It's Bead Soup Blog Party Time Again - Meet my Partner!

Bead Soup Blog Party (BSBP) - what is it? It's the brainchild of Lori Anderson, who gets this thing rolling a couple of times a year. Every time, the party gets larger, and larger... and this time, it's so large that the party has been split into 3 separate "mini-parties".

Lori gathers all the participants together (virtually, of course), parses them into pairs, and each member of a pair mails their partner a focal bead, some matching beads, and a clasp (the "soup"). The partner then adds in some beads from their own bead stash, and creates jewelry magic! Then on the reveal day, all the participants reveal their creations on their individual blogs, and everyone (not just participants - everyone is invited to THIS party!) hops around visiting blogs, and oohing and aahing. It's a lot of fun!

I last participated in Lori's Bead Soup Party in August of last year - and this is one of the pieces I designed with my soup:

This year, I am paired with the talented Kate Richbourg. Kate started working and teaching beads in 1992, and this year marks her 20th anniversary as a jewelry instructor. She started at The Bead Shop of Palo Alto CA in what she thought would be just a temporary job until she went back to school to get an advanced degree. 20 years later, Kate reports she has no Master's, but she does have a career that she loves!

Kate was Class Director and instructor at The Bead Shop for 10 years. During that time she also traveled around the country teaching classes. She left The Bead Shop in 2002 and opened her own bead store, Beadissimo in San Francisco, focusing on classes and interesting beads from around the world. Her store ran its course and closed in 2008. She then went on to become Director of Education for Beaducation.com, where she helped broaden their online class offerings and did "all kinds of educational stuff" for them. You can check out her free classes on their website!

Kate and Beaducation amicably parted ways in January of this year and now she teaches and writes full time. She has a book on Soldering coming out at the end of this year. Her book came about when she pitched the idea to create a book for the home metalworker based on her class experiences. Folks can preorder through her website or on Amazon.com. Kate's videos are also available in her Etsy shop.

Kate and I will be mailing our soups to each other next week, and I hope she loves what I've put together. I am so excited about this challenge, and can't wait to see what Kate sends me. The reveal date for our creations is August 25 - so stay tuned! What we design is top secret until the reveal! But I'll be posting pictures of the soup Kate sends me as soon as I get it, plus some behind-the-scenes info about the creation of Kate's soup - but I'm not allowed to post any of that until after she receives it. No spoiling the surprise!