Sequins Anyone?

Saturday I did a little online shopping. Well, a lot of online shopping. First I looked for a new light fixture for our living room, then I shopped for clothes (yuck), then I did some browsing on fabric and bead sites. Fire Mountain Gems was having a $2 sale on selected items. Woohoo! I waded through all 28 pages, and toward the end came to entries for sequins. They were all 5mm cupped sequins in my choice of red, black, gold, silver, aqua, purple, and blue. Great! I love sequins, of all shapes and sizes and colors. In fact, I've been wanting to do a small piece, probably a journal quilt, covered in sequins. I figured these bags were the size you get in most retail establishments, maybe 3" x 4" or something like that. I ordered four bags (purple, aqua, blue, and silver) and a set of four charms, also a mere $2. I hesitated when I got to check out and saw what shipping was going to cost me but I reasoned that it would be worth it in the end.

In yesterday's mail I was surprised to find a box had been delivered. At first I thought it was the orphan top Finn is sending me. It was about the right size and weight for something like that. When I looked more closely at the return address label I saw that it was from Fire Mountain Gems. Well! A box of this size and this heavy just for a few bags of sequins and a couple of charms?

I sliced open the top to find a lovely piece of tissue paper with this sticker on it:

When I pulled off the tissue paper I found all of this! (and some packing paper)

These bags of sequins are about 4” x 7” and a good half of an inch thick. 230 grams each as it turns out. (Guess I have to learn to read the fine print! But then I would have had no idea what 230 grams of sequins would look like anyway.) Of course they also included an update to their catalog, which is the size of most magazines. And they sent me a free gift:

I'm not quite sure what it is but I can always take it apart and use the elements as embellishments in something someday! (The hangtag refers to it as "jewelry" but the cord is much too small to go around a wrist and doesn't seem to be adjustable. It could be a scissor or key fob I suppose.)

All in all I’m very happy with this purchase and certainly with the service. But if anyone needs any 5mm sequins in purple, aqua, silver or blue, just let me know because I have plenty to share!