It's the Tucson time of year!

Wow - I have been neglecting my blog!  Bad me!  Well now that it is 10 months since my last entry let me share some of my discoveries and the people in Tucson.  We rolled into town on Friday, had lunch at El Minuto cafe, hit JGM and visited with one of my favorite vendors Toyo Feng of  Feng's Trading.. I got some great stuff!  Here are some of the more interesting beads ...

  

USA turq and dyed fossil coral on the left, angelite, chrysoprase and beautiful lepidolite (but a bad picture :) ) on the left  

  

Pink Botswana agate, carved rose quartz and carved green aventurine on the left, new jade and blue jade on the right

But did I remember to take a picture with Toyo? No! I will next time. We weren't too hungry after a late lunch so we just got some soup and bread at the store and had that for dinner.

On Saturday we started out at the Miners Coop show.  We saw some beautiful stones and had fun talking with a lot of different vendors.  I didn't get a single picture!  I did get some cute little peridot nuggets that I'm going to try to encase in argentium sterling silver cages when I get home.  I'm not sure it will work - but the idea in my head sure seems good!  Next we went to the Grant Inn and I found some pretty Nacozari turquoise at Stephen Mauldin Stone Co.   Isn't it pretty?  And I didn't get a picture of the pretty little faceted beads that I'm going to get :)

 I'll be going back to buy some on Monday since I was just looking around that day.  Then we had lunch at BJ's brewery and went to the Howard Johnson GIGM show.  Unfortunately my favorite turquoise guys, Nevada Turquoise Co., didn't show :(  I was sad.  I did get some pictures of some cool amethyst monster geodes from Brazil.

    

  

This is the same geode with my mom in the picture for size reference.  Next we went back to JGM.  I spent all my time at Best in Gems this time.  I was looking for cabs for a friend and my mom noticed these beautiful earring pairs!  So of course I had to go digging in the piles!

   

   

   

And here are Bik and Tarun at Best In Gems who stayed passed closing time so we could find our pretties!  And a shot of ALL those beautiful stones!

And, finally, today!  We hit Holidome today.  They opened yesterday so we stayed away since it is usually a mad house on opening day.  I wanted to make sure I checked out the offerings at Taj since they often have some unusual stones.  I'm still searching for one particular stone so I may have to go to their booth in GJX on opening day ... ugh!  Here are the pretties I got at Taj.  I love the carved, triangular tourmaline.

 

Next we went to Ivory Jacks and I got some cool moose antler figure 8 dangles.  These cost a bit less than ivory but still look pretty cool!

Next up was lunch!  We hoped to go to the Ajo Cafe - but, alas, they are closed on Sunday.  So we did what phone wielding person would do - called up Google maps and searched for restaurants near us.  We found one with good reviews and headed to the Sunny Daze Cafe. I have to agree with the reviews - the food was excellent, the service was wonderful and the restaurant decor is a kick!  Here is a picture of our waitress (darn I'm bad with names!) in front of just a few of the pink flamingos that inhabit the restaurant and the outside of the restaurant.

 

Then it was back to Holidome :)  This time we went to see what pretties we could find at Intrinsic Trading.  Of course I found some cool things - but the best of all were some earring drops in Mexican Purple Opal!! Woohoo!  I got some rough for this 2 years ago and have been waiting to see someone make something with it.  Thank goodness my mom saw it since I was checking out when she found it.

 

I did a quick visit with Lucky Gems to check on some pearls but didn't quite have the information to buy so we just started going up/down the rows at Holidome.  I'm noticing more and more jewelry sellers at all the venues which is unfortunate since that means fewer gem dealers are around.  Nevertheless I perused many of the gemstone vendors and found one, Earthstone, with these incredible, thin, curved abalone drops.  They are just so ephemeral!  The gal helping me went on a hunt for unusual cuts - unfortunately the ones she and I found were either WAY out of my price range or in stones that just don't do it for me.  They had this incredible thin, curved, flower petal shape - but it was in prehnite (too pale), mookite (too much orange and orangey yellow) and some black/white/orange stone - not my kind of colors but the cut was just amazing!  I did get some pretty, melon cut fluorite!

And the day at Holidome concluded with another beautiful sunset - showing the snow on the mountains!

Goodnight from Tucson!

Spring has sprung!

I've been a bit lazy about posting and spring is here so I wanted to share some of my spring-y designs with you.  :)

Spring Garden - Artisan lampwork, Swarovski crystals and sterling silver

Lemon drops - Freshwater pearls, peridot and sterling silver

Minty Fresh - Artisan lampwork, prehnite, hessonite garnet, Swarovski crystals and sterling silver

Tucson - day 7!

