Bead Fest 2016 Here and Gone in a Flash

Bead Fest was so much prep- weeks of making beads, and painting beads and sealing beads and pricing beads...................

Prepping for my class.................


and getting the house ready to leave the family for 4 days................

And then, this:

(settling into my room)

all the beads................all set up!

And then friends started rolling in.

Barb B. and Diana P. showing off their Staci Louise Luna Moth bags- great for bead show shopping !!

Suze Weinburg stopped by (blurry pic by my son!!) and bought some fun and unique beads to play with

Kristie of Artisan Clay stopped by to chat and fondle beads- we even got to shop a bit together

(one of my helpers)

Yvonne of My Elements whose personality is as bright and colorful as her beads

Tracey Donoughe who's matte ceramic beads beg to be touched.  I ended up scoring a ton of beach stones from her this time around, see below in the "booty" portion of the blog

Nikki of Thornburg Bead Studio- who always has some amazing color combinations and textures- her new large urchin beads are a must have

Marsha of Marsha Neal Studio - who had not just beads, but fun ring holders, felted art and other miniatures that are just divine

Diane Hawkey with her ceramic beads, and her house sculptures and pot heads.  I love her sense of modern art and whimsy!

And you will never believe who I ran into at Yvonne's booth!  My high school art teacher!!!!  We had so many smiles catching up.  I loved our art program at our high school and took it as a major, so I got to have art twice a day!  I learned as much there as I did my first year of art in college.  This was such an awesome surprise (what a small world it is!!!)

Marsha wore a necklace I made her using her beads, my beads and Nikki's beads all weekend.  I love keeping her adorned with jewelry to wear!!!!

...........................and there were so many more.  I am just happy I got the pictures I did.  Between gabbing, and selling and shopping its amazing I remembered to take any pictures!

I should have gotten a nice shot of my booth / class helpers together, Barb Bechtel and Amanda Leonhart.  They were priceless.  I could count on them to jump in and help customers when I was not there or got too gabby.
Here is a pic I stole from Amanda's page.  She could often be found covering for me when I wasn't there.

And here is a pic of Barb and I at a late night dinner after teaching class.  She was an excellent class helper and I couldn't have done it without her!

Our back corner, Diane Hawkey, Marsha Neal Studio, Nikki Thornburg Studio and me, have so much fun.  Great laughs, and our beads all go well together too.  

Diane Hawkey called us the "best bead squad ever"!  I could not agree more.

Thank you to everyone who stops by each year to support my business and allow me to make new and exciting things.  I look forward to the familiar faces, laughs and bead chat.

I did my own share of bead shopping of course.

Here is the score of beads I came home with.  I tried to be good, really!  but I really do go through the gemstones, and I needed some more colors of certain shapes.

ammonites and carnelian

Turquoise, amazonite, and lots of appatite

some more of these electroplated stone beads!!!  can't get enough of them- they go great with my gold rush beads

citrine nuggets with decent size holes, amazonite and pink opal- these are chunky and gorgeous

star bone beads, and dino-bone beads- i cannot keep these in stock

Golem Studio Beads- my first batch from them- excited to play

Antique brass beads from Hands of the Hills- these have such an amazing patina of time on them

Marsha Neal Studio Beads (I can never get enough of them)- love love love her colors and textures

Lucet's for weaving from Cooky Schock- haven't tried it yet, but plan to take them to the shore with me next weekend

gorgeous glass beads from Thornburg Bead Studio- do you think I like that yellow green????  So glad to get some of those gorgeous urchins!

I managed to steal some of Barb Bechtel's beads while she had them out at our bead swap!

These are gifts and I love them - cards of paintings by Shelley Graham Turner (aren't they great?  I love her work)

It was so nice to see Andrew Thorton and William working the Green Girl Studio booth.  I got my hands on some of Andrew's beads

I pawed through Diane Hawkey's beads until I found the "must have's"  That blue cat and the devil dog are my favorites!

I got double this amount of natural holey stones from Tracey Donoughe- I cannot wait to use them.  They all have natural holes in them

So, it was good shopping and I am really happy with my haul.  I can't wait to start playing with them!

In the meantime, I came home with lots of beautiful beautiful beads to share with all of you who didn't make it to Bead Fest.  I plan to have an online sale, on facebook here.  I will list some Monday night (August 29th) for those of you who work days, and I will list some Tuesday afternoon (August 30th) for those of you who work nights.  So stay tuned on my Facebook page for details!!!!!

My Painting on Polymer class went well, the students all made really cool pieces they can be proud of!  More on that in another post!

For now, I leave you with what they made!