The Bead Souper Reveal! Yay!!!!

Ok, first things first, I confess to being a bad Blog Party citizen.  I was so excited about both sending and revealing my party packs, I totally forgot to take their "before" pictures.  I'm kind of new to this, but no excuses, I was spacey.  Fortunately my lovely blog buddy, Pat Haight, was not so twitterpated, and photographed both!  So, check her blog at http://wigglebuttblog.blogspot.com/ for both "befores", and, of course, her "after."


With that out of the way, when I received Pat's Party Pack, I was really excited for a couple of reasons.  First, I have never used much polymer clay in my work.  I have tried, and continue to try to make clay beads for myself, but I never seem to like the ones I make.  So, I was delighted to get this opportunity.  Secondly, I have been in an earth colors rut, sage greens, browns, brick reds, golds, your basic autumn palette.  Pat's lovely blues and greens and steely grays just leaped out and said, "Remember us?"


So then, what to do?  I decided to make a collage-y component piece to try to use lots of her elements, and add a few of my own.  The first thing I did was to decide to stick with the steel, and immediately made a couple of giant full Persian weave components with these cool steel rings I had laying around.  Unfortunately, the smaller rings were the wrong size to make the weave, and I ended up with GIANT components.  So, I moved along and made several other maille components to use instead.  Gradually, the flowers design kept poking itself into my head, and I started with the focal and just kept going.  I also decided to stick with mostly blues and greens, and added some bright orange and more delicate yellows and golds for contrast.


Time to post the pics and let them tell the story for themselves, and thanks again to my blog buddy for her cooler than cool parts.  Here is "Parts & Flowers" with close-ups and leftovers at the end!