Beautiful Carnelian from Afghanistan...

Just got these in this morning from Afghanistan, first photos...

18-inch strands of mixed carnelian beads ranging in colour from white, yellow and orange through to deep carnelian reds and browns to black. These strands are mostly rounded tube-ish shapes from 7mm wide x 7-10mm long. There are a couple of strings of oval beads,10-12mm wide x 12-15mm long. Plus there are six strands of matte bicones, 10mm wide x 8mm in length, pale orange to medium red-orange.

Online blog price each: $60 plus shipping. Email me and I will send you a picture of exactly the string(s) you will be getting.

Note that I will have these at The Gem Expo in Toronto at the Hyatt Regency on November 21st, 22nd and 23rd. Get your discount admission tickets by subscribing to their emails.


Thanks for looking!

Roman Glass From Afghanistan...

They're here! It's all wonderful! Sneak peek!

I'll get individual pictures up ASAP, but if you see something you think you might be interested in, email me.

Thanks for looking!

2 New Necklaces...

I finished these off at my table at the Woodstock Farmer's Market this morning.

Like wearing a mountain: raw lapis lazuli focal, hand-cut barrel turquoise, sponge coral barrels and handmade Ethiopian brass and copper beads ($90):

An elegant selection of  faceted etched agate and horn Dzi-style beads interspersed with blips of milky green aventurine nuggets and chips, bone pipe, pewter and zinc beads and clasp ($59):

As of this writing, both necklaces are for sale. If you'd like a similar style, or you'd like these shorter or longer or even swap out/add some different colours, email me your ideas and requests.

I also have lots of the Chinese barrel turquoise beads, priced by the full and partial string or by the each, as well as a few of the lapis lazuli chunks at $7 each. Email me for prices and photographs. These are all hand-cut with each bead unique.

As always, shipping and handling are extra and depend on your location and need for speed. I take both PayPal, as well as Square (I can now send you a Square invoice via email: you process the payment and we're done).

Thanks for looking!

Moving Day at the One of a Kind Antique Mall...

... plus news of sales and new arrivals...

Today was moving day at the One of a Kind Antique Mall. I moved all of the collectibles and antiques over to our new booth located two booths from the cash desk in the first aisle. More prosaically, we are right across from the women's bathroom. On the one hand, ewww, right? But... guess whose booth everyone is going to be heading directly for afterwards? Hah. We also are distinctive because our two dark blue walls; and with the yellow wallpaper on the back wall, it's instant interior day-cor without lifting a finger.

Last look at the old half-booth:

Getting there... I do lovelovelove my dolly. Even the bookcases were a snap to move. I moved the small dishes in the buggy.

Nancy's display table was the last item to move, thanks to Jack's diligent delegation and John's and a pal's strong arms -- and you get a sense of how cavernously cavernous this place is: at least half again as long behind us, three aisles with booths on each side of the aisles on the first floor for a total of three floors of booths and displays and old offices with tons of nooks and crannies:

The goodies in Nancy's display table:

Now to shuffle things around a bit...

And done:

Our

20% OFF Moving Sale 

Vendors 800 & 847 

(excluding jewellery) 

is still on, but it won't be for very much longer. Come and visit us! There are lots of great sales throughout the Antique Mall, so it's worth a visit. Closed July 1st, alas.


New Beads & Items Sold:
Literally winging its way from Afghanistan as I write is a big shipment of individually hand-cut and leather-polished matte lapis and turquoise beads. My dealer told me he has two new traditional tribal designs hundreds of years old, an arrow and a "spoon" shape. I will post pictures as soon as they arrive.

Meanwhile, this month, I've sold several strings of interesting beads from the showcase: gone some time this weekend were the three strings of chunky green Roman glass hanging in the back, as well as the string of raw lapis chunks fourth from the bottom. I still have the white with stripe tube beads hanging on the left, and maybe one remaining of the deep blue with occasional blobby dots of colour tube beads you can see there on the right.

