It's FRIDAY! (on Thursday)

I’m declaring a Friday. And yes, I know, it’s a day early, but I’m taking tomorrow off in honor of the fact that it’s been a really crappy past few weeks (months) for me and I need some downtime. Hopefully, there will be jewelry-making. There will definitely be chick flicks, a pedicure and chocolate…or donuts…or chocolate donuts.

So, it’s Friday (go with me here, people). And in my world, Friday calls for some beady eye candy so I thought it would be the perfect time to share my finds from the OC Bead Society Show at the Bowers Museum a few weeks ago.

I had kinda decided to cool my jets on the whole beaded cab thing…until I saw these beauties at the first booth I went to (don’t you love/hate how beads can make you immediately toss ANY kind of resolution out the window?)

This gal has round a GREAT way to recycle beads that split in the kiln. She grinds the backs down and VOILA! perfect cabs for beading around.

Then I bought these cute dichroic pairs for making earrings from Karen Nan:

She’s more known for her fused glass pieces with the grooves cut around them to make them perfect for wireworking, but since I’m not much of a wire person – I can do simple and wrapped loops and that’s about it – I went for the pairs instead.

Then, of course, I had to get my porcelain fix on at the Lumina Inspirations booth:

Unfortunately, they were more picked over after coming back from Tucson than I had hoped so I wasn’t able to get as many of their new designs as I wanted. In fact, there was an awesome seahorse pendant that I was just reaching for when another shopper grabbed it before I could (boo! hiss!) and, of course, it was the last one.

They used to also carry a beautiful line of Russian lacquerwork beads and pendants, but that portion of the business has gone away so she only had a few pieces left:

I gotta have my pansies…always!

And speaking of pansies:

I found this beautiful pansy button along with some mother of pearl double-drilled rings (perfect for clasps for a two-strand necklace or bracelet, yes?) at the button booth.

Also found these stunning buttons at the same booth:

After the button booth, I came across a lampwork artist (and shame on me, I can’t find her card to give her a shout out here, but will add it as soon as I find the info…I KNOW it’s around here somewhere!) who had gorgeous things. All were WAY out of my price range except these spacer sets:

I love the “texture” that the frit effect provides. They look like stones.

Then I found the Jujee Beads booth. Oh boy, I got into SO MUCH TROUBLE there!

But seriously, can you really blame me? How gorgeous are these beads? And I am a sucker for anything “ocean-y” so really, there was no hope once I saw them

And, of course, all great jewelry designs need clasps so I took advantage of some great sale prices at the Jess Imports booth:

That oughta hold me for a while! Well…maybe.

Lastly, my big find of the show was a vendor selling all kinds of brass chain and findings and delicate Lucite flower strands to go with them and I was so inspired by the materials that it’s caused me to launch an entirely new section of my website (as you know if you’ve been reading for the last week or so).

Here’s another example from the new Memoire Collection:

Although this design doesn’t use the flowers, I thought the green garnet rondelle and carnelian round went particularly well with the brass chain. And more designs with flowers are coming – I’ve got several finished that I haven’t photographed yet.

Okay, that’s enough. I can’t wait to get home and spend my day off tomorrow playing with all my fun stuff!

KJ

P.S. If you thought this was a great haul…wait til you see what I bought at the Rings and Things show last weekend. Coming in a future post…(I know, I’m so mean).