So, a while back Shelley and Marlene decided to do a wonderful swap called the  UN-BIRTHDAY  Party after a part of Alice in Wonderland.  The  swap paired me with the Sweet and Delightful Zia Parks!  We pm'd back and forth learning about each other and what we liked and what  we did not like!!! We had a lot of fun and we shared a lot of fun things about each other.  Like how Zia loves Blue and I quote..."I have never found a Blue I don't like!" One of the other things Zia really likes is Meat Loaf!  Zia told me if I could send her some meatloaf she would be my Sister Friend FOREVER!!!

So I made her a couple of Blue Bracelets and packed some coffee in different flavors.  Then I tried to find

some Meatloaf that would be ok packed and shipped.  Could I ... maybe I could...LOL  I could not find any meatloaf but I did find...Go check with Zia Parks.  She has the rest of that story. 

One of the things I told Zia about me is that I am a freak about crystals and agates!!  What does that Wonderful woman send???LOL Crystal and Agates!!! I tried taking better pictures.  Really I did, but I could not capture the brilliance of the crystals or the great opaque quality of the smokey agates!!! I really love it!  So now I have a wonderful set of a bracelet and necklace!  Hope everybody is have fun hopping with all of our wonderful people here!!! Have a Blessed Week!!  And once again I am so sorry it took me so long to post!!!

This is my very first Bead Soup Blog Party!!! I am soooo excited!!! I sent Rana Wilson [www.ranaleadesigns.blogspot.com] some fun beads and she worked wonders with what I sent her!  I really love her designs!!! She sent me some incredible beads to work with and I pondered and ooo'd and awwww'd and stared lovingly and pondered and slowly a design started to take shape in my head!!! I t had to show the clasp and the focal to the best advantage, they are seriously cool!! and I had always thought these beads had a sunrise at sea vibe going.  so I tried to work with that theme.  Let me show you what I did!

Here is the wonderful soup I got to work with!!  There were netted beads and super duo's and czech fired glass and crystals...mmmm...crystals, I love crystals!!!LOL

This is the second piece I made, Dangley bracelets and such, are the types of things I really love to do.
These beads and colors lent themselves beautifully to this bracelet.  I coiled some seafoam blue wire to cover a bronzy wire I used for the cuff.  Then I added all of the really cool beads.  Most of the beads on here are the beads that Rana gave me.  I wanted to use as much of that luscious soup as I could!

 Pretty crystals and the really cool beads that Rana made.

A closer picture of some of the elements that made up this fun bracelet.

 This is the last piece that I made with the soup. I had all of the smaller beads left so I made "Sea at Sunrise" wrap bracelet.  Can't you just see the colors cresting over the sea as the sun comes up???

Here is the first piece I made with this wonderful soup. I could not get the picture to go upright sorry!
You can see the wonderful Sandollar and the super duo beads and some of the crystals.  I used all the larger bead caps, I really love the copper with these colors. I think it adds depth!

For the necklace itself I used a piece of sand colored leather a length of dark copper chain and a piece of seafoam blue sari silk to make the chain and foundation for the rest of the beads.

This is the focal and the clasp they are attached.  That way all of the emphasis is in the front and the chain is just a quiet backdrop!!!

 I used one of the leaves I embossed to add texture and a larger dangle for movement.  I love the netted beads and super duo beads next to the leaf!

This is how it goes together when the clasp is used.

I can't Thank Lori enough for all of her hard work and for letting me join this wonderful experience.  I want to thank Rana of Ranalea Designs for all the encouragement and the wonderful beads and just the opportunity to create!!!  Hope you all like these pieces!  I can't wait to see what you have to say!  Have A Blessed Day!
Here is the link to the Bead Soup Blog Party.  www.beadsoupblogparty.com

These are just 2 of the bunches of photos I took of the wonderful soup Rana Wilson sent me.  I love the "sunrise at Sea" colors and all of the beads were a blast to work with!  I won't tell you about my designs yet, but I know Rana has her's posted so you can go over to here blog and check it out!  I will be back late tonight to finish!!!
Have fun visiting all the blogs and have a Blessed Day
Rana's blog is www.ranaleadesigns.blogspot.com!!! Enjoy!

