Bead Soup updates, new work and a giveaway

Warning...long post ahead. But do read till the end - you'll be greatly rewarded (i.e. there's a giveaway).

If I've been strangely silent these past weeks, it's because I've been in a tizzy figuring out what exactly to do with the bead soup I received from my partner, Carmen of Little Maketto. All those baby blue and pink beads have me seriously terrified, and the last thing I wanted to do was to blog. 

But I had a breakthrough yesterday, and finally created something that didn't look like it needed to be binned. I hope you'll come back on August 11 to see what I made. 

Btw, have you visited the BSBP participants who revealed their pieces on Jul 28? If you haven't, I suggest you do so by going here. I'm still making my way through the list but I can assure you that you'll be drooling over the stunning pieces everyone created. 

Now, despite my recent silence, I haven't been entirely up to nothing. Hair-pulling and teeth gnashing apart, I've been playing with resin. Again. A good friend in the US sent me some Jewelry Resin a while back and I finally took it out to play yesterday. I'm used to ICE Resin so the product wasn't entirely unfamiliar. It did need an extra step to prep it though, but the results were pretty good.

This pendant was a huge disappointment. You can see resin seepage at the top. I used 3 layers of Mod Podge to seal it but I guess I wasn't as careful as I'd thought. The little cloudy bit up top is also where I sanded away a tiny bit of fluff that settled during the curing process. I'll be brushing on a layer of resin to cover it up later. I hear that works. 

Now this is my Christmas in August pendant :-). My first attempt at including glitter in my resin experiments - boy, does it get everywhere! The glittery brads remind me of Christmas ornaments so I'm calling it my Deck the Halls pendant. I might list it in my Etsy store. What do you think...should I? 

Ah...this ring. I had a smidgen of resin left and didn't want to waste it. Desperation led to squished up paper and leftover rhinestones haphazardly stuffed into a ring blank. Not a complete eyesore. Surprisingly. 

And finally, to wrap up this (very) long post, I'm pleased to announce my very first giveaway. It was only after I posted my previous blog entry that I realised it had been my 100th post. An accomplishment for someone who often begins something, but doesn't necessarily complete it. Unless it's a book. So to celebrate this milestone, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who's come by, read my posts, left a comment etc by giving away the bead soup below. 

It's rather a mixed-up bead soup - by which I mean, I chose beads that had meaning for me and which I thought were pretty and not because they coordinated with each other - but I hope you'll like it. From top left, going clockwise: resin pendant (my handiwork), wooden squares (could be faux wood; I got them from Japan), small glass discs (also from Japan, they reminded me of candy), amethyst (my birthstone and if you believe in crystals, it guards against guilty and fearful feelings), vintage faux pearl clasp, brown/amber lampwork glass (again, from Japan), rhodonite (just cos it's pretty, and also raises self-worth and wards off negativity), dark blue lampwork w/silver foil, vintage orange  beads, and blue lampwork bead (from Japan too). 

The giveaway is open to anyone and everyone. Just leave a comment and I'll pick a random winner on Aug 9.