The Happiest Place on Earth

No, not Disneyland. For beaders, it's Shipwreck Beads in Lacey, Washington. I wish I could have found a picture of the inside of the store because it's amazing. I have to limit myself to one trip per year, usually after Christmas, or else I'd spend vast quantities of money. This place is mecca. Seriously. I remember back in the early 90's when I was just starting out making jewelry, I got a tiny black & white catalog from this place up in Mud Bay, Washington. That was Shipwreck when they had a teeny tiny store and only a few beads. Since those days they have moved twice to larger spaces to accomodate their growing product line. When we first moved here, they were in Olympia and the store wasn't huge but it was homey and there was a killer mural on the wall of a beach scene with treasure chests overflowing with beads, a mermaid, pirate ship, etc. A few years ago they moved to their new space in an office park in Lacey, which is actually closer to me than the old store.

I've been to a lot of bead stores. In fact, whenever I travel, one of the first things I look up is the closest bead shop. My bead store travels include:

General Bead, and other stores that have since gone out of business, San Francisco, CA

Beads & Rocks and other stores that have since gone out of business, Berkeley, CA

Baubles & Beads, San Rafael, CA

Out on whim! - Cotati, CA

Garden of Beadin', Garberville, CA

Bead Emporium, Hyannis, MA

The Beadin' Path, Freeport, ME

Beadworld, Victoria, BC

Beadworks Granville Island, Vancouver, BC

Let it Bead, Portland, OR

Bead Man, Cannon Beach, OR

Blue Iris Beads, Kent, WA

The Bead Factory, Tacoma, WA

Imagine That!, Poulsbo, WA

The Bead Shop, Long Beach, WA (which is 2nd only to Shipwreck in my opinion)

My boss recently gave my coworker and me an unexpected, "just because" bonus to recognize our hard work and good attitude under the extremely stressful conditions under which we have been toiling this past year. So the first thing I did was go to Shipwreck Beads, of course. The store can be really, really overwhelming because it's so big. But, there are lots of helpful signs and the aisles are nice and wide so that you can easily wheel your shopping cart along without squeezing past someone else. There's a cafe that serves coffee, tea, bagels, juice, sandwiches and pop. There are large, clean restrooms and yesterday I noticed that they've created a nice waiting room with couches and a television, no doubt to placate cranky husbands who somehow found themselves shopping for beads with their wives instead of home watching the game like most other self-respecting husbands. But my "Men: The Unnecessary Accessory" rant is a subject for another time.

The key to shopping at Shipwreck is to go with a list of things you actually need, and get those first. After that, spend time wandering the aisles and getting stuff you want. Because you can never have enough beads you know. Like the line from the Grateful Dead song "I need a Miracle" says, "Too much of everything is just enough".

Here's the beaded booty I scored: Can you tell I favour blues, purples, greens and pinks?

I coveted this ornament which was in a 1/2-off bin. And the nesting box set had to come home with me as well.These are the supplies I had to shop for first, before indulging in the above stuff. Earhooks, crimp beads, split rings, beading wire, bead spacers, and crystals.

Finally, as I've mentioned, I collect marbles. I have wanted one of these "cat eye" or "miracle" style glass marbles for a long time, but I could never decide on a colour and they were also $15 each. Then they dropped to $7 each. Yesterday, they were on close-out, 6 for $16. "Patience, Grasshoppah. It is a virtue." The 5 round things below the marbles are little wooden marble stands. I bought 8 total and 3 of them are already being used for my sulphide marbles.