Swap 'n' Hop reveal! Whoot!

So this time, I have to admit, I was a huge procrastinator on creating my swap piece. The other two times I have done bead swaps, I have taken my time, worked and reworked. This time I had the month of May in my head. Back in March, May seemed so far away! Then all of a sudden, I realized that it was almost May and that swap reveals were on May 2nd, only two days into May! Yikes! Luckily, since I'm a teacher, we had April break this past week and I spent much of my vacation time working on what turned into a beast of a project. I went large, folks.
My partner is Rebecca, who lives in Florida. You can find her blog here. In the post directly below this one you can see what she sent me and what I sent her. 
I ended up using the cabochon that my partner, Rebecca, made for me, the seed beads, and the big teardrop shaped beads. I ended up not using the owl clasp she sent because in the end, the color didn't go with the rest of the piece. I'll use it on some other project. Other than buying more of the same color seed beads she sent me, I used materials that I already had. This is big for me, because I love buying only to find out that I already had stuff I could have used. Anyway, without further ado, here is my creation! It doesn't have a name, but I plan to put it up for sale in my Etsy shop here sometime later this weekend! Enjoy the rest of your hop! You can find a master list of links to all of the other participating blogs here.

Bead swap package

I received my package from my swap n hop partner Rebecca the other day. It is so exciting to get a mystery package in the mail. The first thing that I found inside was that our packing styles and note styles are identical. It was eerie how similarly we packaged up what we sent. Even the format of our notes was the same. This was completely random. Great minds think alike I guess!

Anyway, Rebecca sent me a cool owl cabochon that she made and a neat array of beads to go with it. The clasp she sent is also an owl. My husband likes birds, so that was neat. I have no idea what I'm going to do with them, but that's half the fun! 

The other picture shows what I sent her. I send along a nice piece of Shibori ribbon, an enameled clasp, two lamp work disks and lots of fire polished beads and seed beads. I always know when my "soup" is ready to send because I start to get insanely jealous of my partner and want to keep it for myself. I know then that it is time to send it off before I reason myself into making a new soup. Come back in May for the big reveal and see what Rebecca and I made with our stashes!

Swap 'n' hop partner

 So, my bead partner for the Bead Peeps Swap 'n' hop is Floridian Rebecca White. You can find her blog here. Of course, I'm envious of the warmer weather she has down in Florida, since in the Northeast we have been getting hammered with snow so far this month. I really looking forward to sending her some things that I think may stretch her imagination a little and give her the chance to work with something new. Here is an example of her work from her blog.

Finished!

I finished the collar I've been working on, and with all of the snow days we have been having, I put a few things in my etsy shop.

About me

After signing up for the Beed Peeps Swap and Hop, we were all asked to answer a few questions about ourselves. Ultimately, I found that I answered many of them in one of the original posts on this blog (here), and that not much has changed.

I really like to make cuff bracelets; however, I really dislike wearing cuff bracelets. They always seem to get in the way of my daily life, so I quickly take them off. I also find myself making pins a lot, which I, myself, don't wear, but that I seem to sell fairly easily. (Though I've been told too many times that I don't charge enough for my work, so that probably has something to do with it). I also like to make big collar necklaces, but have only made two (working on the third) because what to do with it once I'm done is always in my mind. Selling it for what I would be satisfied with seems unlikely.

Right now I'm in love with using Shibori silk in my bead embroidery. I honestly want to buy it in every color. Right now I'm trying to hold off on buying more until I use what I have. I love the colors and folds of it. I love how the colors inspire me to make something I hadn't originally planned. I dislike how it's harder to use in the winter because it's so dry here in New Hampshire, and I'm terrible at moisturizing my hands. Any little rough patch on the skin can rough up the silk and cause little snags.

I avoid using big beads. At times people have given me some larger beads that many would use for stringing. I don't know what to do with them. I'm a seed beader! What am I going to do with a bunch of 16mm beads? The only time I buy anything big is if I could use it as a focal or a cabochon.

When I look at my seed bead collection, I have tons of greens, blues, and purples. I have almost no yellows and few reds and oranges. One thing I love to do that works well with bead embroidery is buy mixes. I find that it's a great way to get some yellow beads if I only need a few, instead of buying a whole tube of something I'm not going to use again.

Here is a picture of what I'm working on right now.

What I've been up to

It has been a long time since I have posted anything, too busy beading, working and spending time with the family, I guess. (Though not in that order!) Here are some things I have made since my last post.