Saturday Morning Woodstock Farmers Market Setup...

Sometimes there'll be no teardown at the end of the market, the food vendors leave their shelves and coolers in situ and the rest of us non-food vendors leave our tables as is with cloths draped over everything.

I found out the hard way that I am located in front of double storage room doors and came back one Saturday morning to find at least two of my tables moved all over the place, the cloths and surfaces every which way, which means I now have to consolidate all my stuff onto the one table that is rarely moved.

What hides under the tablecloth. Any empty bins have to be stacked on top of the table, as well, for when the floors are washed.

Everything back in place. Takes me about half an hour to do this.

Ready to go. Yes, all that was hiding under the sheet! I'm off now to get coffee, visit and buy the week's groceries, and it's barely 6 a.m.

Unfortunately, this Saturday it was a full teardown. Next week I'll show you how I pack my bins.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sneak Peek of New Bracelets, A Trip to Toth's & A Stunning Turquoise Score...

It was a really busy weekend. No Saturday market at least for the craft vendors, bread-sellers and meat guys because of the fair... and here I thought I could sleep in. Silly bobo. Somebody forgot to inform my internal clock, because, yeppers, I was wide awake at 3:30 a.m.

First, it was off to breakfast at 9:00 a.m. at the Chuckwagon with Brenda (a pal at the One of a Kind Antique Mall: Vendor 861 with crazy good prices on semi-precious and sterling silver jewellery, watches and doodads) and her brother Richard to fuel what became a four-hour marathon of oohing and aahing at Toth's Fossils and Minerals in Ingersoll. Even after four hours, we still didn't see everything.

You can see great pictures of the store itself on Geza's website, but here are pictures of our exploration of the backyard.

I didn't buy a lot... "only" some killer turquoise. Now, this is what really interests me: it was labelled as Pakistan Turquoise. Okay... I didn't know turquoise came from Pakistan and assumed that these beads may have been originally Chinese turquoise subsequently acquired in Pakistan, hence the label. On coming home, I did some research, and it turns out there are vast copper deposits in parts of Pakistan being fairly recently developed (also in Mongolia there huge copper and other mineral deposits being mined, with turquoise being found, as well), and some websites do mention turquoise along with the other semi-precious stones for which Pakistan is well-known, but no information is readily available on the exact location(s) of any producing turquoise deposits.

Flattish puff oval turquoise beads, some with 1mm-2mm holes:

Quartz geode in the back, two pieces of chrysocolla rough, and the most spectacular (to me, anyway) of the turquoise beads:

More puff oval turquoise beads.

Is this Pakistani turquoise or Chinese turquoise from a Pakistani dealer (in Tucson, actually) who originally acquired it in Pakistan? No idea. It bears a strong resemblance to Hubei turquoise from China, but this looks older and cruder (i.e. more "tribal", which is always a good thing!) than anything I've ever seen in my admittedly very limited experience. If anyone out there has any information, I would love for you to get back to me. I'll group, price and photograph the rest of the beads soon.

Meanwhile, on more domestic fronts, I made strawberry peach jam late on Sunday afternoon. Guess who in the background? Couldn't resist at one of the estate sales.

Yesterday I finally sat down and made a pile of seed bead bracelets and anklets for the market. For some reason this summer there was a run on all my seed bead and chip bracelets I'd made over the past three years.

I'm beginning to hate Blogger again: for some reason it wants to import photos in any view it wants to, so long as it's different from the way it was saved. This photo is upside down.

And this photo is sideways:

I'm preparing a little tutorial on how I do crimping which involves using two sizes of crimping pliers since a few of my pals have been asking. Stay tuned for that.

Thanks for looking!

Skull Bracelets & Necklaces

I made these yesterday while watching Downton Abbey.

I had made the skull & noose bracelet, sent a picture to the customer I had in mind, he ordered it in a necklace version. I had in the meantime dug out those patinaed brass tubes that I've had for years and never used, made a skull necklace version for his approval, as well as two long necklaces, one with an asymmetrical wire-wrapped section of 6 mm quartz crystals and one with 6 mm Indian agate (which I got from Nelson Gemstones).

This morning I sent out the necklace picture and got another order for the plain skull bracelet.

Downton Abbey done for now, I've got The Unit cued up and ready to go as soon as I track down some lunch... or maybe it's an early dinner now. Yes -- yikes, it's almost 2:30. Then it's back to making skully things.

Multitasking central:

Hope you're all having a productive week. Thanks for looking!

White Pearls, "Black" Pearls -- no, not the ship -- & Turquoise

I had a commission to do for today's market, riffing on a so-called black (aka a dark iridescent purple) and white pearl necklace with plain zinc spacers that Nancy had designed before leaving town and me to my own much less creative devices. I substituted these mini-bump spacers for no other reason than I'm almost out of the plain ones.

