Sparkle On, Tuesday!

In the morning, I had ended up placing a pickup order at Michaels, a craft store, as they were doing a huge sale to try and compete with Amazon Prime Day. And since I was interested in getting more beads, it was worth taking a look. And the end result was a cart with $50 worth of items, and I only had to pay $24. So... yeah.

I went to go pick it up, and there was a Five Below right next door, so of course I also took a peek in there. But here's the craft haul:

Afterwards, stopped by the mail and there was a care package from my dad and... in the moment we (well, me) have all been waiting for... my Clandestine Industries necklace came in!

Someone on Twitter had asked where I got it and said it looked like a good quality dupe, which before I had gotten it I might have agreed with, but it's like... too good quality? Like I got it for pretty damn cheap, like $20, shipped from Australia, and the seller has multiple, which rings all the alarm bells for "FAKE! FAKE!" but I'm more confused post-getting it. There's a Reddit thread in which people gave some of their thoughts, but there's already a few variations of the necklace, so while someone said "Oh, well mine had a different chain and didn't have raised edges." that's more than likely a different variation: one which is on a cheaper chain and was made from 2005 through 2008. (Which, if you were making a fake, wouldn't you make the obviously cheaper to produce one?) There is a variation from 2007 specifically that does have raised edges, though, and a very similar chain, though on some of those there is a small heart charm on the back. But not all of them? It's incredibly difficult to actually verify as these aren't catalogued super well. I don't know, it probably sounds like I'm trying to convince myself it's not fake, but I don't care all too much because it's 1. really nice quality and 2. I just like having one, period. The only thing making me curious is just the ability to know what I have. It just doesn't all add up clearly in my brain. Especially after getting it. Because if it felt cheap it'd be one thing but it looks and feels like it's legit, which if someone was out mass-manufacturing duplicates of this quality... the price would tell me they were taking a loss on them? But they have sold a shit ton of these? My only other hypothesis is that it could be someone who had at some point worked around jewelry, and just has a bunch of weird overstock, because their eBay account seems to be a very random selection of jewelry that they have a large-but not unlimited- stock of. And that they've been selling for years: their eBay account started in 2006. Would they get mad if I asked them, lol? Idk, it's not like it'll matter to anyone else: it's my baby now.

After getting back with all my treasures, I just sorted beads for a while, called my dad, cooked dinner. It'd be nice if things could continue to go well!

xo,

chasey.