Jade Cicadas!

I can't believe that I forgot to blog about these awesome carved jade* cicadas that I purchased at the Rings & Things show in Scottsdale last month. They are pretty much the coolest thing ever. I had to buy them even though they were really expensive and I really only wanted one for me. Then after I paid I plopped them right down on a table and took a photo to post on Facebook.

I'm going to make some pretty epic necklaces with these. The first one will be for me, of course!

*I don't know if they're actually jade. There are so many stones that get called jade but actually aren't. These are an antiqued/aged (I forget what word the tag says) "jade" that has a cool mottled brown, makes them look like some sort of old Chinese artifact that I stole from a museum or something.

LL-BFAC Kit for 2012 Auctions

How pretty is this color palette? It's the latest Layne's Legacy -- Beading For A Cure kit, to be used to create items to be auctioned off in 2012. Betcey at Beyond Beadery provided this year's beautiful and generous kit, with lots of Japanese seed beads and Swarovski crystals. There are even some of those new-ish long Magatama drops that I haven't tried out yet.

I'll probably do some bead embroidery, but I haven't decided yet what I want to add. I was looking at some nice cabochons on Etsy last night, but my taste was running towards the expensive!

Gem Show 2011 Recap!

Gem Show 2011 is more or less behind me! I still have two shows to go shop at, to get some supplies and more wooden necklace displays, but I've wrapped up most of my shopping and all of my working. Speaking of working, above is a picture of me at work! This is just a fraction of the Beyond Beadery booth. It really is bigger -- and has a better selection -- than a lot of bead stores I've been to.
But enough about work, and more about beads! I only took pictures of part of what I bought. Above, a cool heart bead (with an octopus!) by Christi Friesen, and some beautiful raku cabs by MAKUstudio. Mak is based in Phoenix, so it's pretty likely I'll be getting more of her yummy clay in the future!
And here, lampwork beads by two of my favorite artists! The tree and two sets are by JC Herrell, and the beetle, caterpillar, and other set are by Margaret Zinser. The cab is actually going to go back to MZ, in an embroidered pendant. I'm very excited about the project!
Of course, I had to get some steampunk goodies! The key with lampwork on it is by Kerri Fuhr. I've been admiring her work on Etsy for a long time, so I was really happy to meet her in person! The enameled pieces are from C-Koop, and I actually have a lot more than I put in the photo. I have more of the new TierraCast components on the other side of the photo, too! And I got the "Lolita" skeleton cab from work, and also have a smaller one to work with.

I've also got a big bag of seed beads, a bunch of chain, and some new crystals. I can't wait to get designing and bring some exciting new pieces to Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs!

My MZ Glass Prize

You may recall that back in October, I took 2nd Place in the MZ Glass Design Challenge. Well, I finally collected my prize winnings this past weekend! Margaret was clearing out some old beads, so my $300 credit went a long way! Doesn't the central beetle remind you of old trade beads? He's definitely going to be made into something tribal.

The 3d butterfly is a new design and I knew I had to have one. If you want one, too, you can visit MZ's Etsy shop, where you can also see the new bees and caterpillars!

And just because I like showing off, here's the winning necklace again:

NY Bead Purchases

As you can see, I did a lot less bead shopping in NY this year than in previous years. I have an excess of beads waiting to be put away right now, so I didn't feel like making the problem too much worse. I only purchased things that caught my eye.

There's a strand of imported lampwork that reminded me of trade beads, some neat flowers that look almost like gears, some really cool faceted drop beads, some apatite (the strand was longer, i already used some. I'll post the necklace on Wednesday), a filigree stamping I liked, and two pretty strands of freshwater pearls.

The drops will definitely be part of my Wings of the Morrigan collar, which I'll have to start soon if I want to have it done in time to wear it to the February gem show.

Beads For Birthdays!

My package from my secret Beads for Birthdays buddy was slightly delayed, but that's alright, it just stretches out the birthday fun! It arrived this past Friday and I dove right in! In fact, I forgot to take pictures of all the cute white boxes tied with green ribbons... but here's a photo of my lovely gifts!

There are three cabochons, one black onyx, one tree agate, and one super delightful sparkly fuchsite from Siberia.

Three strands of glass: pale green leaves that nicely compliment the fuchsite, little bronze daggers, and big vitrail-like daggers.

One strand of what I think is a lab-grown tourmaline. Each bead is half green, half yellow, and they have a wonderful weight and perfect machine facets.

