Welcome Laura. Glad to have you joining us. A word of advice, edit your post to remove your last name and your email address. You don't want spam bots to grab it and start inundating your inbox. And it's just plain safer. ANyway, yeah, I hear you on designs in the magazines calling for one or two beads of 10+ different items. That's where having built up a stash comes in handy. On the other hand, so often the designs feature unique beads that are not really possible to find... that's worse to me.
Anyway, Come join us often, we have lots of fun. And the group is really friendly.
Lois