Happy Fourth of July!!

Whatever your plans are for today -- just taking the day off and watching fireworks on the tube, going out to your neighborhood picnic, spending time with family and friends -- I hope you have a wonderful day with it! I am going to my friend Esther's house for our annual pool party. Swimming, mmmm!! Esther is in her eighties and still folk dancing, gardening, swimming, and just being an all-around wonderful person. After that, I am going to hit the Decatur fireworks festival, as usual.

For your daily dose of fantastic eye-candy, check out this treasury of LEST members' red, white, and blue items!

Introducing the ESST Street Team: Artistic Jewels

This is the second post in my series that features my wonderful Etsy Supply Street Team members, in alphabetical order. Today I'd like you to meet Artistic Jewels and Beads. If you're looking for high-quality semi-precious gemstones, Artistic Jewels is the place to find them! Her store categorizes stones by type--citrine, quartz, amethyst, emerald, kyanite--and has a lovely finished jewelry section and a fantastic sale area. I spent way too much time poking around her shop this morning!

Every bead Artistic Jewels sells is hand-picked. You might -- might -- pay less per bead if you purchased them in a large strand, but there are several problems with that approach. If you only need a few beads of each type, then you are stuck paying $$ for a long strand, and you are either pushed into making a lot of similar items or seeing your cost per item rise. When you only need a couple of gemstones for unique pieces, buying smaller sets is definitely the economical way to go! Plus, large strands mean that some of the gemstones in the strand will be scratched or chipped. Every bead you get from Artistic Jewels is hand picked -- you can use all of your purchase with confidence.

So go on over and take a look!!!

Meanwhile, Kandice Seeber has another wonderful post over on Coloraddiction. If you've been looking for a comparison of COE104 pinks, here is the definitive post!

And check out these treasuries -- by my friend Diane,, and by me! Both have items by other members of ESST, TGH, LEST, and CGGE.