A Visit To The American Bead Show

I went to my very first American Bead Show yesterday, and it definitely won't be my last.  I've always bought my goodies from online wholesalers or local stores.  This bead show was in Charlotte so I asked a friend of mine to accompany me.  Talk about two kids in a candy store!  And the gemstones, crystals, and findings really did look like candy...bright enticing colors, sparkling under the lights.  Yum!

One of the gemstones I just had to buy was Russian Purple Charoite...gorgeous!  I sat down in my workshop yesterday and had a blast doing some wire wrapping with the Charoite, and multi-colored Fluorite chips.  The colors of purple, light green, and white look fantastic together.

 

 

I also worked on a few other pieces to add to my Etsy shop.  I took a quick picture of all of them to share with you before I take my "professional" pictures to post onto the shop.  I hope you like them.  The four-strand bracelet I decided to design using my Yellow Turquoise gemstones.  The colors played well with shades gold, and shades of green.  Making a couple pairs of earrings to go with this bracelet proved to be fairly easy.  I went in two directions...one was the obvious choice of using two more Yellow Turquoise gemstones and wire wrapping them.  With the second pair I felt that the pearl would be a more unassuming choice...it matches, but would go with many outfit choices.

The other pairs of earrings were a wire wrapping design that I wanted to try.  The shape looks great with teardrop gemstones or briolette crystals.  The trick is making sure that the stone used has the right size hole so that it doesn't get "stuck" on the wire...they need to move a bit.  I want the stones to move with you...to catch someone's eye when they're looking at you.

Another American Bead Show is coming around in November and I'm hoping to make it to that one as well.  I'll be a bit more prepared with a list of needs and wants to build my inventory.

Have a great day!
Donna