One triangle dish, which is super-helpful for sorting and cleaning up beads.

One tribal-inspired pendant in a dark brassy-bronzey-gunmetaly color.

Five tubes of assorted shapes and sizes of seed beads, including some yummy marbled 11s. I've slowly been collecting these, and I didn't have the pink-marbled olive yet (which isn't very pink, it's more of a copper).

One slim-line faerie journal. I think this will be very good for keeping to-do lists, and it should fit in my purse so I can take my lists with me.

One sparkly faerie birthday card! The handwriting inside looks familiar... perhaps a BFAC participant? I won't sleuth around and spoil the surprise.

Not shown: one box of Lipton Super Fruit Green Tea with White Peach and Mangosteen. It makes delicious iced tea! I've already had about 4 glasses of it. Yum yum!

Here's a shot of the fuchsite cab, I was trying to capture how awesome and sparkly it is, but the camera isn't cooperating.
Thank you, secret birthday buddy! I love my gifts and I can't wait to design with them :)

Happy World Belly Dance Day!

Today is World Belly Dance Day! And I didn't know until yesterday. What a bummer. If I had known ahead of time, I would have made plans. Instead I need to settle for dancing at home. Alone.

But! Here's a little celebration in my blog... a celebration of how much I love tribal jewelry. Last weekend, I noticed that Beads Galore was conveniently located on the route between my hotel and the studio. I have to avoid their gigantic booth at the gem show (it's larger than most of my local bead stores), because my budget simply can't handle it. But I couldn't just drive by and not stop in... especially not since it was my birthday and I had birthday money to spend! So I told myself that I was only allowed to buy tribal stuff, and not even look at their fabulous selection of Czech glass, and this is what I found!

Amazing green vaseline glass. Most of the other vaseline glass was $50-70 a strand. These rondelles were only $15. I'm pretty sure it was fate.

Black horn beads with metal. The silver-tone metal has a floral design. Very pretty and versatile, and rather lightweight for the size, too.

Horn and bone hairsticks. All but the eye-patterned one have horizontal holes near the top, which will make it easy to attach dangling strands of beads. The eye one has the more standard vertical hole for gluing in a headpin.

Afghani coin pendants and button. All with green glass "gems" set in them. Probably destined for a green coin bra, except the button which will either be a bracelet clasp or get used as the button to fasten an entari (a jacket-vest thing that we dancers wear under a bodice or a gahwazee coat).

Big Afghani pendants. One might also become part of the green bra, one will go with the vaseline glass. I haven't decided which will go with which yet.

Stretchy black skull bracelet. Will remain a bracelet until such a time as I decide to cut it up and use those awesome little skullies for something else.

Since I bought all of this swag with birthday money, it will mostly go into jewelry for me, but I have a feeling that the leftovers will trickle into stock for the Etsy shop! I can't hoard all the gorgeous tribal stuff to myself!

Beads, Glorious Beads!

Here they are, the beautiful strands of beads that I bought on my mini-vacation. Except for the two glass strands near the bottom left-hand corner, all of these came from the Rings and Things show. I think I'll be good on stone beads for a while. My finds include:
-Brown Lava
-Black Lava
-Kambaba Jasper
-Antiqued Jade
-Eagle Eye
-Nephrite
-Lizardite
-Bone
-Green Jasper
-Copper
-Fireworks Jasper
-Smoky Quartz
-Red Tiger's Eye
-Something tagged as "Copyrite?"
-Lots of Czech glass
-And more!

I'm looking forward to designing with these beads. What I'm not looking forward to is putting them all away! Heck, most of my purchases from the February shows are still in the bags they came in. I think I'm overdue for some Spring cleaning -- before it becomes Summer.

And of course, it wouldn't be a blog post if I didn't mention the Daily Special! Check out Mistress of the Secret Forest, on sale for $85 down from $100.

A couple of hours at the bead show

This was the weekend of the September bead shows. It used to just be one G&LW show, but people are trying (in vain) to turn it into a miniature version of February. There are now two G&LW shows, a Best Bead Show, and a Beaucoup Conge show (actually, I don't know if they had that one this year, their shows are so small that I don't pay attention to them).

Although I had pre-registered for the G&LW show back when I registered for the February shows, I decided to skip it. I would have been too tempted to spend lots of money stocking up on crystals, and other than said crystals, there wasn't much I wanted at that show. The one I went to a couple of years ago was mostly finished jewelry and stone beads.

