I've been spending days unpacking, sorting, and organizing my immense bead stash. I never thought I'd say this, but.....I really do have too many beads!

I'm having trouble getting all my comments in and uploading the images, and having a new kitten in the house is not helping. Why do cats find typing fingers so fascinating?!

My first images are strands of carnelian, real and faux, that I came across yesterday. The mixed strand on the far right is real carnelian, one I bought from the Picards last year. I fell in love with the ancient hammered carnelian discs someone posted here earlier, and found an affordable strand with a few samples of these.

There is a short strand of new hammered carnelian I bought online, from Afghanistan, I think. And a few older loose beads of polished carnelian nuggets.

The three examples on the left are all (Czech??) glass strands of faux carnelian, all from Ebrima Kabba, an African bead trader who used to visit me twice a year in Keene NH. On the far left is a strand of faceted rounds, unlike anything I've ever seen before. Then three strands of a rich red carnelian (long narrow...bicones??) In the middle is a gorgeous strand that I actually thought was banded agate, until I saw the bright aqua bead in the middle!