I can haz MORE beads?!

Because pictures are a lazy blogger's best friend :-)

And also because, my brain is too fried from life crap to write witty, interesting blog posts. Not that I was every able to do that before, but I was just looking over some of 2008's greatest hits and hey, I occasionally achieved at least a chuckle or two.

Oh, and the other thing I learned when reviewing the 2008 posts - my bead buying habit is, um, slightly worse than I remember it being.



Someone should probably stop me some day.



But today is not that day (and heck, tomorrow is probably not that day, either):




Because, seriously, who could resist these beautiful raku beads with their rustic feel and beautiful, earthy colors with splashes of metallic (which sooooo do not show up well in these pictures)? Oh, and did I mention they were on sale?

Yep. Sale.


You wish you were me, right?

Well, if you didn't before, you do now after seeing these yummy C. Koop enamel beads, clasp and pendant. I don't even have to talk about them - they speak for themselves. Trust me, I could hear their voices in the bead store saying "Buy me...BUY ME!" They got louder because I tried to pretend I wasn't hearing voices at first...I thought the store owner might think I was weird and throw me out or something. But then, she realized I was just waiting for her to say the magic word: "SALE!"

These lovely pieces of lampwork came from Unicorn Beads at the Costa Mesa gem show back in December. Which reminds me, there's another show this weekend. Too bad I spent all my money on eBay beads yesterday. Oops!

If you've been following along here for any length of time, you might remember my oh so sad post from last year about how I lost (the horror...THE HORROR) a brand new bag of gorgeous furnace glass from Mingo and Asho of Glasscapes right at the show where I bought it. Well, I e-mailed Asho right after the show to see if she had found my poor abandoned beads and alas, they were not to be found. Fortunately for me, she had a booth again at the next show and when I walked up and introduced myself, she remembered my e-mail and immediately offered me a discount off any new purchase. How totally cool is that! Especially because their glass is just so lovely. In my opinion, if you're going to use furnace glass in your designs, you shouldn't buy from anyone else - no one can TOUCH the color combinations or artistry that these two people achieve with their beads. Heck, you can tell just from look at the preceding picture how stunning their work is. My only complaint is that their beads look like such yumalicious candy that I often want to eat them rather than design with them...except I think it would be bad for my teeth ;-)

Lastly, I found these stunning lampwork glass and dichro leaves at Brea Beadworks. Oh...My...God. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. The only downside is that these babies were most definitely NOT ON SALE (no matter how I begged and pleaded and groveled) and therefore I couldn't buy one of each and had to limit my selection to what you see here. Which was nearly impossible to do because oh, they were all SO GORGEOUS.

And no, I have no idea what I'm going to make with them. Why do people always ask me that silly question? The muse cannot be rushed people. Chillax.

KJ

P.S. I officially have TWO, count 'em, TWO, blog followers. Yay! I am no longer blogging at myself and therefore am officially NOT CRAZY...er...talking beads aside, that is.