French wires, head pins, bails, spacers, crimpers

Whew! What a day! It actually started late last night when Cheryl got a phone call from home with tragic news. One of her daughter's friends was killed in a car crash on I-27 early Monday morning before we left. Her husband knew but didn't want to ruin our trip. They decided to call after the family moved the funeral to Thursday instead of Friday. So her dilemma was to stay or go. She waffled back and forth, but decided we should stay. After a restless night we got up to a delicious breakfast and meeting more new friends. We actually met some more teachers imagine that? We also met a group of friends from Oklahoma City. They were fun and on a girls trip. They left today for Santa Fe. After breakfast we went back and got dressed and decided we would go down to the Plaza today as we still hadn't done that. We walked one side of the Plaza and then took a side street and passed a bead shop. I immediately said, "We've got to go in here. I love beads." So we went in and looked around for a while. The managers name was Chris and naturally we struck up a conversation. I know you are surprised about that. So I started asking him some questions about beading. I told him I always have trouble keeping my beads on the wire that it comes loose at the clasp. He asked me if I used crimping beads. I told him yes. Then he asked me how many times I crimped it and if I had a crimping tool. I actually only had been crimping the crimp bead once and with pliers. So he told me to pick out some beads to make a necklace and he would show me how to crimp it so it won't come loose. So I found these really cool Egyptian beads and decided to make a partial necklace out of those, just so Chris could show me. I originally thought I would not keep the necklace, but it turned out I really liked it. Then Chris asked if I had ever made any earrings, which I said no. So Chris told Cheryl or Cheryl told Chris she wanted to make the earrings, not me. Cheryl picked out the beads she wanted and then the French wires, head pins, and spacers she wanted to use. And then he taught us how to make earrings. The hardest part was making the "pancakes" and it just so happens Cheryl is a champion. He kept telling her she did perfect. It was so much fun and very relaxing. We got so preoccupied we forgot to take pictures so we will go back tomorrow and add them later. We have decided we are going in the jewelry making business.
Our tentative name is Beadin' Biddies.