Then I wondered what these very pretty 5mm pearls would look like with the same Kingman turquoise chips I've been playing with for the past week or so. Needs more work in the colour-correcting department, but I think it came out okay.

Thanks for looking!

Green Vintage Button Necklace & Kingman Turquoise Bracelets & More Market Necklaces...

Well, my green vintage button necklace was a hit. My customer was extremely pleased. She certainly looks happy!

My two new -- finally! -- Kingman turquoise nugget bracelets. The beauty of the large clasps is they hold the bracelet in place, i.e. if there is a focal bead, it will remain on top of your wrist where it can be seen.

My favourite of the two -- the bird is free to move, a bonus for fidgety people who like to play with things.

And a pile of necklaces, the front bits designed by Nancy, tweaked and finished by me and ready for sale.

Thanks for looking!

New Kingman Turquoise... almost

Here, to whet your appetite, are just some of the stunning Kingman turquoise strings I've been pricing and splitting up into more palatably-priced half, third or quarter strings. Those rounds you see are 8mm bronzed turquoise. Just gorgeous. In some lights the bronze looks gold, in other lights copper. I'll post detailed pix of all the strings tomorrow with pricing.

Part of my shipment of colourful skulls from Joanne at Nelson Gemstones -- turned into a haul of dyed howlite skull bracelets and chokers for tomorrow's market...

And dyed howlite earrings...


In one short week from now I will be at the venue setting up for the Grand River Bead Society show in Guelph (October 27th & 28th, 10:00-5:00). See you there! But now to bed -- 3:30 a.m. will come far too early as always, then off to the Woodstock Farmer's Market -- yes! we have a Facebook page! I sure hope it's stopped raining by then.

Thanks for looking!

Chakra & Turquoise & Amethyst Stretchy Bracelets

Something I've been working on -- a way to quickly experiment with colour and texture and which is also entertaining in a mindless sort of way. I've said before that colour is not my forte.

Chakra or Rainbow Stretchy Bracelet:

Cherry quartz, citrine, peridot, blue apatite and amethyst chips, elastic, about 6-1/2 inches

Amethyst & Chinese Turquoise Chip Bracelet:

Amethyst, Chinese turquoise chips, pewter beads, elastic, about 6-1/2"

Two Bracelets:

The chips are larger and that makes for heavier bracelets than others I've looked at. 

I believe I will be off to Toronto on Friday and I will be getting more colours from Bamiyan, ditto more stringing wire which I'm just about out of, and Arton has some new base metal and/or pewter beads that I got a couple of weeks and reeeeeally like, so I will stock up on those... if they still have them. I recently bought some very cool pewter saucer beads from somewhere and do you think I can remember the company? Phhht.

Thanks for looking!

Silly seed beadiness...

I don't know why I keep making these, but the kids like them and are buying them, so.......... here are some more:

It's very difficult to figure out what people might want at any given time, and I often wait for people to request things. On Saturday, I got a request for eyeglass holders or necklaces, whatever they're called. But it has to be lightweight she said. Unfortunately, the patchwork seed bead necklace she wanted was the perfect weight but several inches too short. I'll be doing another one of those for her this week, but in the meantime I started one with these multi-seed beads to see what she thinks. 

I only need a few of the rubber grips for the arms of the glasses, but had to buy a bag of 100 in a local store. I could to the next town and buy a few, but then have to account for gas and driving time. Cheaper to buy the big bag... I guess I will be making a lot more of these. I remember seeing a whole table full of them at a craft show several years ago, and while I thought they were really beautiful, I don't remember ever seeing anyone wearing them. Is it because more and more people have progressive lenses these days and don't need to be switching between different glasses? Quite possibly, as per this customer, the original ones I saw were too heavy to actually wear. Sunglasses have lived on top of my head my whole life. Currently, they're the kind that are worn over regular glasses so I can dispense with needing prescription sunglasses.

What's taking me time right now is figuring out how to make these holders multi-purpose. I'd like people to be able to take off the rubber thingies and easily turn their holder into a necklace if they want.

I also got an order for a dreamcatcher for a guy's rearview mirror. For the past couple of days I've been researching how to make them, as well as find out if there is any significance to the weaving patterns or other considerations. There are some really gorgeous variations out there. He kind of left it open as to what I end up doing: he likes my style, do whatever I think is best. I can hear all of you who do commissions immediately thinking, "Uh, oh... Been there, done that, don't do it anymore." He likes my style, does he? Hokayyyyyyyyy...

As well this week, I will be going ahead and making another solar quartz necklace with "peacock" dyed freshwater pearls for another tentative commission. This should look really interesting and a total contrast to the one with the natural pearls, the natural pearls picking up the white of the quartz, the dyed pearls picking up the centre patterns in the quartz.

Stay tuned for photos... and thanks for looking!