A feast for the senses!

It is such a wonderful honor to be involved with this project! 
The boxes arrived with a call from my favorite postal worker, Cathy, on Christmas Eve.  She is always looking out for me!  She didn't want me to miss the BIG Heavy boxes arriving just before the holiday.   I am so glad that she called.  I was able to sit and drink in all the shapes and textures over a wonderful evening of wine and delicious food. 

With so many well known and accomplished beaders in the group I feel like a real newbie.
It was wonderful to touch the wonderful handmade beads in this collection and also to examine so many different manufactured beads that I would not normally notice when making selections for myself online in shops or at shows.   I was even impressed with everyone's promotional materials!

The pieces I chose to keep from the box were either Art Beads from artists whom I admire or manufactured beads with shapes I found inspiring.

I found everything that Shirley Cook added to the box to be just gorgeous!  Her post cards are gorgeous too!   I chose one of her leaf pendants as an inspiration for craftsmanship.  --I find it natural and free flowing and it gives a feeling of effortlessness yet I am sure it took much practice to achieve these results. And I just loved these shell beads so much that I had to pull a few out for myself.  (there are more still left in the box)

And um, YEAH.... Dee Wilder!!!!  I am the biggest fan!  I drool over my computer screen at Dee's work!  I have never before seen any of her beads in person.  This, I HAD TO HAVE!  It was so hard to chose one.  (There are many more in the box~~ LUCKY YOU!)

The beads here were donated by Jill Wiseman.  I had never known that here were seed beads such as this.  I will definitely be checking out TapestryBeads.com for more of these goodies.  I felt bad taking the entire tube, but I didn't feel right splitting it up either.  I am inspired by all you wonderful seed beaders in this group and I chose these to remember all the glamorous sparkly beads in your works.  I stole one lonely clear "C" shaped bead off a strand to keep as a design idea, and the wonderful nut "ring" is the perfect visualization of an idea I have been mulling over to far too long.  And lastly I could not get over the shape of the bottom strand of brownish white glass beads. 

Jennifer Cameron is another bead Artist whom I admire greatly.  I had to have one of her beautiful postcards.  That metal piece is fab and the crimp tubes are needed.

Lastly I chose a wonderful glass bead that I will guess is from Linda Roberts (please correct me if I am wrong), and interestingly shaped connector/pendant/bead made of shell(many more in the box), and some head pins from theholebeadshop.com  I really like the layering effect in this glass bead.

And so you may be thinking that I made out pretty well..... and perhaps wondering about my contributions...

Here they are.... all beads I made out of stoneware clay and in some, I added recycled glass.

Cabochons!  and Donut :-)

So many of you are bead weavers that I had to be sure to include plenty of cabochons!

Pendants, Charms and Connectors...

Some funky porcelain disc beads that I am currently in love with making.....

An assortment of stoneware beads, links, pendants and buttons...

And lastly some smoke fired beads.

The boxes were getting a little bit soft from all the traveling and I had to find another flat rate box around the house to replace one.  The second needed to head out with some internal reinforcements.  The snow storm here in the northeast and the holiday didn't allow for me to go pick up new boxes.  And off it all went this afternoon... headed to Carol Dean Sharpe so she can do her magic and divide it up for you!  I wish I could bid on the contents!   Perhaps next round!