New Bracelets going into the One of a Kind Antique Mall, Woodstock, TODAY...

Apologies for not posting more, but I have been doing nothing but typing for almost three weeks, and it has NOT stopped coming in. That's good, right? Well... not when I'm having to turn work down, it ain't.

Meanwhile, I'm having great fun with Stretch Magic, my new fave material. Remember those stretch crystal bracelets I posted a few weeks ago? They're almost all gone. 

These bead soup bracelets, along with some necklaces, are all going into the Antique Mall (showcase 800 over in the showcase area to the right of the cash desk) in Woodstock, Ontario, later this morning. (FYI, the Antmall will be closed December 25th and 26th.) They are all one of a kind. If you see something you like, I can drive there and get it (if it hasn't been sold in the meantime). I can't guarantee that it will arrive before Christmas, but... between Canada Post overnight service at megabucks per package, ya never know. (Or you can pretend you're Italian and you have until January 6th to give gifts!). Please email me for availability and handling/shipping costs. Right now, it's ***around*** $5 regular surface mail in Canada and ***around*** $10-$15 to the US for small thick envelopes and/or parcels. 

As an FYI on shipping costs, if it's shipped in a flat bubble wrap pack and fits through that plexi "mail slot" gadget they have at the post office, it's not too expensive to ship, $3-ish for Canada, BUT it ends up being "automatically" sorted which means it goes through umpteen rollers in the mail plant, so fragile beads or wire-wrapped work could get squashed. Upgrade to a thicker wrapping or flat box, and you're in the $10-$15 range for regular shipping, but the parcel is hand-sorted and you might have to drive to your local post office to pick it up. My price to mail includes the cost of the envelope/appropriate packaging, and trust me on this -- it often takes as much time if not longer to pack and drive a purchase to the post office than to make the item in the first place. Each time I see "$25 shipping" even for a tiny package of beads coming from the US, oh, man, it hurts so, so much! -- but I do appreciate all the work that goes into packing items and getting them to the post office, often within hours of me clicking on "Buy Now". 

This is so pretty. 

Note that the citrine is not that richly yellow. It's just my crappy photography.

Roman glass bracelet with aquamarine rounds and pewter daisy spacers.

Brilliant peacock blue titantium-coated hematite:

These bracelets are comfortably loose on me, so would fit about a 7-7.5" wrist. As always, if you see anything you like but you need a custom size or want to commission a custom piece, please don't hesitate to email me. 

On other fronts I've signed up for The Gem Expo coming up on March 13th-15th and booked my hotel. I WILL be there this time with lots and lots of new turquoise including some beautiful hand-carved skulls and buttons. I'll have a great selection of Roman glass, matte lapis and really nice hand-cut carnelian in unusual colours: yellows through yellowy-oranges and reds to almost chocolate purple colours from Afghanistan, plus different sizes and shapes of old chevron beads from Nepal and some great Dzi-style beads. If you have anything on your wish list, I will try to find it for you and bring it to the show. 

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!

Raw Lapis & Javanese Glass Choker...

Strangely unproductive afternoon. I had all these plans for making things but time slipped away. Fridays are like that for me. I have to be pretty much finished up by 5:30, packed up by 6:00 and then winding down so I can be horizontal by 7:00, 8:00 at the latest, and asleep not much later than that depending on how much I read. I did get a half-dozen guy-style chokers with pewter pendants put together, as well as this raw lapis and Javanese glass bead leather choker. What usually happens is it looks okay for real, but then I can see all the holes and/or weaknesses in the colours and shapes when I see the photos.

I'm trying to decide if those beigy-coloured stone beads should get replaced by lapis beads of the same shape. Probably... d'ya think?

I'm also curious if there will be any response to this tinned copper seed bead rosary chain necklace with the very subtle addition of a dangling clear glass skull and Chinese crystal pendant.

I have lots of rosary chains in different colours all made to about 19" in length. I plan to spend tomorrow adding clasps. But now I'm wondering about an all-crystal rosary chain... Having finally finished watching the currently available Bones seasons on Netflix, I will queue up the last few episodes of Human Target and start making a crystal chain. I have been immensely productive here in terms of chain-making. I need to set up a small table at 90 degrees to my computer setup here for my beads and bead mat and I'll be able to string, as well.

It took me a while, but by the second season of Human Target I figured out it was filmed in Vancouver. (Bummer that it's been cancelled. It's a pretty good show. I'm not sure if that's because so many other movies in particular that I've tried to watch are so abysmally awful that this is good in comparison or not. Certainly the fight choreography is pretty good.) My first sight of Vancouver was in September of 1978, arriving at the train station after three days crossing Canada. Absolutely magnificent scenery and, certainly in those days, fabulous food and service on VIA Rail. It was almost shocking to see that it looked exactly like in my memory of the place, minus the TV show carnage, of course.

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!

Designing Men's Adjustable Leather Chokers & New Beads from the London Gem & Mineral Show

This is what I put together on Saturday at the market... again, variations on a theme which is my only way of determining which combinations of beads look better or more interesting together. I make as many as I can and the client then chooses the ones he likes. The rest go on the table. These may look fairly simple, but I am constrained by my client's budget as well as the fact that few beads come with large holes and I have to keep these masculine-looking, so matte beads work better, no facetting, darker beads, more handmade style findings, etc. Doing frilly/girly/fancy is easy. But masculine? Uh... no. Now that I've done all the cliches (arrowheads, skulls, that type of thing) plus umpteen variations on those, it's become harder and harder to come up with new ideas.

The three silver-plated pendants here were supplied by my client. They are finely crafted and tiny, so I needed beads that wouldn't overpower them. I lovelovelove the look of the copper tubing with the tiny Tibet-styled pewter beads. My problem is remembering where on earth I bought the copper tubing -- and why oh why didn't I buy more!?!?!? Using multiple jump rings together is also another of this client's favourite looks, especially when they start to darken and tarnish.

This is just one small part of my new stash acquired from the London Gem & Mineral Show held at the fairgrounds in London, Ontario, this past weekend. (I say "part of" because my stooopid camera batteries are being recharged as I write this.) I went with my pal Nancy, and we both had such a good time there talking with vendors. Learned a lot. Nancy found almost all the crystals on her list -- she was super-pleased with the prices and selection, and picked up cards to email dealers with her wish list -- and I got some new stones and pendants for the market.




The next local gem & mineral show is in Paris, Ontario, at the end of March/beginning of April, but there are also gem & mineral shows in and around Toronto over the next little while. For the most part, rock & mineral shows are all-age and interest but especially kid-friendly venues with lots of interesting stones and dinosaur bones to pore over, as well as kid-centric events -- stuff for them to do versus "don't touch!" and "stop grabbing!"

Also, don't forget, The Gem Expo is on for three days over this coming weekend in Toronto at the Hyatt Regency in Toronto, so November 23th, 24th and 25th. I'm going to try to go on Sunday if anyone wants to carpool -- anyone from the Woodstock/Brantford area or Kitchener/Guelph, meet up at Clappison's Corners and drive in together? Email me if interested.

More pix coming later today. Thanks for looking!