overall, I ended up making twelve pieces--four sets. And they are themed! Each set is inspired by one of the classical Elements: Water, Earth, Fire, and Air.

And, since I made a lot of pieces this year, I'll get straight to the pictures!

Water

This set was made using my soup's focal and enameled beads (all handmade by my partner), as well as the pearls and some of the crystals.

This necklace was the first piece that I made--and also what inspired the elemental theme. As I was making it, the colors and the pearls and the patina all made me think of something found in an underwater archaeological dig... like a crown from an undersea kingdom. In fact, I ended up making it long enough to be a crown--it fits very nicely on my forehead--as well as a necklace.

Since I had some of the enameled beads leftover, I then made some matching earrings:

And then some matching hairsticks:

All together, these pieces make up my Water set.

Earth

This set was made using my soup's clasp--handmade by my partner.

Since the Water set did not use the amazing handmade clasp that my partner sent me, I tried to figure out another design to do it justice. I mixed the clasp with some thick copper chain and green charoite, and the Earth set was born.

Here are the earrings:

And the hairstick:

...And here is the Earth set all together:

Fire

This set was made using my soup's hammered copper discs--handmade by my partner.

By the time that I made the two previous sets, I was committed to making something for every element. That was why I decided to use the hammered copper discs paired with brilliant Chinese crystals for this Fire necklace.

I also used the two smallest discs in the earrings:

And, because I had some of the crystals left over, I wanted to make hairsticks as well:

Here is the Fire Set, shown all together:

Air

This set was made using the last of my soup's crystals.

Since the last pieces of my soup were clear crystals, I thought they would be perfect for the air set. I used them both in the necklace above, and the earrings seen below.

The last item of this set is a little different... Since I had used up all but the last pendant crystal, I didn't have the materials for hairsticks.

So, I grabbed my knitting needles, and created this:

That is indeed a necklace scarf--and, perhaps, the piece that I am most proud of. It is certainly the piece that took the longest... Since I hurt my wrist, my knitting is significantly slower than it used to be. But, it was totally worth it. This scarf looks absolutely fantastic when worn, and there are even crystals and chain hidden in the tassel.

So, complete with necklace scarf, here is the set that I made for Air:

So, there we go! Those are all of the pieces that I made for this year's Bead Soup! Thank you so, so much to my partner for your incredibly generosity--your work is beautiful, and it was a thrill to create with it! And, of course, thank you Lori Anderson for making this possible!

Last, but certainly not least, thank you, wonderful readers who've made it all the way to the end of this epic post. I am honored to share these pieces with you, and I hope you like them. I certainly had a blast making them!

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Since this is a Blog Hop, I wouldn't be complete without including a link to the list of participants... Please go here to see the list. There are so many talented artists, I hope you get to check them out!

Have a wonderful day, everyone! Happy Hopping!