February 2010
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Beading Contest Winners
Thanks to everyone who entered and voted in our Winter 2010 Beading Contest. The number of entries (120+) and the number of votes (1000+) both exceeded expectations. We hope you all enjoyed the event and are inspired by the wide variety of fantastic designs! See all the winners and entrants.
Here are the winners:
First Prize Traditional Category & Grand Prize Winner - $200 Gift Certificate
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Anniversary Sale!
We just reached the 1st Anniversary of ChoiceJewelrySupplies.com. We opened the store last year hoping to provide our customers with a more efficient shopping experience for metal jewelry components and supplies. We also hoped to reach a wider audience of jewelry artists who don’t think of themselves as “beaders”. From our side, the effort has been very successful as we have...
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Hard to Find Items
One thing we love about the Tucson Gem Show is the opportunity to pick up hard to find items. An example is the Copper Stardust Curved Spacer Beads pictured below. We found these several years ago and they sold out instantly. Subsequently, we added simliar items in silver and vermeil which sold out instantly.
Then, as frequently happens in this industry, we could not find any replacements from...
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New Pearls from Tucson
We bought hundreds of new styles of freshwater pearls in Tucson this year. You’ll see them in smaller batches rather than one large one. We were really low on both our premium and economy pearls. Both are on their way to being restocked in PearlBeadSale.com and abeadstore.com. For those who don’t know, PearlBeadSale.com offers higher discounts on our pearls when you purchase more than...
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New Focal Pendants
We’ve been adding some new gemstone pendant beads from Tucson over the last couple of days. Here are some lovely faceted briolettes in Blue Chalcedony, Garnet, and Rutilated Quartz, Lapis Lazuli and Peridot.
The last image is a Citrine Drop Pendant. See them all in our New Beads category.
Much more to come, but these should give you something to do for a few projects!
New Gemstone...
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Gemstone Trends in 2010
The American Gem Trade Association GemFair show (AGTA Gemfair) is one of the large shows during the Tucson Gem & Mineral Shows. It wrapped up a couple weeks ago. The AGTA is mostly very high end dealers of calibrated gemstones. Member’s are mostly bench jewelers and those active in the fine jewelry industry.
But, we watch trends closely as these designers influence what you’ll see...
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Vote For Your Favorite Jewelry Designs!
It’s time to vote for your favorite jewelry designs in our Winter 2010 Beading Contest! We received more than 120 fabulous entries, so take some time and enjoy all the hard work by these creative jewelry artists! First, please browse through all the entries in each of our 3 categories: Traditional, Contemporary, and Eclectic. Next, vote for your favorite design in each of the three...
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Recently Restocked Items on Sale
We’ve added about 40 restocked items to abeadstore.com in the last week or so with many, many more to come. Most are items we purchased in Tucson. Many of the gemstone strands have been out of stock for months and we finally have restored them. You’ll find beautiful Lapis, Amethyst, Rainbow Moonstone, Labradorite, Black Diamonds as well as many economy strands in Garnet,...
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Last Day for Beading Contest Entries
Reminder, February 16th is the last day to enter our 2010 Winter Beading Contest. We’ve received more than 85 entries so far. Most are posted on abeadstore.com, but we’ll be adding throughout the day and tomorrow until they are all posted for voting.
We’ll post how to vote here, in our newsletter, on abeadstore.com, and on Facebook tomorrow afternoon. If you entered, be sure to...
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Sterling Findings on Sale
Through February 19 you can save 10% on our Sterling Silver Jewelry Findings at ChoiceJewelrySupplies.com. Earring findings, links and connectors, head and eye pins, crimps and ends, rings, cones, bails, and miscellaneous findings are included. Note that clasps and closures are not included in this promotion.
Don’t miss this chance to save on things many of you use in almost every design!
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Economy Gemstones & Pearls Back
If you visited our DailyBeadSale Economy Pearls lately you know how few we actually had left in stock. The holiday season wiped us out of almost all our economy pearl and economy gemstone strands. Both of those types of items are best bought in shows, so we were waiting until we got to Tucson to replenish our stock.
The good news is we bought a lot! The bad news is we bought a lot. It’s...
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Beading Contest Update
We’ve received more entries than we have time to post them. We are working on catching up this week. See all the Traditional, Contemporary, & Eclectic entries posted to date. This is probably about 60% of the entries received so far.
We are accepting entries for for another 7 days, so there’s plenty of time to submit your best designs for each category!
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Spring Wish List Results & Survey Winner
Lindsay Mader was selected as the random winner in our Spring Wish List Survey. We just sent her a $100 Gift Certificate for her participation. Congratulations to Lindsay!
We received more responses than ever in this survey. Thanks to all who participated. Many of the results were as expected, but you also provided us with a few surprises. You also took to the time to provide very detailed...
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Tucson Day 5 (Thursday)
It was Holidome Day at last. Gorgeous beads, jewelry, findings, calibrated stones, etc. It’s the place to be seen…if you can find anyone among the masses. It’s a wholesale show that attracts bead stores, designers, gift stores, jewelry stores, and everyone in the jewelry business. Unlike the AGTA and GJX shows, which are mostly calibrated gems and fine jewelry, this show has...
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Tucson Day 4 (Wednesday)
Mostly meetings with many of our primary vendors today. Checked out their new products. Lots of fun things in beading supplies, findings and such.
We also spent a lot of the day looking at potential, brand new product lines. It will be a few months before we launch them, but we’ll be adding some products we know you are going to love!
We did find time to buy some Sterling Silver items, but it...
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Tucson Day 3 (Tuesday)
It was a big day on Tucson Day 3! Very spendy day, but well worth it. We restocked our economy and mid range faceted gemstone beads, finished up on pearls, restocked out turquoise, added some base metal chain and findings, and much more. Based on recent survey input, we also added some higher end gemstone strands and large round pearls. We’re looking forward to posting them in...
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Tucson Day 2
Very busy day. Replenished our pearl inventory with more to go today. Finally found some nice Keishi pearls after much searching. Also bought a lot of economy gemstone and some more focal beads.
The crowds are still pretty small, but today things will pick up as one of the high end shows called GJX starts today. I’m hoping to find time to go there, though buying will be limited as...