Tucson day 4

It was raining in the morning, cleared up a bit, dumped on us during lunch and then cleared up for most of the evening. We got a few spits on the car as we drove home but nothing big.  But enough about the weather!

We started the day at the Pueblo show.  My first stop here is at Yau Shing Gems.  I have a GREAT time shopping for half drilled (and sometimes front drilled) beads - mainly for earrings.  Due to issues they had taking credit card payments in the booth I had to leave my pile of pretties with them overnight.  I'll pick them up first thing in the morning.  I can't share pictures of all the pretties I bought but I did take some pictures of the booth and of the gals who helped me with pricing, finding specific gemstones and anything else they could.

     Calibrated cabachons

Louisa and Annie at Yau Shing Gems

                                                                                                 The many half drilled and front drilled bead packages along
                                                                                                with strand beads at Yau Shing Gems.

While the folks at Yau Shing tallied up my invoice my mom and I went out for lunch.  We thought we would be finished with lunch before the rain came - but we were wrong!  It dumped on us during lunch.  Fortunately we were under an umbrella and did not get drenched.  A few rain splatters but that was it.

And here are the pairs I bought.  I just took a picture of one of each, but, in most cases, there were 5 pairs in each package.

Our next stop was at Chili Jewels where you can find some wonderful larimar!  I got a beautiful cabachon for another jewelry designer and some strands of small larimar and apatite for me. 



                                                                                        


This is Patrick at Chili Jewels who helped me do                         My little larimar and apatite beads
show and tell with the various cabs that my friend
had to choose from (via phone messaging)            

We left the Pueblo show, made a stop at Starbucks by the Costco (Kino and I-10).  From there we headed for the Electric Park show.  Well that's what I call it since that's what it was called for many years.  Now it is officially the Kino Gem and Mineral Show.  I hoped to see the giant slabs of opal that another gal saw but I either missed them or they sold.  We did see many other interesting things!

                               
Mexican Purple Opal which I LOVE                                                       I don't know what this is
















Dinosaur bone                                                       
                                                                                                       And another stone I don't know the name of



















Mom in front of a fossil with trilobites                                            And a cool ocean critter fossil






















Another mystery stone                                                                       Agate planters


Labrodorite rough!!! The flash is beautiful!


Awesome metal work! Isn't that donkey cute! I love his expression. And the cactus and javelinas are darling!

































Visiting with another of my favorite vendors World Bead Mine



Mom checking out the petrified wood                       

Here are some of the gems I got.
























Some nice peacock pearls                                                                   Pretty cloisonne and HALF DRILLED
                                                                                                            BEADS!!!  I don't find them often in Tucson
                                                                                                            Though you can't tell I got nice lapis, onyx,
                                                                                                            amethyst and hematite.  Probably 8mm

 

Peridot carved melon beads, NICE biwa stick pearls and carved, mother of pearl wing pairs.












That was it for the gem shows but I did meet up with an online friend who I had never, before, met in person.

Here are Kelly and I in front of the Sunny Daze Cafe where we and our moms ate.  It was fun to finally meet her in person after "knowing" her online for several years.

          

Tucson Day 3

Today (Sunday) started out quite rainy.  In fact when we got to Gem Mall it was pouring quite nicely.  Here's a picture of the muddy parking lot.

a rainy day at Gem Mall/Holidome

 Of course we didn't let something like a little rain slow us down.  :)  The first thing we did was stop by Best In Gems to pick up the earring pairs we picked out on Saturday.  Here they are!

Here we have bumble bee jasper, sonoran jasper, turquoise and ametrine

And these beauties were picked out for a fellow designer in Australia.  It's pretty trippy when I shop for her (Annette Piper Jewellery). I message her on Facebook using an ipad, show her pictures of some things I picked out, tell her prices and she lets me know which she wants or tells me to look for some other color, shape, ...  It's pretty neat knowing I'm "talking" live with someone in Australia while I'm in Tucson.  I've done this with a designer in England too.

Bumble bee jasper, K2 jasper, chrysoprase, turquoise, ruby in zoisite, ametine and sonoran jasper

She'll be shopping remotely later today (Monday) when I'm at the Pueblo show and picking through half drilled gemstone drops.

