The Goods!

[*we split the large bag of buttons,
laid them out on the dining room table
and picked out our favorites!]

Tara and I had a great time today, on our little antiquing expedition. We braved the blowing snow and cold, and headed down to Madison Bouckville, N.Y. to check out the shops that are open all year round. There are only a handful of them, that are. We met some really super friendly shop owners, and had a ball looking through shelves and shelves of fun, old items. The gears in both of our heads, spinning and spinning with ideas of craftiness. I think we went to 4 shops in total. The third shop we walked into, had it's very own bead section. How lucky is that! The woman running the shop makes her own beaded jewelry, and sells strands of different gemstone beads. She also offered some large gem pendants individually. I found a couple of faceted Amazonite beads that will be great for earrings.

She also sells some silver findings, and I bought three small silver S clasps. I also bought a strand of the coolest shape and color, Dragonskin Jasper.

They are some sort of faceted nugget shape that is really fun and interesting, with the most beautiful green color. After asking for some buttons and keys, the owners whipped out the {hidden} stash and we made out with a HUGE bag of various buttons and several skeleton keys.

Some other finds of the day were some skeleton keys, and a collection of cool larger sized buttons.

You just never know what you'll find in some of these shops. There is ALWAYS a treasure to find!