The toys of our trade

Don't we all just love our supplies and materials – our toys? I can fondle stacks of fabric, sift through piles of beads and tally rolls of ribbons and feel as rich as King Midas in his counting room!

Somehow it seems that every time I get "enough" of one type of material, like fabric, I find two others that I "need." My sister and I have a Black Friday tradition of hitting the sales at Jo-Ann Fabrics and the other sewing and crafts stores where she lives (I have very limited options where I live, so I plan a splurge). Usually I buy way too much fabric.

Bling!

But right now I have a ton of fabric and am leaning more toward art quilts and mixed media than traditional quilts. so I bought other stuff! I did stock up on batting since I'd used all my big pieces during my quilting binge before our quilt show. But other than that, I bought toys, fun stuff to play with. And stuff to store my stuff in.

My tally included lots of bling; a big bin of cheap beads, with lots of little ones that will be perfect on my postcards, a big bag of rhinestones, some tiny rhinestones, jewelry wire, glitter glue pens, a gold leaf pen, and metallic threads. Also a big box of scrapbooking paper, a zillion colors of acrylic craft paint (for postcards, not quilts, since I doubt it would wash). Also some jewelry tools, which will do double duty for fine work on my sewing machines, and an assortment of storage containers.

As I drove home yesterday I was already getting ideas on how to use some of the materials. After I got everything unpacked and into my studio, I couldn't wait to play with some of the stuff and try it out, and just had to glue a couple of rhinestones onto some postcards.

Hope everyone has fun playing today. More later!