I'm participating in a something known as a BSBP. What is a Bead Soup Blog Party? It's a gift exchange of sorts, but with beads and then the added excitement of a show of the finished designs made with those beads.
Laurie Anderson, the organizer, is an online friend of mine who I have known for so long now I can't remember what year we first "met" but it has to have been at least 10 years ago. She has a similar obsession with beads of all sorts as I do - in fact so does every participant in the BSBP, a huge number of her online friends who like us, have a big stash of beads (our Bead Soup). She also writes about all of these (and other things near and dear to her heart on her blog - www.prettythingsblog.com
Laurie gathers the names of the people who want to participate and connects each person with another participant. Each pair sends each other a surprise package of beads and such and then we design a piece of jewelry using our gifted items, with pictures to be revealed on our blogs (and Pinterest if they don't have a blog) on the same day. Once every participant reveals their finished piece, we blog hop and have a look at the beauties. Fun and enlightening :)
The party I'm writing about today is a special one. It's called the Bead Hoarders edition. We all have our stash of gems, pearls, lampwork, crystals, pendants and/or vintage beads. Within our stash we all have beads that are so special to us that we hoard them, afraid to make anything with them because they are just that special. This time we are to select one of our hoarded parts and send it along with some other items to our partner.
Yes, it was a little painful to part with one of my beloved hoarded beads, but it is a good exercise in humility and generosity to let go of something coveted every now and then. I sent my swap partner, Carla Fry, a vintage hollow Chinese glass bead that has been hand painted blue with a flower motif on the inside walls of the bead. 
I also included some blue matching vintage glass beads and a few other items as well. I don't think the beads painted on the inside are being made any more - at least they are not very common. I doubt I could replace it, but I chose to give it away because I was actually hoarding two and I kept one that is aqua with a bird on it.
Carla sent me the following items:
She made the two items on the left. One is the Wonderstone pendant that she collected near Fallon, NV then polished and added the cap and the other is the yellow enameled square pendant that she torch fired.
The hoarded items that she included are the vintage clear glass crackle beads and the vintage green and gold glass. Both of these items have been in her stash for at least 30 years! Thank you Carla :) I forgot to include these 1980s furnace glass beads in the group picture because they were on my work space :)
Wondering what I created with these design elements? Tune in tomorrow for the big reveal of my finished piece!
