ZnetShows Summer Challenge :: Partner Pick

ZnetShows has a new twist on a bead soup swap. We were sent a catalog to peruse and pick out 5 items for our partner. Then ZnetShows sent our items off to our partner. My partner, Sandi James, sent me a gorgeous soup to play with, and it was full of green - my favorite color! I tried to include the links to all the beads I used below just in case you want to do a little shopping on your own.

In my soup was some small pebble sea glass in a sea foam green color. I absolutely love these! I paired it up with some light green fabric. Now here is a great idea. Christine over at One Kiss Creations happened upon a furniture store getting rid of the sample books from last season (aka, free). And those books are full of great fabric swatches to use for beading. She let me sift through and pull out some samples to try. This is my first piece using one of them. I did a little bead embroidery along the edges, and then ran large chain along the sides so I could add sea glass dangles to a very Beach Boho piece. 

As a second piece I did a necklace I call Spring Equinox with it's yin-yang colors of light and dark ... dormant and rebirth. I used one of the beautiful green sardonyx stones and did a freeform peyote around it using that same light-dark theme. The green and white beads are a pretty candy jade faceted bead. I finished it with one of the leaf connectors from the soup. This one could be worn all sorts of ways!

The next piece is a simple double helix pattern using various tones of greens and some lovely opaque green Chinese crystals from the soup. The smaller green rounds are a light jade. 

I love the flower petal pattern in this next bracelet. I picked it up years ago and haven't had a chance to try it out. It actually beads up very quickly as a RAW (right angle weave) with large beads. The pearls have a faint green tinge to them, which is just gorgeous. I wanted to bring that out a bit and added a button closure in a soft green. This one feels very luxurious on!

Ok, one last pair of earrings. I LOVE these crystal twist beads that I paired with more Chinese crystal. It is a simple pair, but would be lovely for a summer night out. I have more, but ran out of time to keep beading. So, I'm sure I'll be back with more ideas using these pretty lemony yellow crystals.

For the final surprise, ZnetShows is doing a giveaway .... so head over to their blog and get your name in! They've got some amazing beads, and rumor has it that they pulled out a little of all our soups for the give away!