Sparkle overload!

I just went to the Gem Show in Chicago yesterday.  I'd been to a small one before, but nothing like this!  Since I was looking for stuff to make jewelry with, I didn't go shopping at the many booths that were selling finished jewelry.  Still, there were so many vendors, and so much cool stuff that I would like to have, that it was really tough to decide.  I mostly bought semi-precious gemstone beads.  I probably could have used some silver too, but the prices have been going up so rapidly, I didn't really know if the prices were good, but they didn't seem to be any better deal than I normally get.  Anyway, I wanted to share some of my finds:

These are little tiny faceted roundelles:  black spinel, green onyx and rhodolite garnet.  I like the fact that the green onyx looks like emeralds and the rhodoite garnet looks like rubies.

I love blue lace agate, and here are some very pretty faceted rounds.  The ones above are larger, and then there are some smaller ones below, along with some tourmaline and agate.

Crysoprase is something I had heard of but not really familiar with.  It is a rare form of quartz, usually the color of green apple, but can also be a dark green.  I didn't see a whole lot of it, but I did pick up these roundelles, which are a pretty green apple color.

Chrysocolla sounds similar, but it is a "carbonite copper" gemstone.  Apparently it has copper and is often found mixed with malechite, turquoise and azurite.  I did find a very pretty pendant made from chrysocolla and picked it up along with a florite one.  I usually don't like to buy pendants that are already made, but I thought these were really cool.

I also picked up some cabs, which you won't be seeing in my pieces for a while, because I have to perfect my soldering skills first.  I got some some turquoise cabs:

In addition to the turquoise cabs, I also got some jasper cabs.  These are all red river jasper, except for the large square one which I was told is "mushroom jasper".

There's a lot more, but I'm only going to show you one last thing.  When I saw these, I really wanted them because I'm thinking I can have a lot of fun with them.  This is called "Suchoo Jade".  I have no idea what that means, but I bought them for the Buddha heads:

Ok, now that I have shared some of my finds with you, I have to go get to work.  I need to make some pieces and hopefully sell a lot of stuff before my husband sees what I put on the credit card!