Making out like a banshee!! (aka. I love great gifts!)

A friend of mine once owned a bead shop but decided that being a shopkeeper was not her passion. She closed her brick and mortar store to open strictly online but then decided that wasn't really doing it for her either. Finally, one day she emailed me and said she was planning to have a garage sale. She was getting rid of ALL her beads and beading supplies.

I went to her sale but my purchases were limited by a strict budget I had put on myself. I went home very happy with the treasures acquired for a mere $20 but was not home an hour before the phone rang. She was on the line saying, "The sale is finished, come back over and I'll give you all of the beading and jewelry supplies I have left BUT you have to come RIGHT NOW or I'm taking it all to Goodwill!". Well, you can bet I hopped right back in the car and drove straight over to her house.

Now, all this comes on the heels of my decision to back away from beading a bit because of my misgivings regarding the origin and manufacture of the supplies needed. I had told myself that my artwork will ONLY use materials that I've found second-hand, salvaged from other sources or that have been gifted to me. These supplies definitely fit the "gifted" category!!

So here's a taste of what I got:
First... seed beads by the boatload!

What you are seeing in this photo are all of the seed beads, which I sorted by size into zip lock bags: 1 gallon of size 11/o, 1 gallon of size 8/o, 1 quart of Delicas, 1 quart of size 15/o, 1 sandwich baggie of size 6/o and 3 sandwich baggies of various fire-polished crystals, Swarovski bicones, cubes, niblets, bugles, drops, hex and triangle beads. Crazy....

Lots of thread - I love my Nymo and S-lon...

...and a large bin of findings and other treasures to numerous to name.

When you add in the 10 or so beading books, you could say it was a pretty darn good day!! My husband and I had a wedding to go to that night and it just about killed me to not stay home and dig into the booty. Oh, the sacrifice! :)

It's been a while since beads have been on my work table but, thanks to this incredibly generous gift, I am back in the saddle again!

I am notorious around here for tearing pretty pages from catalogs and magazines. This latest project is inspired by some of those pages. The article was about decorating and the use of color. I loved the combination of the lime green and cerulean blue.

I almost added purple but green and purple appear so often in my work that I decided to go with a fuchsia pink instead. Here are a few shots of my work-in-progress - I hope you will leave a note to let me know what you think :)