STEPHIE'S BEADS AND BAUBLES

To say I love seed beads and sequins would be an understatement. I LOVE seed beads and sequins. I collect them , as well as all beads. I will always collect beads of every kind even if it is just for my own entertainment and I  never sell another thing. Last night our oldest daughter designed her boyfriends mom a couple of pairs of earrings, that was fun and why I will always have my bead hoard. I have a huge bead hoard too. I am still adding to it. I will probably never stop adding to it !!

Here are my sequins. I did not pull them out of the bags, but other than , I believe, two smaller, quart size bags, these are gallon storage bags filled with bags of sequins. I put them in colors, each bag its own color. Some bags are really full, as pinks, greens, blues, yellows , and even whites have a lot of variety , where there are much fewer reds . I have been buying from Cartwrights for many years, and as usual when I post here about a store , they do not know about this post, or about my referring them. Cartwright’s  are my only real go to for quality sequins in a variety of sizes, shapes and colors. I will share more of the sequins in another post . Here is a picture of the sequins, on the left, an old bag, when they were still packing them themselves, and now, the newer bag, professionally packaged. I buy a lot and w hen they close out a color I love at a cheap price, I will buy a bunch at 25 to 75 cents a bag.  They usually run about 1.50 or so maybe some are less and some are more, they were a buck way back when, as you can see on the old package. I get a lot of my seed beads from them as well, around the same price and up. Some seed beads , especially the quality ones, can go up to 7 or 8 bucks a bag or tube if they are the more fancy ones. I have personally never spent more than about three or four, but only a few times. I usually buy the cheaper ones, but I am slowly buying a bit more of the 3.50 to 4 buck ones. My new order with a new store, which I will share when it comes, was a lot of of the ones in that range. Here is a link to Cartwrights sequins   http://www.ccartwright.com, if not there already, I will add it as a link on my side bar. I get nothing for sharing this, in fact, even after many  hundreds of dollars of orders over many years, possibly ten , I have never received a coupon from them, even after requesting one with an order I put in. But that is okay, they have good prices, amazing selection and get that order to you very fast. Great sales on clearance items as well.  If they offer coupons, I have never gotten one !! Lima beads always sends me a 10 percent off my next order when I order from them, and I get a lot of my seed beads from lima beads too . They are on the side bar, another huge favorite of mine !! Discounts are wonderful, but not the reason I shop at certain stores. I only shop where I get quality, amazing selection and fast shipping. Cartwrights has all three along with good prices. I cannot even tell you how excited I was to find them back in the day. I  had a very limited selection of sequins. I think I had built it up to around 18 different sequins, mostly metallic and the clear ones I will picture below. Now I have so many I am not even sure, but at least 100 different ones, probably double that honestly. One day I will actually sit down and count them all !! It is a lot, that is for sure !! I would not be suprised if it was a few hundred different kinds of sequins.

This is my favorite sequins of all time. They are a full 26 years old. Back then we  did not have a lot of money with four small kids,  but I stocked up on this particular sequin. It looks very yellowed, mainly from age, but when out of the bag and set on a colored surface, no more yellow. It is very versatile and pretty. I had bought a lot of bags, still have five, with 3000 sequins each, plus this baggie full , probably three or so  packages worth, and  a small pile on a tray I am working with now.

same sequins on a blue beading mat in daylight , instead of  on white paper under a light. They are stunning .

a project I am working on with those sequins. I use them over colored felt to give a subtle color to the piece. I use a colored seed bead to sew it together to pull out the color

this is the color I will use for this piece , the purple seed beads will pull out the purple of the felt through the clear irridescent sequins

my five sealed bads,

this bag is probably the equivalent of four to five more bags, which are each 3000 count sequins.

Here are my other bags all stored in a pretty large fabric covered box , lots of gallon bags, the cover does not sit completely down on it

It is a lot of sequins. Some I have picked up at craft stores, but at least 90 percent of those bags are Cartwright sequins. If you love sequins, check them out. I do not think you will be disappointed . More than likely they will exceed your expectations like they did mine, and still do after all these years !! Check out the clearance area too.

Once again, I share these stores because I love them, and do not expect anything from them for referring you. They will probably never even know I sent you. But when I find something I love, I want to share it. If I ever had a really bad experience from a bead supply store, I would share that as well, but I really never have had a negative experience. My online bead shopping has been a pretty positive experience overall . When there have been problems, the seller always fixed them, that is all you can ask for !!!

I will do a post very soon showing lots of different sequins and a variety of what is available.

As usual, thanks so much for stopping by !!

Stephie