Well our trip to Tucson is winding down.  We leave tomorrow night.  My other love is soccer and several MLS teams are training here in Tucson so I may have to stop by and check it out tomorrow.  Today we started at the Kino Electric Park show.  I always stop and visit Cindy, Jennifer and Jason at World Bead Mine (formerly Royal Quality Gems).  I got some lovely beads but I'm afraid they're already packed up so no pictures of those.  I did get a picture of Cindy and her son Jason.  Jennifer was feeling under the weather so she stayed at the hotel today.

There are always interesting things to see at the Kino show.  Here are some very cool carvings in antlers and bone made in Indonesia.

This metal javalina family and barrel cactus were just so cute!

And you can always find gemstone rough here.

Big chunks of azurite in quartz

After Kino we did a quick run through the Best Bead Show.  That was a bit disappointing since some of our favorite vendors are no longer there.  We next headed to the 22nd Street show.  We love to visit with David Otteson of Broken Arrow Mine.  I got a lovely earring/pendant cab set of ribbon turquoise (but those are packed away too :)  ).  Here's David.

We also saw some gorgeous sunstone from the Dust Devil Mine and they had this cool rock candy dispenser.  You just put your hand under it and some candy coated chocolate rocks drop down.  It was pretty good too!

And there are always cool gems, rocks and fossils to see at this show.  I thought these rows of tourmaline crystals looked pretty cool.

And this show always has fossils.

Our last stop was at the JG&M Simpson street show.  I owed Toyo Feng one of the cookies my hubby made and kept forgetting to take it to him so I had to visit him one last time.  I also ended up buying a few more beads :)  I found some fossil coral in a cool shape and some green turquoise for a friend in England.  Since I've forgotten to take a picture with Toyo I finally got one.

Tucson - day 6

Today we had a busy day.  We started at AGTA, then went across the street to GJX, then around the corner and under the freeway to the Pueblo show, we made a quick stop with my favorite turquoise guys and ended the day by having dinner with an old friend.  What is amazing is I remembered to take some pictures!

AGTA is always interesting with lectures, demonstrations, some seriously high end gems and jewelry and interesting exhibits.  I did forget to take picture of the exhibits.  This year they had some of gems and jewelry from the Smithsonian Institute.  The gorgeous and huge Logan sapphire was just one of the treasures in the exhibit.

We walked across the street to the GJX show.  There I visited some of my favorite cab cutters Donald K. Olson.  They're from my neck of the woods in Bonsall.  I went in search of some interesting cabs for a friend of mine in England and I found a couple including this cool black and white fossil coral.

Fossil coral

We wandered around the show ogling at all the GORGEOUS diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and a multitude of just about every fine gem imaginable.  We were totally amazed by the creations of Peter Mueller.  His sculptures are made completely out of gemstones.  That little quail in his hand has a dumortierite chest, onyx beak, white quartz ring around the neck and so much more!

Next up was the Pueblo Show at the Riverpark Inn.  I had to visit Yaushing Gems since they have very reasonably priced gemstone, half drilled drops.  Here are some of the drops.

 

And here are the wonderful people who helped me as I searched for drops for myself and a friend in Australia.

We then wandered around the show and saw these amazing gemstone things.

Humongous crystal

Bowls made out of semi-precious gemstones

My mom and a giant crystal

I stopped with another favorite vendor of mine, Thomas Schneider (another one from San Diego), to see if he had any Afghanistan aquamarine crystals that a friend of mine wanted.  I found hers and some pretty ones for me!

Tom Schneider and me with some of his gorgeous rough gems

Aquamarine

We made another visit to our favorite turquoise guys (Nevada Turquosie) to say hi to dad!  Since I didn't get a picture when we visited with Shellbone earlier in the week I took one today.

And that's all folks!  It's time for this chick to hit the sack.  Later gaters!

Tucson - yesterday

Last night I was just too tired to post anything.  My long days and short nights caught up with me so I went to bed about 3 hours earlier than normal.  But I'm back at it tonight.  :)  Last night we had dinner at Caruso's with some of my jewelry making/gem buying friend.  Good Italian food and good friends made for a good time.  Here are some of the gorgeous things I got yesterday in Gem Mall.  I just LOVE the chrysocolla with copper drops!!!  I have so much fun digging through the pairs of drops at Intrinsic Trading!

Copper in chrysocolla on the left, red creek jasper on the right

Bumblebee jasper on the left, sonoran dendritic jasper and red creek jasper on the right

 I also visited Jerry Chiu at New Prosperity Gems (friends of another one of my favorite vendors Toyo Feng!) and got some lovely beads.  Here are just a few.

From outside to inside, black onyx, pyrite (won't those lovely, overlapping beads look awesome with a gorgeous lampwork focal in a bracelet!) and yummy, carved smoky quartz

I also found these hand painted, ceramic beads from Peru at J.P. Imported.   The Westie beads drew me in and I liked the matte dog paw beads as well.  The cactus were just too cute to pass up.  :)

Fun ceramic beads!