After we picked up and paid for all those pretties we continued to visit the vendors on my "need to visit" list.   Lucky Pearls was first on that list.  I didn't think I would find anything but, somehow, I managed to find some pretty pearls.  Tassels are hot right now so I got some tiny pearl rondelles and I got quite a few 2 and 3mm gemstone strands and I plan on combining the 2 for some beautiful tassels.  Look for that in future designs!  And here are the pearls I got (and some smoky quartz beads my mom got).

White baroque pearls, black (but they look purple) potato pearls, teensy pearl rondelles and smoky quartz beads

Next up was the Intrinsic booth in Holidome.  They have some absolutely wonderful gemstone earring pairs, pendants and, often, some different gemstone strands.  Here are the pretties I got.

Strands of tsavorite, apatite and phosphodiderite, pairs of parrot wing chrysocolla, mexican purple opal, laguna lace agate,  cherry blossom agate

chrysocolla strand, pink tourmaline in quartz, chrysocolla in quartz

Here is a picture of what the pair bins look like.  We have to dig through the bins looking at each pair to find the ones that we want.

 

And here are the piles of strands I got to pick from.  Gemstones are FUN!

After all that work we were ready for lunch.  The coffee/espresso booth also had a vegan sandwich so I got one of those.  It was quite good and so are their mochas ... and they have almond milk for those who don't want dairy.

After lunch we went to Gem Mall.  We stopped by the Intrinsic outlet booth and had more fun picking out pretties.  Here is a sample.

We headed over to Gems Ocean, checking out other booths along the way.  I bought some beads from them several years ago and loved that they had some unusual cuts.  They didn't disappoint.  I found this cool drops that allow me to add a bead inside the hole.  Pretty cool!

Crystal quartz, grey moonstone, amethyst and black onyx

My foot was getting pretty tired by this point so we looked around at a few more vendors and then called it a day.  The rain had stopped but all the clouds kept me from getting another beautiful sunset picture.

Tomorrow - Pueblo, back to JG&M to check out the opals and more gemstone earring pairs, then Kino Electric Park to visit another favorite gem seller and see if I can find some monstrous opal chunks that I saw another person post and, if we have time, we'll check out the Miners Coop.  Hopefully they haven't all closed up shop due to the rain.

Tucson Day 2

Today was opening day for Gem Mall and Holidome.  These are wholesale only shows that happen in 4 warehouse size tents.  I focused on those things I needed to get today and, hopefully, tomorrow, I'll have enough time to do a bit of wandering to see if I can find any new and fun vendors.  Here is just a sample of the pretties I got from Trilogy (carved flowers), Best in Gems (gemstone earring pairs), Silver Planet (sterling and vermeil bead/findings) and CGM (gemstone beads, sterling, vermeil and copper beads and findings).  I stopped by a few other booths to see if anything jumped out at me and, fortunately for my budget, nothing did.  :)

Here is just a sample of one flat of earring pairs at Best In Gems in Holidome. You can see ruby in zoisite, bumblebee jasper and lavendar moss agate.  Unfortunately I left all the pairs at the booth since they couldn't ring them up when I picked them out.  I was supposed to come back and get them after lunch and I forgot.  Oopsie!  I'll pick them up tomorrow.

This is just a sample of the pairs I had to choose from.  You can see ruby in zoisite, bumblebee jasper and lavendar moss agate.

After lunch I stopped at the Trilogy both to get more carved flowers.  I "discovered" them in 2016 and bought a LOT of flowers.  My stash is finally running low. Here are a few of the flowers I bought.

My crappy picture of some of the carved flowers I got from Trilogy - red jasper, purple aventurine, tiger eye (it really IS pretty in real life) and evergreen jade

More flowers from Trilogy - frosted quartz, olive serpentine and red jasper

I just LOVED the color of the top row of flowers from Trilogy.  Those are gold fumed on carved crystal quartz.  Absolutely divine! Below those is purple aventurine and amethyst.

I didn't buy anything at Ivory Jack's booth in Holidome but I do think this walrus skull is pretty cool!

Part of a walrus skeleton.  At Ivory Jack's in Holidome. 

And, since I knew I needed some specific sterling beads and caps I stopped at Silver Planet in Gem Mall. They are reducing their bulk silver so I didn't find the headpins or swirl bead caps I was looking for. But I did find a bunch of other cool beads, caps, spacers, ...

