bead show

This weekend was the awesomest bead show! I bet it's nothing like bead shows on the mainland, but still; pearls, glass, gemstones and everything in between! It's usually held at Ward Center (Oahu, near Ala Moana Shopping Center), and it's held twice annually, once in September and once in March. I was so disappointed in March because I got my dates mixed up and I totally missed it! This time, though, I got it right and my sister and I spent like three hours just looking at all the beads. It was really crowded, but in a good way; like you and a bunch of other women are bending over the same table of beads and you help each other finding nice strands and stuff.... ahhh the comradery!

I mostly got glass beads this time, but they were sooo affordable! Unfortunately, because the dollar is doing so poorly internationally, the prices were pretty high for the gems (which is probably better for the people in the countries where the gems are from); there were some really nice faceted briolites, but they were out of my price range (so I mostly just looked at them and felt them). But, they were so pretty!

So I ended up getting glass bicones in pretty citris colors for earrings, flat coin pearls for pendants and some dyed quartz. I also got some glass strawberry beads, which are too cute! I had ordered some little white flowers from Fire Mountain Gems a while back and they would go perfectly with the strawberries; I really want to make some cell phone straps with them!