Bead shopping...the best kind of shopping!

I haven't got any finished work to show on my blog - beginning to sound like a broken record here! But I have been doing a fair bit of bead shopping in the last week, so I thought I'd show you what goodies have been dropping through my postbox and what I hope to create with them...

Here we have a LOT of silvery grey delica beads...35 grams to be exact! These size 11 cylinders have been bought for the Laura McCabe beadweaving workshop I'm off to on the 30th March at Stitchncraft, which I am very excited about. I can't afford to buy one of the kits on the day so I have plundered my bead stash for suitable colours and have only had to buy a few things I didn't already have that were on the materials list I received in the post a few weeks ago. The other main thing I needed to buy for this workshop is below...

Crystals!! In a gorgeous vibrant capri blue shade, these are a more unusual size of Swarovski rivoli. I didn't think I'd be able to find them in this country but a quick search on Ebay produced a seller who had some in a variety of colours and I plumped for these babies. Sparkly huh?

The other main thing I have been bead buying for is supplies for a competition entry I want to make. I've had a practice of the design elements I want to include and they seem to work, so then I had to buy supplies in the colours I wanted to fit with the competition theme. I still have to buy a few more seed beads, as I don't think I have enough of the colours I need to finish the whole thing, but I now have most of what I need, including...

...miyuki long magatamas. I had never looked at these until I saw a fabulous bangle project featuring them in a recent issue of Beadwork magazine, and when I saw the competition theme I thought these beads in this dark gunmetal grey shade, would fit the bill.

What project would be complete without Swarovski bicones? The blue ones are to go with my rivolis for the Laura McCabe workshop project, but the other two shades (dark indigo and crystal silver night) have been selected for my competition piece. I love the dark indigo ones...although I am not sure they will replace the purple velvet ab2x ones I have as my favourite Swarovski colour!

My final purchase for the competition piece is yet more Swarovski sparkliness - 3 medium vitrail coloured rivolis in 2 different sizes, and one of their Cosmic rings. So much fantastic sparkle and colour in these - I can't wait to put them to (hopefully) good use.

I am currently working on a custom order of some bridesmaids bracelets for a friend, but once they are complete, it will be full steam ahead with the competition entry; so check back here to find out what the finished article looks like.

N
xoxo