Occasionally, we are asked how we find the materials for Bead&Button's Bead Soup and Spotlight columns and how we decide what to cover. Mainly, we get ideas for these columns from shopping, receiving new products in the mail, getting a heads up from colleagues or friends, and generally keeping an eye out for unique resources.

In the June issue, we show Sharon Peters' new Critter Clasps. I stopped at Sharon's booth at Lewis Wilson's Best Bead Show in Tucson in February and couldn't help but notice her new Critters. Better yet, Sharon told me that the Tucson show was the first place they had ever been "released." I told her I was interested in putting them in Bead Soup, and she wrapped up a few clasps then and there for me to take back to the photo studio and then return to her later. This is just one example of our Bead Soup finds.

Sometimes, we receive products unsolicited in the mail. In that case, we pass them around to see what the editors think about the novelty, quality, practicality, beauty, and other attributes of the items before we decide whether to print information about them. We rarely act on press releases without enclosed products — it's too hard to verify the attributes of the items.

Regarding our Spotlight beads, in most cases we find them while shopping at the Bead&Button Show, Tucson bead shows, or other bead shows we go to. We have a small collection of purchased beads just waiting to be selected for Spotlight. The editor who designs our Spotlight piece in a given issue makes her own creative decisions.

We buy or return items that we find on our own. In general, we can't return unsolicited items that arrive in the mail.

If you have something of high quality that is aesthetically pleasing and useful for making jewelry, please send it to Bead&Button Bead Soup, Kalmbach Publishing, 21027 Crossroads Circle, Waukesha, WI 53187-1612. Your item must be widely available in quantity or able to be custom-ordered.

We love to get packages from our sources!