Bead Soup Mix for Beading Projects
Create Lovely One of a Kind Pieces of Beaded Jewelry
You may have seen reference to 'Bead Soup' - but what exactly is it? Bead Soup is not a strange new diet! It the phrase used to describe a rich mix of beads.
'Bead Soup' is a mixture of beads and these can be a variety of colors, shapes and styles. Alternatively the mix might follow a single color way – for instance all shades of red, ranging from the palest of pinks through to deep ruby red, or shades of blue which start at the palest of duck egg blue through to a dark navy.
The benefit to the creative beader of working with Bead Soup is that it allows you to make great items of freeform beadwork which are less structured and formal than those pieces made when using beads in a predefined order or pattern. This is particularly useful when making large items of jewelry such as long neck pieces or large dramatic bracelets and bangles. Of course, when working with such a mix it also means that it is nigh on impossible for two pieces of jewelry to be precisely alike meaning that this is great for making 'one of a kind' items. Bead Soup mix is also great for wire jewelry projects.
A good ‘Bead Soup’ mix will contain feature beads as well as small seed beads, perhaps a few crystals and a whole lot in between! The purpose of the mix is to ensure that no two items will be the same and the whole rich mix of beads will compliment each other in both color and texture.
Bead Soup can be bought and the mix is readily available from bead retailers. This can be purchased by the pack or sometimes by the weight allowing you to buy specifically for a project. However 'Bead Soup' can easily be made yourself using a mix of beads, perhaps some beads left over from previous projects which are combined with some beads of a specific color to bring the whole mix together. This is an ideal way to use up all those odd beads left over from different projects – where you don’t have quite enough for a new project, but the beads are much too nice to discard!
It is difficult to determine exactly how much Bead Soup mix you need for a project as the size and shape of the beads varies so much. This is why the mix is particularly useful for freeform projects which allows you to change and adapt the design as you go.
For a very quick and simple project using Bead Soup make a very striking necklace from long strands of Bead Soup mix which can be worn as a long neck piece, or wrapped around the neck several times to make a dramatic collar style neck piece.
Tips:
- Use a bead stringer to quickly string beads
- A few additional feature beads will bring added interest
- Use PMC (precious metal clay) embellishments to enhance the eclectic nature of the finished item
