Motley Wrist Love

Over the course of the last couple of months, I've gotten to do a lot of traveling, and have found a lot of bead shops! They are great treasures in big cities and small ones. I've gone around this local area down to Fredericksburg and up to Leesburg; I've also explored the bead biz in Las Vegas, Pensacola, and Honolulu thanks to my lovely friends!!

One of my greatest joys is bringing treasures together from various shops into one fun made-by-Jen-Judd piece that you could never find any place else. That means I get to shop to my heart's content and then dream about off-the-wall bead combinations. I went with my seven-inch attention span tonight with some lovely results.

First, there are some semi-precious stones. I found the pretty carved carnelian focal bead but I wasn't sure what to do with it until I saw these carved tulip-shaped carnelian beads. I mixed them up with some glass for a fancy little three-strand bracelet. The other bracelet in the picture features butter jade, which is actually not jade, but is actually known as "butterstone" and comes from South Africa. Anything with the description of "butter" is perfect in my book. haaaaaaaaaa I mixed these creamy stones with some abalone and carved bone beads.

Next, a couple of chunky ceramic pink rustic focal beads called for some wood, pink opal, black onyx, and quartz. I threw in some funky pinky-purple stones that make me laugh. Enjoy!!

My sources for most of these materials: Bead Artist, Leesburg, VA; The Bead Gallery, Honolulu, HI; Joy of Beading, Arlington, VA; www.artbeads.com