Happy Monday, and a happy vintage bauble mix

Yesterday I visited Baubles & Beads in Berkeley, California, for the first time. I'd driven by with my daughter almost a year ago and just missed their business hours, so this was a long-awaited treat.

Okay. . . I should insert the caveat that I've told myself NO MORE BEADS until I make several pieces from my enormous stash. But then I walked into Baubles & Beads and saw their display of vintage Lucite beads. Wow! Not only do they have a fabulous selection, but they offer packaged mixes of pre-wired Lucite baubles in different color families!

I confess: I picked up a couple. I also bought a few beautiful, clear blown-glass beads that look like big water bubbles. I have an idea for an underwater-themed necklace, and those could work as bubbles or fishnet floats.

Here's one of the Lucite mixes I bought, front and back. The other package is a turquoise/aqua mix. Baubles & Beads had a nifty necklace on display that showed one way of using such a mixture: They used a fairly heavy chain as the necklace base and hung the wire-wrapped baubles from the links, one bauble per link. Easy and striking!

Baubles & Beads is at 1676 Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley. They're on the web at BaublesandBeads.com. By the way, if you have a resale permit and purchase $50 or more in beads, they give you a 20% discount. Which means I went back and bought more beads before checking out. :-)

The necklace below is one I made one year ago, using baubles I upcycled from clusters of artificial grapes! It's basically constructed the same way as the samples I saw yesterday, except the weight of these "grapes" pulls this necklace into a more defined V shape.