Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Beads from Mexico



I didn't find all that much that was very different from what we have here in the USA while I was in Mexico, but I did find a few surprises. And who can resist buying beads in any bead store?



Here’s a picture of all of my loot.



all beads



At the top left, though you can’t see them very well, are silver-colored cell phone/purse charm holders. I never see them in silver color here, so I picked up a few. I also liked that they have lobster clasp attachments instead of the split ring I usually get on mine.



Then, on towards the right, just some different colors and sizes of seed beads. I can never have enough hematite, heehee.



At the top right are some round colored disks. The holes are in the center, and I think they are some sort of thin shell. Just underneath those are one of my favorite finds. Flat oval beads made of wood in several colors. The hole is on one of the ends of each bead.



The four red hearts are for Xmas earrings, and I couldn’t resist the two cute little pieces of turquoise to make earrings for myself.



I couldn’t resist picking up the two finished pieces of beadwork. If you can’t see them well, they are a butterfly and a puffy stuffed peyote fish, and both are keychains. I’m not sure if I will keep them or give them away as gifts. They are both very well made, and sold for less than $7.00 USD each. I feel bad for the girl who makes and sells them, she could charge more than that, they are well worth much more. If she had been a street vendor, I would have paid her more for them, but I bought them in a gallery so there was no way I could ensure that any extra money would get to her.



Here is a better picture of the fish and the butterfly:



fish and butterfly



The black round beads are just glass pearls that I thought I might use with my hematite. The holes are large, about 1 to 1½ mm, and there is no color flaking around the holes. I feel lucky to have found this strand. The ‘pearls’ are good quality. They are strung on a twisted nylon cord.



The other necklace with the charms and also the small group of bluish glass beads are vintage pieces. I don’t know what kind of beads those are on the charm necklace, but I’m sure I’ll be saving that set for a while before I get a really good idea for it. The clear round glass beads (if you can see them) appear to be vintage Swarovski. There are three of those silver charms on the necklace. I don’t know what kind or quality of silver it is. One of the silver charms is tarnished in the center with a greenish color.



I saved the brown beads for last because I’m hoping someone might know what they are. Here is a better picture of them.



brown chips



The tag says “ivory chip”, but I’m sure they aren’t ivory. They are very pretty, and kind of pearlescent. I’m not very good at identifying stones. I tried looking on the MineraliA company website, but can’t find any similar looking stone chips.



The one other thing I bought lots of, because they were only a dollar each, were rubber bracelet blanks. It’s funny, we were just discussing something similar to these on the Beading Daily forum because we don’t find these bracelets with clasps like this in the USA. I think the ones pictured in the forum are leather, though, and the clasps are different. The clasps on these are stainless steel, and I intend to use the bracelet by making a beaded “slider” design around the rubber. They came with stainless steel sliders already on them, but I am going to remove those. They are just folded around the rubber. Here are some pics:



clasp openback of silver design



closure closedfront silver design2



all silver fronts



The top four pictures are clasp open, clasp closed, back of slider, front of slider. The bottom picture is all the different designs on the front of the sliders. They are made of stainless steel.



If I can get the sliders off neatly, does anybody want them? I will probably never use them. Maybe one of you metalworkers could use them as templates? I think I have about 20 of them.



@KipperCat, I don’t know if you read my blog, but I know you’ve been obsessing over these. If you do read my blog, let me know and I’ll send you a couple of the rubber bracelets to play with.



Cat Cat face

4 comments:

Therese's Treasures said...

That is a nice bunch of goodies you got from Mexico Cat. I believe the beads in question are shell at least that is what they look like.
Have fun playing with your treasures.
Therese

jennifersign said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Miss Woodcutter said...

Hi :) I came across your blog when I was looking for 'beads in Mexico'. I believe that those beads are dyed mother of pearl/shell as well. They look nice.
I am going to Mexico soon, and was wondering if you would mind sharing where you made your fun purchases?
Thanks!

Cat said...

Miss Woodcutter, I'm not sure, because I had a friend driving me around to the stores she knew. I have no idea where she took me, lol.