Flashy scarabs are invading!

I love getting new merchandise. I especially love getting new old merchandise. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but I'm just referring to buying vintage that I haven't had before--it's new to me, even though the beads are vintage.

I had the great fortune to find these amazing foilback scarabs recently:

These are small but really stunning scarab cabochons in some great bright colors. I love the detail and the deep flash. These are really great flatbacks and I've already seen them flying out of my Laurel Moon eBay store and my Laurel Moon Etsy shop.

I also found more beaaaaaaaaaaads. Yum. Who doesn't want more beads? I found opalino beads with aventurine:

I'm not sure that I can adequately convey my delight. You see, opalino glass, a semi-translucent white glass, is awesome. And aventurine glass, which contains specks of copper for amazing sparklage, is awesome. Together, they are so exponentially beyond awesome that, as I said, it's difficult to convey the actual awesomeness of said beads, because they kind of short-circuit my ability to describe their vast awesomenitude.

I picked up some great little baroque filler beads in tanzanite and montana glass. You know, the kind of bead you always need to finish a design.

And I haven't even started talking about the numerous porcelain bead lots I've listed! It's been a busy couple weeks here. Stay tuned--I'll have more scarab lots up soon!

Goodbye to Buddha

I love vintage beads and cabochons. I probably love them a little too much, in fact. I have a stash overflowing with lovely treasures.

I've been selling vintage on eBay for a few years, and it's been a great experience. I love it when customers send me photos of what they've done with their beads. I enjoy sharing vintage and sending these pretty little gems out into the world.

There's one sadness, though, and that is when I get to the end of of a particular bead or cab. Today, for example, I set up my last listing of these beautiful green marble glass Buddha cabochons:

Sometimes I find a few more of a bead or cab, but usually once I sell out, that's it. It's not just that it reduces the variety in my eBay store; it's the sadness of not being able to share more of them.

The good news is that I have found more of several different small matte glass leaf cabs such as these matte topaz leaf cabs:

Farewell, lovely Buddha cabs, you will be missed!

What's up? MY WEBSITE, THAT'S WHAT

I'm sorry to shout, but I am extremely excited.

Finally! After much work (and only a moderate amount of wine) my website is finally live! I am doing a dance here, let me tell you. A dance that only slightly looks like a tipsy walrus. A very giddy tipsy walrus. No, I am not going to upload it to YouTube. You'll just have to use your imagination.

The old site looked like this:



I think the new site looks a little cleaner and prettier:



Beads, cabochons, gems, and findings! The website is full of all sorts of great treasures. If you're interested, clicky here: Laurel Moon Jewelry & Beads

Whew! Lots of new items!

I've been cropping and editing and putting together lots of new listings! Check out my eBay store or my Etsy shop for all sorts of new items.

These are really unique; they're large hole vintage Japanese glass beads. They have delicate murrine slices melted onto their surface. It's so nice to find vintage beads with large holes--these are nearly three millimeters wide!



I've also bought some really lovely charms and two-hole pendants made from sterling silver set with vintage Japanese glass cabochons. They're beautiful and versatile!

First set of cabs in my eBay store!

I've finished the Giant Sorting Project!

I've listed the first set of cabs in my eBay store!

I'm so excited about this. By the time I'm finished, I will have doubled the number of items for sale in my eBay store.



Some of the cab sets are so pretty. I love the blue color of this set.

In preparation for this, I've revised all of my store categories. I used to list everything under Vintage Beads, but I realized that many customers aren't looking for cabs, so I've divided them into Beads, Cabs, Rhinestones, and Glass Gems. Hopefully that will make things easier.

The sorting continues unabated.

Wow, I can't believe how many new sets I'm going to be adding to my eBay store. It's pretty amazing.

Most will be familiar, as a lot of it is taken from existing lots and just restructured (for example, the amethyst assorted lots were broken down into each amethyst-colored glass gem), but there are some oddball cabs and fascinating little bits and bobs. It will be interesting to see if any cabochon fans like these new sets.

The endless sorting

One of the things I love about selling beads and cabs is the sorting.



I have spent whole days hunched over a table, happily sorting beads and cabs into piles while watching (or mostly, listening) to eighties shows on DVD. It's probably one of my favorite aspects of this business.

It always leads to questions of selection, however.

Let me explain. This is the last portion of a huge bin of mixed cabs, glass gems, rhinestones, and...er...beads-without-holes that I purchased a couple years ago.

At first, I simply bagged them randomly in large bags and tried selling them, with mixed results.

Then I separated the glass gems and the flatback cabs and sold those in assorted bags. That, too, had mixed results.

Then I separated the glass gems and flatback cabs by colors and sold those in assorted by color bags. They've now become steady, if not great, sellers in my eBay store.

Now I'm pondering breaking it down even further into foilback/transparent sets for the oval cabs, and perhaps by color for the rhinestones.

It's intriguing, because I don't use any of these items in my own jewelry, so having to try to guess what consumers will want--and how they will want to buy them--is a puzzle. Do they want matching sets, and if so, how many in each set? Will some people still want assorted lots?

I know from experience that people do like both. When I first started selling dollar bags of beads, I'd spend a lot of time picking through everything to make bags that contained only one kind of bead. Then one day I was rushed, so I threw together some mixed bags. At the next show, the mixed bags sold first, and so from then on I always made sure I had a few of those.

Anyway, the nice thing about today's sorting is that this is the last of these cabs and glass gems. Over the last two years I've gone through about eighty pounds of this by hand and pulled out all of the interesting funky stuff and put it aside for special lots.

My strategy for the next couple days is to separate by style and color, and then separate further into foilbacks and transparents, and see how they do. I think I'll keep the mixed lots, too. It'll be interesting to see if it makes any change in how they sell.

What a week!

My dear friends, their kids, and their poodle stayed with me last week, and a good time was had by all.

Now that I've finally recovered from Bead & Button and poodle-visiting (hee!), I can start revamping my Etsy shop and my eBay store. I'm starting to list more things, and I'm trying to keep them both restocked as well as I can. I picked up a few really cool things while I was at B&B, so check my eBay store out if you're interested--I've already listed some things!

I picked up some beautiful fern stampings that I've always admired...



...and I've bought a few more of my favorite cabs. In fact, I bought all that they had of a couple of them, and I am already happy with the decision. Vintage beads and cabs are one of my favorite things, and it's highly unlikely that I'll find more of the same (especially not at these prices), so I keep telling myself to go for it. The poodle agrees.