20 feet of beads

We got these kilo bags of mixed stone beads in and I brought one home. Wow. I knew that it would string up to be 20feet or so of beads and I knew that it was a major mix with shapes and sizes galore but I am still amazed. There are four amazing cabs (flat backed stones with no holes) in here and six broken or no-hole beads but other than that, every bead is useable and interesting. There are several different beads shaped like Moravian stars. Six flat pendants in dyed jade, jasper or quartz that are big (20x30 or 20x40mm) and five long beads in different jaspers. I could make jewelry out of this bag for the next year if I didn't need too many earrings.

If I still sold jewelry I'd buy one of these and make some 'assorted' bracelets or necklaces. It's only $18 a kilo.

I will add some pics later today.

egg hat?

Wow. There really isn't anything you could say about this.

Can you imagine what you would say to someone who showed up, say, at your work dressed like this? Well, at my work we probably would all get kinda excited for some weird reason, but we are beadfreaks.

See more scary craft ideas at Craftster.

staff challenges

Every month at each store we have a staff challenge where everyone gets the same ingredients and has to make something with it. Everyone decided I should judge, which means I don't get to/have to make a project but I am not sure if that is a good thing or not. It is really hard to judge when you are comparing, say, earrings made with felt and a skirt made with felt. Well, the skirt isn't exactly a great pair of earrings but the earrings aren't exactly a great skirt. Everyone who works here has pretty good craft skills, so it's really rare that I can automatically eliminate a project because of bad gluing or messy wire work. I try to go with my gut reactions to to work. The one that makes me say 'wow' is generally the winner.
That's why this shrine by Mollie won. I mean, look at it. She made the whole thing from foam core (a la Carol Owens) and covered it with newspaper. There is even a drawer that opens. I loved it.