Today I'm busy finishing packing kits to take to BeadFX with me and it's mainly these gorgeous 14m Swarovski #2035 I'm working with.

Sadly these have been discontinued in every colour except crystal but I still have a few in my stash for one of the new kits I'm launching at BeadFX (and then on my website in October) as well as a kit I'll be launching early next year.

I adore these crystals in pretty much every colour I have ever seen them in but today's packing introduced me to a new one- Rose Gold. It is just amazing. Sadly I literally have just enough for 10 of the new kits launching this week but I'm going to have to do something I never normally do and keep a set for myself... I just can't resist.

Packing these crystals has got me thinking about working with materials over whose supply we have no say and which may disappear from the market at any time.

Sadly I have had this happen with a couple of items that I use (mainly flatback crystals) but I've seen it a lot recently with even items launched & lauded in the past 1-2 years suddenly being discontinued never to be seen again, and nothing put in place to replace them, from any manufacturer. I can only imagine this will get to be a more common occurrence over the next few years with so many new beads & shapes having been introduced in such a short space of time.

It's such a shame to lose the ability to make a design due to the vagaries of the marketplace, and for a designer to potentially have put 100s of hours of work in only to find when they come to launch a design that no-one can make it. Also for a beader who may be slowly building up the materials for a project only to discover some no longer exist.

But I guess that keeps us on our toes and for me it has taught me that if I have an idea for a design I need to be quicker to buy up the materials and get it out there and if I see a design from someone else I want to make I need to hurry up and buy the supplies as you never know if they'll be there next week!