Some of the sterling silver and vermeil I got at Silver Planet

I had fun at CGM - but it was pretty time consuming. They are very busy so you have to "take a number". It took a while for my number to get called in order to ring everything up. While we waited they did give us water and snacks. Thank you CGM!

Sterling, copper and vermeil from CGM.

Oxidized sterling silver chain from CGM.

River stone!!!  I haven't seen this for years and I love its neutral color.  And it's carved!!  Woohoo!

Small faceted river stone and faceted blue lace agate.  I just loved the deep green and sparkle in this coated hematite.  I think it will make some flashy Christmas earrings!  :)

In the buyer registration area they have some pretty cool things. There is a display with beautiful things made from rhodocrosite. And the turquoise company selling in the marketplace area has some cool sculptures and specimens!

Just a taste of the rhodocrosite things you can get in Tucson.  Of course beads are also available in this beautiful stone.  :)

And, yes, there is TURQUOISE available in Tucson.  What do yo think of this turquoise encrusted cattle skull?  He had quite a set of horns! And behind the skull are buckets of turquoise rough!

Ye big hunk o' turquoise

Me and a cool sculpture - with many turquoise accents

And, as we were waiting for our golf cart shuttle to show up and take us to our car, nature provided us with a beautiful sunset to watch.

And sunset as it set over Gem Mall tonight.

Tucson day 1!

Technically it is day 2 since we arrived on Thursday but since we got in at 7PM and then had to eat, get groceries and check into our hotel we didn't do anything related to the show.  Travel days just don't count as show days - LOL!

So today we hit 3 venues - SRGJ (at what was formerly the Grant Inn), JG&M - Simpson Street (I HAD to see one of my favorite vendors Feng's Trading) and JOGS.  I did not take a single picture today - just too busy shopping! - so you'll have to settle for pictures of the pretties that I found today.  If you don't already know I'm still rehabbing from foot surgery 6 months ago.  The foot was pretty sore by the end of the day so tomorrow it will feel really special. We're going to Gem Mall and Holidome and those involve, literally, miles of walking.   But no need to worry about tomorrow now - let's enjoy the now and these beautiful gemstones!

At SRGJ I headed straight to SII Findings.  Yes I do have a list of things I actually do need (and lists from some of my jewelry making friends as well), but, as you can guess, I also buy many things that I just love!  At SII I was in search of sterling, gold and copper findings.  Some things I wanted were not available but they told me they'll restock tonight at their store in Phoenix and bring down the things I'm still looking for tomorrow.  Here are the goodies I got at SRGJ.

Copper and sterling

 After SRGJ we headed to JG&M to visit with Toyo Feng.  Here are the beauties I got from him.

Opal agate, beautiful carved turquoise ovals and little faceted turquoise rondelles.  The colors are beautiful.  Taking pictures with my little camera and hotel room lighting makes for bad pictures.

Black Onyx

A closeup of the black onyx.  I just love that matte finish with rivers of shine running around on the surface.

Azurite and carved blue tiger eye.

A closeup of the blue tiger eye - but I only caught a hint of the chatoyance.

Rose quartz and cape amethyst.  The colors in the cape amethyst are TDF.  My picture stinks!

Stick pearls and green garnet.

Lapis flat squares

Hematite flat squares

Tiny faceted turquoise and yellow selenium

After the fun at Toyo's booth we went to lunch at the Sunny Daze cafe.  That place so interesting and the food is pretty good!  I had the veggie burger and enjoyed it!  Then it was off to JOGS!

Here are some of the nice sterling and gold filled findings and gemstones I got at Kings Beads.

Aren't the padlock clasps neat!

All sterling. I was drawn to dagger and pointed shapes today!

Neat gold fill chain and a bad picture of twisted, faceted prehnite pillows

 And from my visit to one of the four Best in Gems booth at JOGS - these paired beauties!

Ruby zoisite, lapis and aqua chalcedony

The lapis points up close and personal

Azurite and sonora jasper

Flash labradorite and lovely, striped amazonite.  The stripes look white in real life.

Stunning ametrine (more points!) and beautiful lapis.

Fly Away!

I just love wings!  I made these earrings using wings made from azurite, resin and abalone.  You can find them all in my Zibbet shop.

Wings for your ears!