(My) Small and Beautiful Collection... so far!

Now during February I had started off being quite good, well for me anyway!

Everything so far had been either preloved or in a sale, my one exception being the 2 red with purple beads to finish off a very special bracelet... but then came the small and beautiful collection, a'hem.  (I'd recommend you click on this link to read the excellent blog post by Leann over at Charms Addict as it's a great comprehensive review of the small and beautiful beads and my "go to" post on these beads; it also made me realise that if I wanted any of these beads I'd better not wait for them to come to me)

So no bargains, everything at retail price and impossible to get hold of... or a scramble at best.  I stumbled onto this collection via my ridged bead.  Typing this blog post at the end of March and I still have yet to find the pink version or another green; these are very hard to acquire!

So the next package through my letterbox contained two of the more accessible ones, although in this batch they were all snapped up quite quickly, I chose light blue stripe and green stepping stones, both arriving in early February from the US again.

Next came the nail biting craziness that involved trying to get some of the collection via the only UK retailer who had these beads in stock, it was a "released at X time" style scramble, on the first round I was able to pick up an eye of the storm and a blue galaxy... shortly followed by a koi pond the following session.

When taking quick photos anything can be used, the beads don't come with their own rubber band!

So if you've been counting as we've been going along you should realise I now had my own "kit" of 6 that I'd assembled from the UK and US.

There are still more on my wish list of beads from this collection.

My top two favourites and must haves out of ALL the small and beautiful collection are Navy Galaxy and Cream Galaxy but these have been quite a challenge to find, next on my list are Navy Peacock, Pink Ridges and Turquoise Tiger Stripes - beads I still desire to have.  I don't want to pay the inflated prices where collectors have bought at retail and are selling on for a lot of profit as the market makes these very desirable so it may take a lot longer to have a chance at the next ones, this will however give me more time to save up for them!

To be honest, it's probably a good job they're very hard to get hold of as the latest news on my ongoing Boiler Fund vs Bead Fund is that the Boiler Fund is not holding out against the might of the Bead Fund and is losing quite dramatically *puts on another jumper*

Watch this space as I am still on the hunt for the others!!