Post Hop Recovery

My Bead Soup Blog Hop post is here - go look if you haven't already been there!

 Y'all, I am on eye candy overload!  It took a week of hard, concentrated work (poor me, I know) but I finally made it through all 362 posts of the Bead Soup Blog Hop, and in the spirit of David Letterman's Top Ten, here are a few things I learned:

1) Beaders are incredibly generous.  Generous with their bead soup, generous with their creativity, generous with opinions, encouragement, and kind words.  And anyone who's looking for a home for their blog hop creation can send it on to me.  Anything I can do to help... ;-)

2) These hops are a fabulous way to meet people, find new blogs to follow, get new followers for my blog (THANK YOU!!), and generally find fellow travelers on this beady road.

3) These hops are also a great way to add to my beady bucket list - you know, all those things I want to learn to do, the techniques I want to try, the tools I must buy (don't tell my husband I'm adding to the collection), bead artists I NEED to buy from (again, don't tell my husband), etc, etc...

4) You can sit and stare at a pile of beads for weeks without a single inspiration.  Pressure to meet a deadline, however, can kick that inspiration in the butt and get you moving right quick.

5) There are a heck of a lot of talented people out there.  I mean gobsmackingly, headbangingly, jawdroppingly talented people.  I was humbled and honored to be alongside them in this hop.

6) Even if a particular piece on the hop wasn't entirely to my taste, the care and thought that went into every creation was awesome, and that never failed to blow me away.

7) Photos count.  A lot.  Nothing is more frustrating than to see a picture of something that looks fabulous except that the photo is itty bitty and dark and there's no way to enlarge it.  People, I'm getting old.  Scratch that, I'm not getting old, but my eyes are.  I need bright and big photos, kind of like a two-year-old's picture book.

8) I'm so impressed by people who can incorporate sari silks into their work without making it look like an afterthought or a bandage.  I'm pretty sure any attempt to use ribbon in my work would inspire a full on "bless her heart" from anyone who saw it.

9) If I'm going to spend countless hours staring at a computer screen, being inspired by gorgeous jewelry is a pretty damned good way to do it.  And it makes me miles happier than I am after spending hours staring at excel spreadsheets and budgets.

10) Lori Anderson is a goddess.  Need more proof?  After planning and coordinating an event that makes the Norman invasion pale in logistical comparison, she's already planning the next one.  I hope I'll be lucky enough to be one of the 200 chosen randomly to participate, but even if I'm not, I'll be there hopping around to see everyone's fabulousness (fabulosity? spectacularity?)!