I enjoy the Best Bead show, however, as it's very laid-back and there's always lots of eye candy. It's a very small show, though, and this year a lot of the vendors who were there last year were absent. I'm not sure if the show was smaller, I think they may have replaced all of the missing vendors.

The main reason that I went to the show was to see local lampworker Margaret Zinser, who is a great beadmaker and a fun person. In fact, I feel pretty lucky to have such a talented artist in my hometown, because it means she's always at the shows! I love her beetle beads, and I was excited to see that she's now making large beads decorated with lots of tiny beetles. Way out of my budget for this particular show, but fun to drool over. I ended up buying a pretty set of barrel-shaped beads from her (which I already have a plan for) and some little spacers to put in earrings.

I intended to just window shop the rest of the show, but Chris did his usual arm-twisting to make me buy a few more things. Well, actually, he didn't have to twist me at all to get me to buy the strand of coins. Do you know how hard it is to find those things? Every belly dance costume supply place that I've seen only carries the cheap stamped ones. In fact, I really should have bought 2 or 3 strands, so I'd have plenty to make a bra some day, but oh well. I got the imitation dZi bead from the same vendor. I know the different designs have different meanings, I'll have to research what mine means. I just liked the colors. I have some Afghani jade that will go perfectly with it.

The cabs were my real splurge, however. They were just so pretty and Chris insisted that I should buy them, even though they were way more than I usually spend on cabs. The black-looking one is fire obsidian, and it has beautiful flashes of browns and oranges and hints of green. The greyish looking one is a pyritized ammonite, which has a nice spiral pattern from the shell. And the triangle one is actually drilled, so I can use it as a bead or a cab, and I think the receipt says that it's Binghamite. It looks kind of like quartz with tiger's eye or some other chatoyant golden stone through it.

I also bought some thread, but that was too boring to photograph ;) I got a great deal on Nymo, the primary thread that I use for my woven work, and I bought another spool of the cord that I used to make that notted necklace, this time in black. I wanted some green, too, but I didn't like any of the greens available. Well, correction. I liked them, but they wouldn't have coordinated very well with many beads.

And just for fun, here's a picture of what I bought in Flagstaff:

Beads, beads, I love 'em I need 'em...

(Ok, so the original song is about brains. I can take a little liberty, right?)

I managed to get down to the Post Office today and finally get my hot little hands on my box of Earthenwood Beads. They're all gorgeous and I can't wait to make things with them. I always love it when I can add a new artist's beads to my selection, and when it's a new medium, even better!

I've got hearts, robots, skulls, faeries and so much more. This is going to be great!

Today I also had to break down and buy some new Fall clothes. Dear Fashion Designers: Please stop trying to make me wear ugly 70s-inspired designs made out of cheap fabric. I'm rather image conscious and I know what looks good on me. I also know what won't last more than 3 trips through the washer and dryer. I'm not going to waste money on garbage and I'd really like to be able to buy some tops other than plain long-sleeved tees. Thank you, that is all.

Oh yes, and as it turns out, Lebanese food wasn't quite as exciting as I hoped. It was tasty, but the nearby Greek place offers similar fare in a larger variety and a nicer ambiance, for about the same price. Still, it's good to try new things, and beef shawarma is quite delicious.

As Promised, New Jewelry!

I just added the above bracelet, Brass Vein, to the website. It lies really comfortably on the wrist and looks great. I don't know why I've waited this long to make a bracelet like this for the site. I made one for myself a long time ago, and then stuck to using the technique for necklaces. Expect a couple more bracelets along these lines in the near future. The Woven Bracelets section really needs expansion, after all!

My findings order arrived yesterday! As a wholesale company, my supplier has a minimum... and I usually don't "need" enough stuff to meet that minimum, which means that after I take care of restocking everything that I'm running low on, I get to have a little fun picking out new things. This time around, I picked up two new colors of crystals, some really pretty new clasps, and Gold Filled findings! Yes, just in time for the holidays, I will have some lovely golden jewelry for sale. I expect to have some Gold Filled earrings in the next update, which should be on Monday.

Don't forget about my current ongoing sales: 15% off with the code Thanks2007 and a free beaded ornament with every order over $50, just mention the promotion in the comments section!

Show Report: 2nd Annual Fall Best Bead.

If I had to pick a slogan for the Fall Best Bead show here in Tucson, it would be, "Great For Shoppers, Not For Vendors." Of course, Crystal Myths would never accept that tagline, as it would scare away the potential sellers, but that's what I'll always think when the show comes up.