Fave Use of My idiotPhone
That's what the "i" in iPhone stands for, as far as I'm concerned. Meanwhile, I take lots of pictures. I'll tell you, though, when my current contract is up, I will go for whatever model of phone has the best camera -- are you listening, idiotPhone designers? Your public is speaking to you -- yet still processes credit cards. Go, Square! I love you to bits.

I got this order on Saturday at the market and, rather than drive myself nuts trying to write and later decipher a detailed description, I took a picture against a ruler of the exact length my customer wanted using the anklet I made last year and put beside it the bracelet colours she wants matched.

Happy Dominion Day to all you who remember that we are at least still nominally part of the British Empire, and Happy Canada Day to everyone else. Since my typing is done and gone, I will hanging out here in my wonderfully breezy little piece of paradise chasing birds away from my strawberry plants, making jewellery and sorting beads for The Gem Expo in Toronto, which is coming up faster than fast.

Thanks for looking!

Roman Glass Beads from Afghanistan...

Oops. I forgot I was supposed to post these. Many thanks to Vienna for reminding me. I -- the Queen of Procrastination -- will be moving tomorrow and Wednesday so I just had to dig these out from under the snow -- joking -- they're safe and dry, but were buried in a box. I will do anything to avoid packing early as I love to leave everything until the last moment. I mean, you never know -- I might need whatever "everything" is, right? (I'm not a total loss, I do label boxes now...)

I got a really good deal on these Roman glass beads from Afghanistan. My wholesaler has a wall where they hang ends of lines and super deals and in November I scored these beads. I'm passing the savings along to my customers.

Each string is one of a kind. I chose strings with no broken beads, and the beads (drilled through) all have 1.5 to 2mm cleanly-drilled holes, so they're perfect for knotting onto leather, for example. The strings of flat pieces, which are drilled at each end, look to have about 1 mm holes. Email me if you'd like more closeup photos -- and for availability! As they sell, I will mark it on the photos.

Here is the photo I first posted, and I'll post the strings in the same order below from left to right.

Comparison of the large chunky Roman glass beads, and the smaller chunky string; 1.5-2.0 mm cleanly-drilled holes; as you can see, there's nice iridescence on many of the beads.

Large chunky Roman glass beads, about 20" in length, $65:

String 1, flat pieces of Roman glass shards, drilled at each end, hole size approximately 1 mm, about 18" in length, $32:

String 3, flat pieces of Roman glass shards, drilled at each end, hole size approximately 1 mm, about18" in length, $32:

String 2, flat pieces of Roman glass shards, drilled at each end, hole size approximately 1 mm, about18" in length, $32:

String 3, Roman glass shards with the light shining through:

Small chunky Roman glass beads, about 18-19" in length, $60:

Medium to deep green graduated Roman glass coin beads, slightly matte or frosted effect on some of the beads, about 18" in length, $16:

Light pink, brown and green Roman glass coin beads, slightly frosted/sugary surface on many of the beads, about 17-18" in length, $16:

Shipping and handling is extra; the final amount will depend on weight, where you live, your need for speed and if insurance is required. I take Visa and MasterCard via Square, as well as PayPal. Please email me for availability. 

Thanks for looking!

New stuff...

Every time in the past three weeks I've sat down here to write and post pictures, something happens -- you know, like a pesky rush typing job comes in or I have to leave or something stoopid sings its siren song and off I go... like the doc in Stratford on Wednesday where I scored a pair of bat-winged skull earrings and a string of large genuine amber chips. Anyway, I was at the Toronto Bead Society Bead Show last Sunday, the 26th, and I brought home a few goodies...

I'd finally finished off some new designs (started by my pal Nancy) and put them into Thyme on 59 the day before, after the market...

And then today, Nancy and Joy showed up at 8:30 a.m. bearing pizza for lunch and dragged me kicking and screaming off of Pinterest to make jewellery and we got lots done for the table tomorrow. Here are just a few things.

I will come back later to write captions. Thanks for looking!