Hi Everybody!  Today's blog is a little different for me and a bit more difficult as well.  Some of you [if not all] know that I suffer from chronic pain.  I am 56[nearly] and have been in pain since I was 13.  I had a normal [ish] childhood.  Migraines were my poison then!  The older I got the worse and more often they got!!!
 I have always tried to have a positive attitude regardless of what was going on!
Fast forward to now.  Chronic pain can and will run your life...I can't do that ,it will hurt too much.  i don't dare walk to far, I won't be able to walk tomorrow.  I can't do this, I can't do that...until you are ready to scream!!!!  Chronic pain is a devil from hell and that is where we want him to go...right back to hell!!! Did you notice I said "him"?  LOL
Personally, I have found that the longer I have chronic pain the more it has become "normal". It is like waking up in the morning stiff.  Oh that's normal, I can live with that.  Oh my knee hurts, but no more than normal  I always have back pain,[sciatica], strain and burning in my shoulders, stiff neck, pain and tingling in my arms and legs, and I could keep going but you get the picture. But it is "normal" for me and I have learned to live with it....!.  My real enemy is headaches, they have been all along.  I literally have a headache every day!!  Someone would ask me how I was and I would say "ok, I have a headache...but that is everyday!"  It finally hit me last week that having a headache is right there with my other normal pains.  I don't say ok, my back hurts or my feet hurt etc... so why am I saying  I have a headache? True, I do have one but on a scale of 1-10 maybe it is a 2 or 3 or even a high 4. Are you following me here?
So last week I decided to not say I had a headache when some one asked..  I was going to say Great or Outstanding or Peachy [I like Peachy]!  I have done that everyday since last week! The headaches have not changed.  i still have pain everyday...But the significance that I give them is much less.  They still hurt but the importance is not there anymore.  They have become "Normal", not special and not a driving force in my life.
Now if i get a headache, it has to be a 5 or better on that 1-10 scale before I will give it any attention [meds, I only take tylenol or ibuprophen], fussing, cussing, crying[don't recommend this it only makes them worse] or what ever is needed. I have decided very clearly, very deliberately that headaches under a 5 will no longer have any sway over my life.  They are "normal".  Doing this takes practice and I have to believe it!
A lot of people have much more pain than i have.  This may not make sense to you or you might think I am crazy, [ you may be pretty close  LOL] but for me...this works!
Thank you so much for letting me ramble!!!  Share your pain here if you want!  I will always pray for your comfort and strength.  Let me know what you think!!! I really do want to know!!!
Please do not think I am make light of chronic pain.  i'm not,  I am however tired of the control it has over my life.  This is how i am taking back a little control!!!

 In January, I met this really great lady by the name of  Joann Hayssen!  She is an East Coast Angel who works with horses and loves lampwork beads, coffee and chocolate!  We are practically best friends now!!! Coffee and chocolate...yummm!  We exchaged belated Christmas gifts and all of the goodies you see are what she sent me!!!

The 2 bags in this one are [were lol] chocolates from a lady who makes here own in Andover, where Joann lives.  Joann said that the lady had been making chocolates for awhile and everybody loved them and then the store that carried the chocolates went out of business!  The Chocolate lady was devastated as were all of the people addicted to her wonderful chocolates.  They told her to open her own store and she did and I have to say they were really right to tell her to because they are wonderful chocolates. Then we have the spices!  The smell of this one is heavenly!  I have not used it yet but I can't wait!!

 More pictures of the chocolates, sadly they are all gone!  I have asked Joann if the chocolate lady sells them on line!:) 

Then we have the seriously pretty lampwork beads!!!

Promise rings from Susan G Komen

The cutest pair of gloves!

A mysterious box!?!?!?!

A really great key ring!  I am always losing my keys too!!! Maybe this was a sign?  What do you think?

Joann also included a really cute ornament of pine with Merry Christmas on it.  There is a little bit better of a picture up at the top of this post.  It is in the back on the top right!

All in all I made out like a bandit and more important than all the goodies, I met a wonderful caring person who is kind and sweet!!!  You can never have enough really great and caring friends.  I am Truly Blessed!!!

 I got a little carried with both taking pictures and painting metal today!  I need to seal these but I made them with my new Big Kick that I got from Michael's last week.  I was having some issue with the blank sheets of copper and silver for embossing, it seemed to me like it was entirely to thick.  So I went and bought some of the Vintaj blanks and found that they were the same thickness.  So I worked just a little harder and got a Bunch of blanks embossed.  And there they sat.  Well today was my day off and I sanded and polished and painted quite a few of them.  Not sure you can tell the colors very well but they are really great in person.  It was messy and a lot of fun.  Now that they are all on here and I gave you a bit of info, I am going to go back to beading!!!  Have a wonderful week!

 Wood from a bracelet I took apart!  love the way it turned out!

 Plain blanks on the right and on the left and below are some embossed and etched pieces.

Kind of hard to see the patterns but I used the embossing folders of the butterfly and the birds from Vintaj and the etching folder of the leaves.

You can see the pattern really well here.

 These are the paints and the sanding stick I used.  The stick is actually a large nail file/emery board that has several surfaces.  It works great and we got it from our local dollar store!

 Hopefully you can see these colors.  They came out great!