Our Annual Tucson Preview Party is next week!

We’re almost ready for Tucson Preview again this year, and we’re doing it even bigger than before!  All of the beautiful, amazing, unique beads, findings, and pendants we could find and bring back PLUS a fabulous Stone trunk show! 

Yes, we have a wonderful haul of only the most glorious stuff from Tucson, we’re really outdone ourselves this time.  We’ve got the fantastic lacquered torched copper, and fabulous chain like you will Not Believe, and some of the best buys in unique fancy stones we’ve ever managed.  (Sorry, that sentence got awfully tangled.  It happens, deal with it.  It’s probably the bead fumes.)  Add the terrific selection of pendants and clasps, and the usual wine, cheese, and snacky goodies, and it’s set to be the Party of the Decade! 

And it starts in Carrollton on Thursday, February the 17th, from 3 in the afternoon till 9 that night.  Then the trunk show moves to Fort Worth on Friday the 18th, same bat-time, same bat-channel.  (What?  You have no idea what that means???  Don’t you remember the ultimate Cheezy Batman with Adam West?  “Holy Retail, Batman!” says Robin?  None of it?  You have no clue???  Honestly.  I have to have a nice up of tea and a lie down, I’m so upset.)

Oh, right.  Anyway, the Fort Worth Tucson Preview and Stone Trunk Show is Friday, February 18th, from 3 till 9.  With the wine and cheese and chocolate pretzels.  And beads and chain and fantastic pendants and  (How can you Not Know about Batman on TV, with the ever-so-fantastic Julie Newmar as Catwoman?  Those of us watching the series in the 60’s wanted to be Julie Newmar with more fervor than we ever spent on anything else in our scrawny un-statuesque lives.  I used to practice draping my decidedly un-Catwomanly body over the couch, just in case the opportunity ever came up.) and more fantastic stones than you could ever shake a stick at.

(You know, Julie used to live in Fort Worth.  I sure hope she never hears that you don’t remember Batman on TV with Adam West in the 60’s.  No, I don’t care that you weren’t born yet.  That’s your problem, not mine.)

Sorry.  This whole thing got a bit off track.  I should’ve stopped at that tangled sentence.  Too late now!

Come see us next Thursday and Friday!!!

Still awful!

Still snowed in! Dangit

So while you’re at home, use the time to organize your stash and get ready for Tucson Preview Night at The Artful Bead.

This is a small selection (really, less than .05% of what we’ve bought) to whet your appetite. ( please note that I’m running on ZERO caffeine here. That should explain a lot abt photography)

We’re in Tucson!

Boy, are we glad we got out of town when we did! We leave and All Heck breaks loose?

What did you do?? We had a bit of rain on the road, and it is just a bit cold, but the sun is shining and it is rather pleasant here.

Oh. What did we buy on our first day this year? Chain chain chain!!! Lots of all new base metal plated chain, some of it nearly too cool to deal with, really. Pictures will be posted later tonight. And we got some FABULOUS raku for the Carrollton store.

And some unusual brass stampings.

And letter stamps in New Fonts!!! And some with shapes! Like spirals and hearts!
Insert Squee here.

Perfect cap to One Of Those Days!

It never fails.  You forget to send the email announcing the Czech Glass Trunk Shows when you’re supposed to, then you can’t get the new addresses to import into the emailer correctly, you can’t find the template you want to use, you forget the picture, and THEN, to set the whole thing off, you delete some teeny marker that tells the emailer to insert the first name from the database when it’s sending you the email.

So you send out all of those emails with “Dear (Contact First Name),” in the first line. 

I apologize profusely, we really do know your first names if you entered them when you signed up for the newsletter.  I truly am the Airhead in Charge of Communication this week.

And my animal cracker Bunny (bag purchased because I’m being thwarted at every turn) is broken in half. 

Insert long whine here…

Knocked our socks off!

Do you see that pile of purple and gold fiber over along that wall, and the blue boring pile on the other side?  That’s our socks, which were knocked off by the response to our Groupon Deal on Wednesday.  Really.  We are stunned, grateful, and a teensy bit shocked.  Who knew earring classes would make that much of a splash? 

