Quartzsite

Last week I went on a little trip with some friends from our local gem and mineral club to Quartzsite, Arizona. It was an eight hour drive from California to Arizona--- but with all the laughter during the drive, it honestly felt like a four hour drive-- how is that possible? I didn't know exactly what to expect, but I knew there were things to buy-- so that gave me some comfort... *wink*
I bought a bunch of rock hearts. I think I'm collecting them now.

 I love Labradorite. Here is a bowl full of it... all 144 pieces! Labradorite has iridescent blues and greens in the stone that shimmers when you move it. This is a super bad photo to show that off, but trust me, it is beautiful :-) Because they are cut and polished for the color to be on top and you are basically seeing the sides of the cabs.

I also bought myself an Amethyst Crystal. My friend bought one..... so... I had to have one too. I couldn't find a nice one and was fortunate to have my friend Eddy find just the perfect one.

 It kinda gets lost in the scheme of things.... so, I think I need to get more and have a "collection." Another trip to Quartzsite is in order!

 I got two bags of broken crystal fragments to use in making wire wrapped pendants. The bigger pieces I'm going to have to whack with a hammer to make more manageable pieces. "Hammer time."

 Once the pieces are the size I'm wanting them to be, I'm going to use a sanding/grinding machine to smooth the edges. I'm going to do the same thing with these Amethyst pieces below. (the flash distorts the color, they are darker in person)
I bought 100 dyed agate slabs for a very reasonable price. I bought the smallest size they were selling, again to make pendants with.

 The next find was a fun one. I kept seeing finished pendants where they had used big blobs of copper... I was smitten! I actually was working my way back to a vendor to buy a finished copper pendant when I spotted a man selling the copper blob pieces. Needless to say, I'm going to be making my own.

 I bought a total of 75...

 The vendor gave me a huge stack of cards describing the copper nuggets so that I can tuck it in with finished pendants.

 These three cabochons are the only other rock cabochons I bought other than the Labradorite. I have no idea what they are, I just liked the shape-- and the price. ($1.00 each)

 I picked up some glass hearts and shapes along with three goldstone Holy Crosses. (goldstone is man made glass) I'm going to pull off the silver bail pieces and wire wrap the hearts.

 I bought three slabs of goldstone to create my own cabochons. I got three slabs of color.... gold, blue and green.
Here is a teardrop shape I am working on, underneath the teardrop is what the goldstone looks like before it has been polished... pretty huh?

 I bought a lot of chip beads to use making some trees of life. A young girl I know is having a baby and that is why I bought all the pink and blue... probably way more that I'm needing!

 Of course when I saw Labradorite in chip beads, I needed to get a bunch of that!

 There were so many beads to choose from and this is all I got... wha-wha-wha......

 I also scored some black showcase boxes. Some are hinged with glass in the lids, a few are just divided spaces in a frame that I'm going to use to separate items in my jewelry drawer. Those three sizes of boxes that you see in the bottom left are to put a piece of jewelry inside of then close the lid and it ends up looking suspended in the center of the frame.

 I also bought some metal specimen stands which I'm going to use as stands for my new jewelry showcase boxes.

The trip was definitely a lot of fun and there was so much to look at and consider buying... I think I did pretty good, no regrets with things I bought and things I didn't buy.
big hugs,
Cheryl