Hoarder....Oh in a big way!

Look at what was waiting for me in the mailbox today. I am so bad....but I couldn't resist! Here I just posted a couple of days ago that I have too many beads now look at what I've done. But they were so sparkly and shiny and pretty and did I mention sparkly?? Oh I'm like a kid in a candy store when it comes to pretty little gems. Though some of these are 12mm and 10mm...so not so little but pretty nonetheless :)


Here's just a short run down of what I've got here:

Strands:
The large almost black stones are Rainbow Obsidian
10mm Faceted Ametrine....oh so stunning!
7mm Rhodolite garnet
and a strand of mixed, Peridot, Amethyst, Rose Quartz bicones


Loose:
Lemon Smoky Quartz faceted briolette's
Blue Chalcedony drops
Aquamarine faceted briolette's
Amethyst faceted twist briolette's
Iolite faceted twist briolette's
Ametrine faceted drops
Green Topaz faceted heart
Pink Topaz faceted briolette
London Blue Topaz faceted hearts
Peridot faceted onion
Then about 20 more mixed faceted little gems

I'm so excited I can't wait to start working with all of these!! Can we say happy, happy, joy, joy??

I Survived....

prom weekend! The girls were gorgeous and the guys were handsome of course. For those of you who have teenage kids, you can understand the weekend I had.....I know I have a few more grey hairs after this one. I think mostly because we had a lot of rain, hail and intermittent snow, and my kids who don't have a lot of highway miles under their belts were having to drive quite a ways to their dance location, and even further for dinner with their friends.

I've tried my hand at oxidizing...and I'm not sure how well I really like it. The process or actually the solution that is used is quite toxic and being acid it's sure to burn the skin with the smallest drop. I know that I in no means have mastered it, and don't know if I will because I'm so uncomfortable working with it. I think what I may resort to doing is oxidizing the natural way using eggs, I just can't seem to keep eggs in my house though with the kids.

I've also recently been working with briolette stones. The wire wrapping can drive a person nuts. I tried it a long time ago and after only having one pair turn out after many feet of wasted silver, I gave up. Well I think I've finally gotten the hang of it, and really enjoy doing it. I've been amazed that I haven't had more than the usual silver left over. It's funny how you can write off something because it simply does not work for you then all of a sudden you try it again and voila, you've done it! Hmm...I'm just noticing that I must really like this paper, I've used it with all of these earrings..hehe