Your Assignment:
Find a little stash of bead soup and make something with it.
Now, I would keep it simple and let the beads do the talking - remember the challenge is to get you making something - so don't think too hard about this.
There aren't any hard and fast rules for the challenge this week - just use what is in your bead stash.
(This has nothing to do with the popular blog hop that we all know and love. Bead soup is a random mix of beads that are either leftovers from other projects or a little mix you gather together.)
Bead Soup Tips:
You could make a stack of bangles, a crazy long necklace knotted on linen, simple loops to create a beaded chain like the one I did, etc. Keep your techniques simple and your beads limited.
If you don't have a 'soup' mix started, I suggest getting a little bowl and pulling out some beads and use only those in the bowl. Limiting your choices can be very freeing and help get you producing new jewelry! Sometimes our bead stash can be overwhelming.
Find a unifying element for your soup - it could be a spacer bead, a color or a bead shape, this will help you soup from becoming a hot mess!
Check out Lori Anderson's book Bead Soup for lots of great design tips. I have a project in there along with many of my beady friends, it's super inspiring.
Why not host a bead soup get-together with your creative friends and have a little bead party in real life? You can read all about hosting one of your own right here. I've done this several times over the years and it's always fun!
Check out the Spring issue of Jewelry Stringing Magazine for a section on bead soup creations.
Share your progress!
If you write a blog post about your Week 2 Challenge share the link by clicking on the blue button below. If you don't have a blog leave a comment here to let me know you participated in the Facebook group this week.
What is the Jewelry Mojo Challenge? Click here to read all about it.
9 comments:
Yay! I am always making little soup bowls, when I clean up my work space (finally) after working with beads, they don't always get put away in the "right" place! I have lots of little containers and bags of beads that go together, or not!
Sounds like fun. I just hope I have the time to make something.
I'm staring at all the bead soup bags that I have and deciding which to use. Must pick ONE . :D
I'm staring at all the bead soup bags that I have and deciding which to use. Must pick ONE . :D
Oh, love your necklace Heather and the asymmetry of the segments vs. each having the same number of beads, clever. Now looking at my stash there are plenty of soup bowls to play with ~ must get cooking!
How fun. Just ran across this and was actually creating a few pieces last night just to get the creativity flowing again. Must join your facebook group now!
Your necklace makes me think that what I lack in my stash are some a little bigger beads with character. Not just typical focals, but just beads with eyecatching colours, shapes and/or textures. Being mostly a seedbeader, it can get frustrating not having nice beads for stringing or other quicker projects as you sometimes need a fun little project to kickstart the inspiration, something seeds and small fp's doesn't really offer in the same way as they're more like paint or little building blocks, not something with distinct design or character that works as a standalone so to speak.
I got a little preoccupied last week, but this week I made a little something inspired by your challenge. Rarely have bead soups as such as I like to keep most beads separate, but two types of beads are often mixed with just one or a few of each kind: my leaf and flower beads. In the end, what I made was just a very simple little design, but one I enjoyed as it included a new way of viewing a couple of beads I've had for years.
My linked post is a bit different, but the challenge certainly used an unusually component I was given by a teacher. The class was challenge to make a piece of jewelry from bullet casings. Does one 'bead' comprise a bead soup…not really, but I certainly did challenge myself with this one!
Still haven't gotten the hang of the inlinkz thing. It says that it's closed. Figured I would update finally get around to adding my blog post to here! Here's my bead soup for week 2. http://butterflyemporium.blogspot.com/2014/02/bead-soup-how-i-made-my-challenge.html
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