I had a fun time at the show on Saturday. Chris and I got there sometime between 11:30-12 and found the wholesale registration table. My favorite local beadmaker (and to be honest, one of my favorite beadmakers in general), Margaret Zinser was right across from there, so my first stop was her booth for hugs, catching up, and seeing what she had that was new. One of the things that I really like about Margaret is that she is always trying new things. What really captured my eye this time was the black double-sided beetle bead with all the accents done in silver Precious Metal Clay, but that was out of my budget. I'll be saving up to treat myself to one in the future, though! As much as I loved the new beads, I decided to buy one of the first beads of hers that I saw on-line and loved, back in 2004... The spiral teardrop. It's a good thing that I did, too, because she's probably discontinuing them. You can see the one that I picked in the center of the above image.

There were a lot of great vendors at the show, and we had a few hours until gaming, so Chris suggested that we do the tried-and-true "walk through first, decide what we want, then go back and get it." Of course, it was hard to exercise any self-control, due to the table full of the work of what must have been about 20 super-talented Japanese beadmakers. The lampworkers in Japan have such a different style from the ones here in America, and I am always captivated by their work. However, budget once again prevailed, and I did not buy anything there. They tend to have an even bigger selection in February, so I'll probably treat myself then. Even Chris saw some beads that he would wear, so he may also indulge next show.

I really wanted some small but attractive focals, so my first stop after the walk-through was Green Girl Studios. I'm a big fan of Green Girl, and in fact, I already have a lot of her pendants, but I wanted to pick up some more. You can't make them out too well in the photo (they're the pretty pewter pieces), but don't despair: you'll be seeing a couple of them in new necklaces within the next couple of weeks. I really like the tree pendant, and I might try to make it into a more masculine necklace. We'll see what the muse decides.

For more nice focals, I walked across the aisle to Lillypilly Designs. Heidi does great work engraving shells and various other materials. I picked out half a dozen pretty shell pendants, in various colors. I might keep the blue and brown one for myself, because it would go perfect with this skirt I bought in NY, but the rest are strictly business! I already have inspiration for the orange and ivory one, and the green and white. I know what beads I want to put them them, so now I just have to figure out the perfect design.

The other thing I really wanted was some pretty pressed glass. I'd picked up some nice things in NY, but I'd noted that I was running out of good blacks and whites. Bokamo Designs came through with some unusual Czech beads for decent prices. The black and white ones filled my need for medium-large interesting shapes in those colors, the mottled ivory is very versatile (looks great with bronze!), the green ones are just fun, and the agate-y looking ones at the top are what convinced me to stop and shop. They're gorgeous in person. I think I'm going to split them up, use half with the orange and ivory Lillypilly drop, and half with this carved carnelian dragon that I bought back in February.

Although I'd originally intended for my only present to myself to be the teardrop from Margaret, I simply could not resist the green faerie from Bickley Studios. I mean, come on! It's a green faerie! And I'm me. It's not like my logo is a green faerie, or like I was wearing a necklace with a green faerie pendant. She really is irresistibly beautiful, and she was just one of the lovely faeries and mermaids that were displayed on the table. The decision was easy for me to make, however, as she was the greenest, and I think I have some crystals and vintage leaves that will coordinate nicely with her.

Now, as for my reasoning for my personal slogan for the Best Bead: the items that you see above are just the tip of the gorgeous bead iceberg. There were a lot of very talented beadmakers at the show, with simply incredible beads. I didn't even mention the black glass bead with the silver metal dragonfly on it (now I did!), nor did I mention all of the big-name artists, nor did I buy any stones or seed beads or vintage, though I had opportunities to get all of those. There was a great selection. What there wasn't was a great crowd. Despite it being a Saturday afternoon, there were few shoppers, and even the really popular vendors who are swamped in Feb had space in front of their booths. A couple of sellers seemed decidedly unhappy, and I feel bad for anyone who traveled really far for what seemed like a dud of a show. I really do think that it's nice for Tucson to have a show sometime other than February, but I think they're trying too hard to make it a second February show. I honestly believe that the show must only be good for those who live in or near Tucson, or who can score cheap airfare and then crash with a local friend. For anyone else, it has to be too much cost for the amount of sales that they make.

I, of course, had a wonderful time. I didn't buy anywhere near what I do during the main gem show season, but I did pick up enough great things to spice up my Fall Line and keep my muse entertained until the big February stock up.