I gotta confess. I have a major addiction to rocks. I suspect some of you know of what I speak... pretty beads draw us like magpies. I have a respectable bead collection, but the really crazy addiction....
.... is cabochons. There are a few drilled things here and some miscellany but for the most part this is my cab stash. The sad thing is, I can't stop. I have 11 won auctions and bids on another 8 or so from my favorite eBay cab supplier (WalyBeads) right now. The above includes several varieties of jasper and agate, chrysocolla, cat's eye class, carved quartz, goldstone, kyanite, snowflake obsidian, seraphinite, sodalite, bloodstone, turquoise, hematite, geodes, unakite, mookaite, opalite, some acrylic cameos, and a few other things. I store these in individual cello bags labeled with the stone, size, mohs hardness, country of origin if I know it, and what I paid for it. God forbid my hubby should pull them out some time and add up all those numbers =D
I "only" have about 5 Craft Mates boxes of beads, which include Swarovski, Czech glass, pearls, semiprecious stones, small metal ones, and some random stuff. Oh, and a few dozen tubes of seed beads and Miyukis.
The other MAJOR addiction is rings, which I have in sizes from micro to 14 gauge 3/8" in every metal you can imagine, and most colors you can imagine. I'll have to take a picture of those some time. Those I store in a soft-sided tackle box that goes with me nearly everywhere. I make maille in the car, at friends' and family's houses, watching TV on the couch... pretty much everywhere.
Last night my son came to sit on the couch beside me while I was working on a maille keychain. I had my little tackle box organizer open. He sat on the very corner of it and flipped the whole thing, scattering and mixing the entire box of rings. I'll be finding them for weeks, I imagine. I really should've taken pictures of the chaos, or of him sitting with his head in his hand sorting them with a bamboo skewer (I helped, though when it happened I could've beaten him). Several hours later, they were all neatly re-sorted. It was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm thinking Craft Mates individually locking compartments for rings, now.
I know beaders and maillers aren't the only packrats. I've seen seamstresses' fabric stash and kitters' yarn stash. I have a polymer clay stash, myself, even though I've never done anything serious with it but have always wanted to. I have a stash of acrylic paints for the miniatures I used to paint (maybe I should pull those out...). My three drawers of kitchen gadgets might count as a stash.
Sometimes the cool thing about a stash of goodies is that it can be inspiration in itself. Sometimes I just pull everything out and browse, and something jumps out at me and says "make this!"
What's your stash?
I "only" have about 5 Craft Mates boxes of beads, which include Swarovski, Czech glass, pearls, semiprecious stones, small metal ones, and some random stuff. Oh, and a few dozen tubes of seed beads and Miyukis.
The other MAJOR addiction is rings, which I have in sizes from micro to 14 gauge 3/8" in every metal you can imagine, and most colors you can imagine. I'll have to take a picture of those some time. Those I store in a soft-sided tackle box that goes with me nearly everywhere. I make maille in the car, at friends' and family's houses, watching TV on the couch... pretty much everywhere.
Last night my son came to sit on the couch beside me while I was working on a maille keychain. I had my little tackle box organizer open. He sat on the very corner of it and flipped the whole thing, scattering and mixing the entire box of rings. I'll be finding them for weeks, I imagine. I really should've taken pictures of the chaos, or of him sitting with his head in his hand sorting them with a bamboo skewer (I helped, though when it happened I could've beaten him). Several hours later, they were all neatly re-sorted. It was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm thinking Craft Mates individually locking compartments for rings, now.
I know beaders and maillers aren't the only packrats. I've seen seamstresses' fabric stash and kitters' yarn stash. I have a polymer clay stash, myself, even though I've never done anything serious with it but have always wanted to. I have a stash of acrylic paints for the miniatures I used to paint (maybe I should pull those out...). My three drawers of kitchen gadgets might count as a stash.
Sometimes the cool thing about a stash of goodies is that it can be inspiration in itself. Sometimes I just pull everything out and browse, and something jumps out at me and says "make this!"
What's your stash?
