wednesday 3 o'clock: goodies and design trade...part two

recently, i posted about a trade i was making with brenda sue of b'sue boutiques. she and i have had a running dialog about the pressures of living with a lot of work, and not enough fun (in fairness, she really works her butt off, i whine and wring my hands and then make dinner for my family... not the same i know). it became more evident during the conversation that brenda sue could use a little more fun time. maybe just not always being in the driver's seat might be a step toward a small change or solution.

i often have these insanely inappropriate, jump up and down with excitement moments... and i share them without perhaps thinking them all the way through. this could have been one of them...

luckily i did think it through as much as i needed to.

it was simple. if i could get my grubby hands on some of her goodies, i would make her a necklace featuring her components. i really wanted to use only her parts, but they inspired me to release my death-grip on some of my own stuff. i knew that i could feature her goods, but if i needed just a little extra to fill in the blank spaces i could use some of my own unused scraps of fabulous stuff.

so let me review from my last posting on this topic... there was a 8 1/2 lb. box of things that winged its way from ohio to me in little rhody.

b'sue was able to clear some of the surface clutter from the place she calls her "messy workshop".

this allowed us both to clean up.

{personally, i know i could benefit from a good purge... but i have trouble letting anything go.

and i really mean ANYTHING.}

i was really proud that she was able to do just that and not look back. generally, my big problem is that i never know when i will need in the future and if i do give or throw stuff away,

it stays with me for such a long, long time.

i am a work in progress... sigh.

little steps, little steps.

i had several color-ways or motifs to consider after i had ~~meticulously and delicately traipsed~~ ham-fistedly plowed through the magic box, giggling and squealing all the way.

1.} something along the lines of "fruit salad" suggested itself to me. this is an old fashioned name for things that are multi-colored. at least as i understand it. also there were the little fruity things that i now had. i also have amassed a lot of vintage lucite beads over the past decade and many are in cool finishes like moon-glow(if you don't know about them, they are a whole lot like cat's eye beads). they are in bright colors. so they would go well with all sorts of stuff.

2.} there were a lot of golden yellow things or stuff that reminded me of huge sunflowers. kind of a matisse, southern france idea.

3.} again, i also was gifted with a large grouping of lavender and floral brooches in varying degrees of finishedness. i again was reminded of the south of france and the fields of sun drenched lavender fields.

4.} there were a few little buttons with faces of sweet girls on them. i also thought that it may be a good idea for a bracelet or charm necklace.

all of these things may still be made, since there are many things still in this treasury trove.

there is no rush now either, so i can take some time to do things properly.

in my last blog, i mentioned that i wanted to offer a giveaway of some kind.

i said that i would be most likely to offer some jewelry piece.

this may be equal to the task... some of you might like a hodge-podge of nice components to add to your own groovy designs to play with instead of something i made.

perhaps, you might weigh in on this and help me choose a path to pursue.

i am thinking of paying some of the leftover items forward to a lucky reader...

as yet i have not figured out how to do this best... but i think it would be swell to offer someone their own box with goodies. i surely did not touch the mother lode.

well i went with option 1.}

fruit salad.

it started out a little like this: