Yes, I did have a nice birthday !!

My birthday, which was actually yesterday, started more than a week ago when we adopted Dakota from the Southern Arizona Humane Society (see previous blog entry). She has settled right in, and I already love her to pieces!


(click on pic to enlarge)

Oh, dear, I think I woke her up! :) And when you wake them up, they need to play!

Is there something under my mat??



Why yes! Yes there is. It's my yellow ball.



The big Tucson Gem and Mineral Show is going on, so Ray took me over to the Tucson Electric Park show, and the show at the Holiday Inn. I always make sure to hit the Holiday Inn because that is where the guys that process the turquoise from the Kingman Mine set up. MMMMMMMM mmmmmm! Love that turquoise! Just take a look ....



Here are the greens



And the blues



And the next ones they referred to as "boulder". They just took the rock that had a little bit of turquoise in it, and made beads. The woman I was talking to said they usually just toss the "boulders" but have decided in the past couple of years to use it. She says it has been selling really good, and I can see why. It's very organic looking.



So I'm thinking of a 3 strand necklace made up of the following strands



And maybe another 3 strand of both color heishi



Although a 2 strand necklace with just the blue heishi would be really nice



At the Electric Park, I bought lots of inexpensive strands of beads. These will be fun to make chokers and bracelets with. There's fancy jasper, red aventurine, carnelian, black stone, agates.



And some hearts, no holes drilled, for wire wrapping



Looks like pink quartz, tigereye, sodalite, red jasper, and cape amethyst.