Santa Came Early!

Or maybe it was the Easter Bunny. I can't tell because it came in the mail and it was from Karen Hardy. If it had come in a basket or a stocking I would know for sure but it came in bubble wrap. Or if it had said "From Santa." I suppose Karen could have been acting on her own, with no direction from either Santa or the Easter Bunny, but it just FEELS so much like Christmas, or Easter morning, that I'm just not sure. However, since all the evidence is subjective (it feeling like Christmas), and there being no OBjective evidence that Karen was acting under the direction of a powerful and influential person (like the Easter Bunny), I'm willing to believe (for now) that it was a thank you gift. A SERIOUSLY ROCKIN' thank you gift. A KICK-ASS thank you gift. A gift from the QUEEN of ROCKIN' thank you gifts. No, the GODDESS of ROCKIN' thank you gifts. (Goddesses are higher than queens, right?) These are like WAY better than an Easter egg. Or even a Cadbury egg. Or Peeps. Better than Peeps. Blows Peeps out of the water. Peeps just don't stand up to prolonged fondling. Look at these BEADS!!!! It's like she saw my letter to Santa!!! (Hmm, that makes me think that it WAS Santa). And all I had to do was turn her on to Happy Mango Beads. I admit I was pretty happy myself when I found that site, but I stumbled across it myself out of sheer dumb luck.

Karen says she is now inspired to photograph and list the "oodles" of beads she has apparently been hiding from us. There could be a potential explosion of new beads in her Etsy shop, which I encourage you to visit regularly until beads begin appearing. If beads do not appear in the immediate future, I encourage you to convo her repeatedly until they do.

Booty from the Itty Bitty Bead Show

There was a bead show today in Kalispell that I went to. Just the other day I told myself, "No. More. Beads." Because I already have so many that one day when my eyes and my wits and my sphincters go I will still have some left. (The eyes and wits aren't what they used to be but the sphincters are still good.) But then I got this little flier granting me free admission to a bead show...

Well, as I expected, it was a pretty petite little show. About 9 or 10 small vendors. But I found some stuff that was reasonably priced, that I sort of had been wanting. I don't generally buy much locally (I prefer the scandalously low prices I find from the Goliath-sized Internet-based stores), but sometimes I find really cool stuff for a good price.

The stuff below was pretty reasonable, I thought, for regular retail, and there was a lot of gorgeous stuff actually. Fabulous pearls and gemstones. The stuff below is what finally hooked me:

Stick-shaped shell beads in deep iris green/blue, two strands of really reasonable blue-green magnesite, a few porcelain pendants (I like Chinese stuff), and some inexpensive metal beads and bead caps.


I grabbed up these pietersite barrels like Cruella DeVille at Puppies 'R' Us, and was captivated by the little tourmaline rounds; couldn't resist the little pomegranate pearls, needed some more amethyst purple glass beads for my Ultra Secret Christmas Designs, and grabbed the copper cones just because I like pointy things. Loved the ornate brass saucer beads--figured I could whip up some eye catching earrings with those without having to try.


Well, I feel cool now that I got to do my own Bead Show Post. I was feeling left out. I better go make something now.