Tucson Day 1

We arrived in Tucson this afternoon.  Fortunately my mom is still doing well enough (she's in her 80's) to go with me and help me shop for beautiful gems!  We got out luggage and rental car and headed to the JGM Show.  It actually starts tomorrow but Toyo (Feng's Trading) lets me do some shopping while he's setting things up.  Of course he's continually tempting me with beauties that he's pulling out of boxes!  Here are some beautiful, double drilled pearls he has (and a peak at those maroon granulated pearls I'm getting).
       

I like these because they are a beautiful maroon color and look like they are granulated on top.  Very different!
    

And a shot of what I have in my basket so far :)  I'll be going back tomorrow to see what else needs to go home with me.  Aren't those amethyst leaves gorgeous?!!


After doing a bit of shopping with Toyo we headed north and east to find our condo.  We dumped our luggage, freshened up a bit and then went to the Blue Willow for dinner.  They have delicious food and a vegan vegetable stir fry which is quite tasty.  We both finished off the meal with desert - chocolate crepe with strawberries for my mom and a vegan coffee cake for me.  Quite delicious, but, unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures!

Tucson - Day 6 - Pearls!!!

Today we hit two retail oriented shows - Tucson Bead Show and To Bead True Blue.  I did check out the Craftoptics magnifying glasses and they are quite cool. Buying them will have to wait though - since my budget is expended in beads and gems right now ...  I found some beautiful ceramic beads and drops - didn't take a single picture - aagghh!  And I'm too tired to dig out the company name right now.  All I did at this show was get information about wholesale pricing and examine their products.

After a quick lunch and a Starbucks stop we headed to Lucky Gems to paw through their pearls in Holidome before the hoards descend on opening day tomorrow.  I found some beautiful pearls and had fun letting Susan (here she is with her hands covering her face - her boss didn't want pictures taken of the employees - but saying no just encourages me to disobey - oops!)

The boss did let her take a picture of me with the sea of pearls in the background.

Susan also helped me out last year so it was fun to meet and talk with the same person 2 years in a row.  Here are some of the pretties I bought ...

From Lucky Gems it was off to GJX with time to visit only one vendor.  Since I wanted to make sure I got some of the remaining sterling silver stock from Ezel Findings I went there first.  I finally got to meet Sun Young in person!  Yay!  Did I take a picture?  No ...  Booo!!!  I was glad she still has some of her old sterling silver stock.  Because of cost they are switching to plated brass ... wah!

Well since I'm falling asleep as I write this that must mean it's time to hit the sack.  Good night all and tomorrow I join the Holidome madness ....

Random new things to start out June

I decided to set some of the pretty opals I bought in Tucson (so it takes me months to get around to things - what can I say!).  Here's a pretty pair in sterling silver.

It is very hard to catch the flash with the camera.  This pair has nice red (actually orange) and green flash in them.  These beautiful opal earrings are available in my Etsy studio.

And I finally got some decent pictures of this pen.  I love the organic look of the handmade lampwork beads!

This organic purple and silver pen is available in my Etsy studio.

And I made these pretty earrings with these gorgeous mint green lampwork beads with little cameo looking roses all around them.

These mint and pearl earrings are available in my ArtFire studio.

Happy June!

For the bride!

I was excited to get a custom request to make earrings and a bracelet for a bride to wear on her wedding day!  I just finished the set and love the bracelet design.  I'll have to make some variations on this for my online studios.  I used AAA aqua chalcedony, AAA pearls and sterling silver for this set.  Enjoy!

It's time to start holiday gift shopping!

I just delivered my designs to the Fallbrook Art Center for their month long Art of the Holiday show. If you're looking for Christmas presents and are in or near Fallbrook be sure to check out all the gorgeous designs as the Art Center. A portion of every purchase goes to support the Art Center. Here are just a few of the designs I have for sale there.






      

A bit of this and a bit of that....

We had a wonderful Christmas. Bro came down, brunch at our house, dinner at my mom's. All the food was fresh and absolutely delicious! Here's a picture of Gino in front of the tree. He wasn't quite sure what to do with all the strangeness going on. He got worried enough that he didn't eat breakfast Christmas morning. However with fresh turkey scraps mixed in at dinner, he scarfed that down! One special present I got was a hand knit scarf from my mom and knitted by my cousin. My cousin knitted gorgeous scarves for my mom and I earlier this year with some wonderful yarn we bought at a show (and found some more at a local shop - Black Sheep). We loved the scarves so we bought some of this yarn (in gorgeous lavendar/grey/white) to send to my cousin for a thank you. I REALLY liked that yarn too. My sneaky mom bought some more and sent that to my cousin to make me another scarf. It's gorgeous - and I need to get a picture with it on.

On the jewelry side of things I made some earrings using the gorgeous AAA pearls and wonderful new findings I got for them. Here are 3 that I made (and all 3 are already sold locally!)