They're Everywhere, They're Everywhere!

Bead Stores, that is...


I spent this past weekend in Morro Bay with my husband, celebrating his 55th birthday. We drove up early Friday morning (and I do mean early) and arrived around 9:30 am. While waiting for our hotel room to become available, we wandered around the town, looking at neighborhoods and tourist attractions. After poking around the shops by the waterfront, we checked out other downtown streets. And wouldn't you know, in this sleepy little town we found not one, but TWO bead stores!


Harvey noticed the first one, and immediately swerved into a parking spot a couple doors down. He said to take as long as I wanted, so I did. What fun.

This one was Beads By the Bay. It was a small, jam-packed little store, with two rooms up front, and a garden where they sold plants, and a little shed-like building with a table and clearance items. I imagine they held classes back in the little shed, and it looked cozy and inviting.


And they also had a sweet neighborhood yellow kitty with no tail who came up to me and nuzzled and talked to me. She let me pet her tummy and followed me back past the koi pond into the main rooms of the store. They had dishes with food and water for her, and said all the neighboring businesses got visits from her.

I found some fun seed beads, bugle beads, pearls and findings, and tore myself away before I dented my checking account much worse.

The lady who worked at that first store also told me about another one around the corner. Paula Radke, the dichroic glass beadmaker, had her store a mere block away.

So I checked her store out too, and had a pretty tough time choosing a strand of dichroic glass beads. She had a bunch of pre-strung beads with Swarovsky crystals and spacers, just itching to be finished into bracelets or taken apart to make earrings or necklaces.

I struggled and finally decided to go with a strand of black/orange/pink/fuscia round beads that came with light pink Swaro 6mm crystals and gold star-shaped spacers. I don't know what I will use them for, but I was pretty pleased with my purchase.


I behaved in that store (mostly because her beads were pretty expensive), and happily left with my one strand.

My husband earned LOTS of brownie points that day. He even stopped at a couple more stores just for me, but these two were the cream of the crop. I was in bead heaven for the rest of the weekend.

There really ARE more people out there like me...

Man, where did the time go? I have attended several bead-related functions since I last wrote in May, and started many new projects too, so I guess rather that try to play catch-up on everything, I'll just write about the biggest highlight of recent events.


Harvey and I went to a birthday party for a friend one Saturday evening in July (the best man at our wedding) and when we got there, we walked around the side of the house to their back yard. We made our way into their kitchen, as we had brought a bottle of Falkner wine and a card, and wished to give our gift to him in person.

There were just a handful of folks in the house at the time, as the crowd was mostly outside around the pool. We said hi to Dennis, and then his wife, Jamie introduced us to people there. As she got to one woman, I noticed this exquisite beaded necklace she was wearing, and almost sank to my knees. I asked her to open the collar of her shirt so I could see the necklace better, and mentioned that I was a beaded jewelry designer and had a deep appreciation of things like this!

Well, that was it. She said her name was Judy, and that SHE had made the necklace, and we ended up spending the rest of the party talking beads, beads, beads! I barely said hello to the other guests! Judy lives in Palm Springs, and spends a lot of time in Big Bear too, so we know that this friendship has great potential. She loves freeform peyote and bead embroidery, and loves making intricate necklaces with cabachons and freshwater pearls.

I told her I could hardly wait to see some of her work, and a few days later she oblidged with some stunning photos.


We shared all sorts of tips and information, and I turned her onto sites like Etsy.com, ShopHandmade.com, Meetup.com and some of my favorite online bead stores. I gave her the url to see some of my older photos of my work (http://www.flickr.com/photos/elan_studios/show/) and told her about this blog. (I warned her I would write about her too!)






I am thrilled to have a new bead buddy, and look forward to a long and rewarding friendship with you, Judy!