Manhattan, Day 2

The next morning, we ate breakfast and then headed back into the city to meet up with Lisa Peters of Lisa Peters Art. I've been buying Lisa's cabs and beads for a couple of years now, and I swear, she puts some kind of highly addictive drug in her clay. Every time she lists her items on Etsy, I end up buying more. And more. And...you get the idea.

The first thing Lisa did was hand me a little package with my latest order in it. Yowza! These cabs and connectors were just gorgeous! This was already off to a good start!

We walked up to Beads on Fifth, where I had purchased and printed out a couple of special deal coupons - buy a certificate for $20 and redeem it for $40 at the store. Fantastic!

Beads on Fifth was small, but packed with beads, findings, charms and tools.

Lisa and I did a little creative collaborating...

And then we got down to the business of buying beads!

So much fun! Lisa even took a quick pic of me, Min Ping and Min Yee as we were browsing the trays and trays and trays of beads and findings.

Next up, we went to York Beads, where I nearly lost my mind just after walking in the door. All the colors, all the shapes, all the sparkle! It was almost too much!

Min Yee took my picture in front of the Wall O' Czech Seed Beads. I hadn't seen this many beads since I left my house on Saturday...

The only thing about is that you have to buy in quantity. They don't sell just a strand of daggers - you gotta buy the whole hank of daggers! Not necessarily a bad thing, but it meant that I could only get one hank of daggers, one hank of glowing copper drops and one hank of green lustered mushrooms. But considering I also picked up three new colors of 13/0 charlottes, some excellent Picasso-marbled tube beads and a strand of marbled green tribal curved daggers, I think I did pretty well.

After that, Min Ping and Min Yee went off to find lunch, but Lisa and I were just hungry for more beads. We went into Phoenix Beads, where we browsed but didn't buy, and City Beads, which was a very impressive shop, indeed. I found a few Swarovski crystal components that I need for projects for The Book, a strand of textured glass coin pearls, and a small package of metallicized plastic beads.

Lisa was totally smitten with a package of beads that looked like dice, so I helped her pick out a few little goodies to go with it for a special gift for her grandmother. (Can't wait to see that one!)

Then we wandered into the Toho store. And wow. The selection of components there was just unreal! I picked up more than a few beautiful items to bead around and to incorporate into beaded chains, as well as a set of beautiful gold wire mesh roses. (I've been lusting after those roses for a long, long time, and this seemed as good a time as any to give in!)

After we met up with the Mins again, we had some time to kill before our train back to NJ, so Lisa suggested we go into MJ Trimmings. Once again, total sensory overload combined with the deepest relief that I had left my credit card at home.

To get the full idea of what it's like in MJ Trimmings, imagine 20 foot high walls, stacked to the ceiling with boxes and boxes of buttons. All sorts of buttons. Toggles, shank buttons, painted, metal, glass, crystal...the place sparkled like sunshine! In the next room were nailheads, rhinestones and walls and walls of ribbons, lace and decorative edgings and trim.

Lisa came up to me as I was picking out a few buttons and told me that I had to see these amazing metal sequins - and I did. Oh, wow. I picked out three packages of them to take back with me.

By this time, I was totally exhausted, overwhelmed and excited all at the same time. We said goodbye to Lisa and went back to the train.

In a way, I'm glad that I don't live closer to Manhattan. I'd be in there all the time to buy beads! On the other hand, for me, the city is a place that is full of energy, excitement and inspiration, and I think I need to go back there maybe more than once a year!