A Package From Helena Of Sweden

A fabulous package arrived in the mail today... all the way from Sweden! Helena had a blog giveaway last month and I was the lucky winner - my first win for such ever! She sent more than what I expected, and I'm so excited to try everything. Thank so much for the yummy goodies, but most of all to your generosity Helena.

The goodies were packed well!

Ta daaaaa... the yummy goodies!

All mark - so organized!

While on the topic of new stash, I thought I'll share some of the goodies I grabbed from my craft escapade with MIL & a family friend on January 28th. Would you believe that I never purchased swarovski pearls before? LOL I wanna purchase some sterling silver findings first befor I'll use them - they're still intact 'til now. I had to indulged myself with seedies (24? tubes) as I'm running low with them - I'm so bummed though that they're not on sale at HL. I got an assortment of goodies from all the 4 stores we visited:

@ Hancocks - hand dyed embroidery threads, suede fabric, beading threads, a bunch of sequins (for my bead embroidery, particularly BJP pieces), and assorted beads.

@ Big Lots - spring theme beads, a quilting book, and metal pendants.

@ Hobby Lobby - an assortment of czech seedies, swarovski pearls, cabochons, and jasper focals.

@ JoAnns - czech seedies, acrylic flower beads, display stands for bracelets & necklace/earring, quilting goodies & wooden birdhouses (to paint) for MIL's birthday.

Last Saturday (February 5th) , I got a call from SIL early morning and asked if I wanna go with her & MIL at the Fairgrounds' Flea Market - my answer was YES of course! By 7:30Am, we're on our way to Des Moines already. Despite the cold weather & crowd, the market was full of people of all ages - from babies to oldies with canes! I can attest though that everybody had a good time. I had to grabbed a bunch of vintage stuffs (i.e. old jewelries), bead assortment, embroidery threads, a couple of old embroidery books, some (new) nail polish that I'm planning to use on sealing my beading threads, and cards.

The necklace below is a 2-strand crinkled faux pearls with damaged clasp which I had to tear apart right away when I got home - and for some lucky reason, I found a rivoli in my stash that fits perfectly in the clasp (see lower right in the photo).

I had to have these earrings when I saw them... planning to use them as focals on my next embroidery creations.

We try to do some escapade despite the snowy weather here in IA, otherwise, we'll suffer from cabin fever! So do the same and have a good time! Happy beading all!