Best Bead Booty

In years past, I spent my time in Tucson going from show to show to show and coming home with a huge new supply of beads and such. This year, I was at one show the entire time and, um, still managed to come home with a sizable new addition to my stash. At least I managed to stay within budget!

Starting from the top left, we have Soft Flex wire in extreme silver, citrine, green turquoise, red jasper, dark blue, spinel, peridot, and extreme champagne. Most of these are brand new colors!

The next "row" down displays a boro pendant from Andy Ray (Andy gifted a pendant to all of the Soft Flex girls - thank you Andy!) and rings, an acorn, and beads from the lovely Joyce Rooks.

Next is a strand of citrine, followed by a strand of aquamrine. These stones, along with all the other stones and strands in my haul are from Soft Flex Company. Mike helped me pick most of them out. He figured that if I couldn't leave our booth to go shop at other booths, I might as well shop in our booth. Funny how that works. Anyway, the other stones (short strands and long) are, from top down, tanzanite, keishi pearls, yellow CZs (little triangles and a strand of briolettes), lemon quartz, red and pink coral, purple and orange CZs, champagne Biwa pearls, more coral, and spondylus spikes. The yellow stones are for a project for the Summer 2009 issue of Stringing magazine. All beads from the coral through the spondylus are for a Stringing project as well. Fun!

Back above the yellow stones is a whole row of fun goodies. A pendant from Devin Somerville, a charm from Green Girl Studios (an early birthday present from Andrew - thank you my dear!), a heart made of beer bottle caps from Glass Garden Beads, a focal bead and spacers from Lori Greenberg (great meeting you Lori and thanks!), and a clasp, ring and pendants from Jess Imports.

As always, I'm excited to see what happens with these goodies. The two projects for Stringing are due, so I'm already using those beads. Will I use the rest right away or will they sit around in my studio for awhile? Only time will tell. No matter how long they wait to be used in a project, they sure are nice to look at.