A Super Serving of Soup!

Y'all, my soup arrived, and I have just now picked myself up off the floor and recovered enough to share it with you.  Holy cow, but I feel like I've hit the beady lotto!

My spectacular partner, Rita of Toltec Jewels, is married to a professional gourmet chef.  Why is this relevant? Because Ms. Rita is quite the chef herself, having cooked up two truly delectable soups to send along to me.  And if that weren't enough, she and I must be related in some way, because the soups we exchanged were in virtually the same colorways.

First, like any good chef, Rita spent a lot of time and care on the presentation of her soup.  I opened the package, which was stuffed to within an inch of bursting,  and found a lovely red silk purse.  Inside the purse was a bounty of smaller red silk pouches. Each of the pouches was packed with beautiful goodies -- I spent almost as much time happy dancing as I did unwrapping the packages!

Well, hello Kitty!

Doesn't this just scream, "We are full of gorgeous treasure"?

Soup number one, or the Blue Soup:

I mean, seriously. Cool ceramics by Beadfreaky and Blu Mudd! Lampwork from Maryse at GlassBeadArt! Gorgeous pieces from Thea Elements! Funky painted leather feathers from Tree Wing Studios! Freshwater pearls! Czech glass! Swarovski elements! And on and on and on!

Oooh, the creative juices are flowing....

And then there's the pink soup, which had a bit more drama in its creation.  Rita told me that, as she was packing the soup up, the lampwork focal she'd chosen did a Loony Tunes slo-mo flip and smash from her hands, breaking on the floor.  So she contacted the artist, Maryse at GlassBeadArt to request a replacement, and as a backup, worked with another wonderful glass artist, Lara Lutrick, to create something in the same color blend.  Lara's beautiful bead is pictured in the group shot:

Again, a smorgasbord of beautiful choices. Lara's bead is the cylindrical bead that looks like a muted sunset. And there are lampwork headpins from Southern Gal Designs, a clasp that Rita made with a lampwork bead from Sue Beads, a wonderful little brass bird from Leslie Watt, polymer from Sweet Birch Designs, enamels from Sue Beads, Czech glass, Slovakian glass, gemstones, freshwater pearls, gold plated seed beads (!!!!), and on and on and on......

Then a couple of days later, a package arrived from Luxembourg with the replacement focal from Maryse.

I am well and truly spoiled, folks. Thank you, Rita, for your incredible generosity! I cannot wait to dig in and get started making things.  The wheels in my brain are spinning......

Blinded By The Sparkle

Ever walk by a store window and see something that makes you think, "I'm not sure where I'll wear that, but I have to have it"?

Juls was having a moving sale recently, and as I browsed the offerings, this lot caught my eye.

Now, I'm not a huge sparkly, sparkly girl.  While I love a good Swarovski, it's not a look I can rock every day, or in great quantity.  So I love these, but they also terrify me.

You wouldn't believe the rainbows that are thrown off of these beads when they're grouped together like this.  In fact, I was a little worried that the sparkle coming off of them was going to blind pilots passing overhead while I took the photo.  I'm gonna have to wear sunglasses when I work with these!

And for something completely different, here's an extra surprise that Juls (that sweetheart) included as an (unnecessary) apology for a little shipping snafu.  Yay!