Orange County Roundup
I was in southern California for work recently (and boy, is Orange County different from New England). I did stop by some bead stores, so here's a quick review.
The Beading Place, 604 El Camino Real, Tustin
Bright airy place with a big selection of glass and some semiprecious. Also a fair amount of shell, in natural and various shapes/colors. A good selection of tools, and some interesting specials. The glass and tools are reasonably priced, the rest is a bit expensive, but we've been spoiled by Gemstar. Tustin itself was cute, there's an oldtown section and I wandered around for a bit. Best selection of glass of any of the shops here.
Bead City, 1932 S. Harbor Blvd, Costa Mesa
Lots of metal, and some swarovski. Nice strands of pearls, but more expensive than I could get elsewhere. They have a huge number of charms, all separated into different categories. Of all the places I visited they had the largest selection of Sterling Silver toggle clasps. And copper! Nowhere else had copper out, though I didn't ask for it. They had several varieties of copper toggles, and several spacers. There were strands of many semi-precious stones behind the counter. Overall a great selection and helpful people, but a bit on the pricy side.
Kristalle, 875 N. Pacific Coast Highway, Laguna Beach
This shop was an accident, I was really looking for the two stores below (notice the S. vs N. in the address) but it was fun anyway. No beads here, just crystals and finished jewelry, but there were some fun fossils and free cookies. The shop has been in Laguna since 1971.
Beadline, 995 S. Coast Highway, Laguna Beach
Friendly people, happy to make change for the meter. Lots of variety, from african glass and wood to japanese ceramic to shell and semi-precious. Prices were high, but selection was good, and if you only want a few of something in most cases they'll break up a strand for you. The best selection of beads of all five places.
The Bead Shop, 889 S. Coast Highway, Laguna Beach
Smaller shop than the one above, but had some interesting stuff. Prices vary from some strands of pearls and garnet on special for $4/strand to strands of vintage glass pearls for $400 (and I'm sure some of the things in the locked case were more than that). Lots of individual beads if you want to make one special necklace to remember your trip. I bought more here than anywhere else.
Labels: shopping
Shopping update
An update on Saturday's shopping trip...we spent more than we hoped but much much less than we feared. So it's all good.
My haul, apparently I really like hematite. What I really love is the matte hematite (the rounds in the bottom center of the pic). Lots-o-sterling, for putting things together (I ended up with all the headpins as things got split up...not sure how that happened). Some mother of pearl and FWP.
Fans and misc findings, and some 4mm for EP, which we are holding hostage until she backs up the master spreadsheet somewhere safe and then comes to visit us again.
EK has already run off with her share. Her share is probably the largest since she didn't come with EP and I to shop in Mass. (And even though it looks pretty big here, EP's share of this is probably the smallest since she didn't come this time).
Labels: shopping
Fun times!!
EA and I are off to Gemstar to do a massive shopping trip for our superfabulous Christmas show in Boston*!! I bet y'all can just imagine the two of us rubbing our hands together and grinning widely - "kid in a candy store" doesn't even begin to describe this. . . . .
*that would be the 20th Annual Christmas Festival at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston - November 3-5, 2006.
Labels: shopping
RnT Bead Show
Wow. We went to the
Rings n Things traveling bead show yesterday. All I can say is "wow." We spent about four hundred dollars, which seems like a lot, but here's what I brought home (half of the stuff stayed with EP, so imagine more stuff like this). And these are bad low-light pics, sorry.
Corner drilled cubes, about six mm per side, blue goldstone, tiger eye, sodalite, rhodonite, rose quartz, Australian green jasper:
Black silverleaf, cape amethyst, poppy jasper, rose quartz hexagons, blue goldstone faceted diamonds:
Mother of pearl:
Um, this one is upside down, how did I do that? (In my defense it was late). Labradorite (shines like opal or moonstone, oooh...sparkly), sugilite (also sparkly), citrine, ruby zoisite:
More Australian green jasper, tiger eye, and some silver:
And the last few bits (also upside down), tiger eye, citrine, pearls the color of garnet:
It was totally overwhelming, there was soooo much stuff at good prices (plus lots of stuff that was "good prices" but still way out of our league). Far too many people, although the staff was very good at checking people out and the line moved pretty well. The lighting was not the best, RnT had some of their own lights plus the room lighting, but it was still dim in the corners. We piled lots of stuff onto our trays and then sat on the floor and sorted through it all. We did stay relatively close to our list, or at least we justified all our purchases to ourselves!
Labels: shopping
I Love Carnelian!
Okay, so we took a
business trip to Gemstar this weekend, and I got a couple of strands of the most fabulous carnelian nuggets. I made this 'bracelet', the only problem is that it is (at least for me) a little too large as a bracelet. I've found that it fits well on my ankle, however. The beads are on 18g sterling silver wire and I made the clasp the end of my last bead wire. The pic is a little blurry and we don't have any decent lighting where I'm photoing (is that a word?).
Labels: shopping