Don’t get me wrong, we all did the HappyPants Dance (for about 10 minutes), and then immediately went to work scheduling more and more and then even more Beginning Earrings classes, and calling our suppliers and saying “uh, those beads??  We need a lot more.  A Whole Lot More, as in Boat-Load, OK?  And soon!”

Very exciting it was, for all concerned!

So that’s all taken care of, and now we have several Important Announcements:

First of all, the “We’re Bringing Tuscon to You!” Czech glass trunk shows are next week!  Tuesday from noon till 8 in Carrollton, and Friday in Fort Worth.  Our wonderful Czech Glass Guy is on his way to Tuscon, and we bullied convinced him to stop by our stores first!  So grab it while you can, the really wonderful stuff won’t make it back, you know how that goes, right?

And then on Monday, January 31st, we leave for the Annual Tuscon Buying Trip, so watch this space for all the fabbu finds nightly.  Or the “too many miles, too little sleep, ooooo! shiny!!!”(drool) that seems to always happen.  I guess you never get immune to Bead Fumes, huh?

Again, a huge Artful Bead THANK YOU to all of our new Groupon friends!  We can’t wait to meet you in person, so come in any time and look around!  (Oh, but don’t look under the table bottoms, pleeeeeese, because nobody has dusted in a little while, OK?  I’m just saying…)

Making a Tidy

Preview Nights are over, and now we’re busily arranging what’s left. It takes a bit of creativity to find places to put all those new acrylic flowers, and the adorable “critter” beads.   The fabulous new (only 25 or so new styles, so Michell hasn’t smacked me for it) Czech glass is on the wall too.

The chain was pretty easy.  And the turquoise is still on the table, waiting for space in the case. The beautiful coin pearls are on the wall, and all the beautiful Tibetan pendants and beads are resting in their velvet tray.  

Come in and visit them soon, before they’re gone.

Tucson Preview Nights

Don’t forget, the Tucson Preview Night in Fort Worth will be this Wednesday, the 17th, from 5:00PM till 9:00PM.  The weather has PROMISED to behave, and all the pretties will be waiting for you!

And Carrollton’s Tucson Preview Night is Friday, the 19th.  So you totally need to get out at least one night this week and buy beads!

Cool stuff

So we are back from Tucson, and we have some truly amazing stuff. Watching the rest of our staff members go through the boxes is better than Christmas, really. At least it’s louder. And it is a lot of fun, and after an entire week we have sort of forgotten what we actually bought, so it is almost as exciting for us to discover all of this fabulous stuff as it is for everybody else.

If you hear squeals, or if your dogs start barking for no reason, it’s the beads.

Those wonderful fabulous beads.

Sorry about yesterday…

I was so tired yesterday that it was impossible to type after the show.  Really.

We finally finished show 2 and then flew through show #3.  Friday was Pendant day, and Funky Clasp day.  We got some killer pendants, including some wonderful multi-stone ones that had us squealing when we picked up a particularly fabbu one.  And we got sterling geckos  (Chris, please tell me how to spell that.  This dictionary doesn’t seem to have it.)  adrdoable fat-toed lizard pendants.  We got Hill Tribe and Sterling beads in wonderful styles. 

We got pearls, we went nuts on the coin pearls.  See?  (sorry about the flash)

Coin Pearls

Today we’re looking for more chain and another surprise.

Our hands look like goats chew on them at night, our feet are swollen, and whenever we lean over we make noises like my grampa.  Or Marys grampa. 

We saw purple cactus again.  They look like this:

Purple Cactus

No, really, they are that color.  This one is a bit pale, but it was the only one I could get close enough to. 

In a few minutes we start loading the car, because we have to check out of the room, and there isn’t any other safe place for 13 boxes of rather expensive rocks and metal.  Then we’ll eat our Breakfast at our favorite place, shop one last show, (although a show’s first day on a Saturday is NOT a fun thing to do) and then head back.