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!

Bead Fest 2016: Prep, Teaching, Friends and Beads

You know, on Greys Anatomy, when Meridith says, "you're my person"?  I love that so much.  When I go to Bead Fest, I think that about everyone, they are my people!  

I have experienced so much kindness and friendship from my fellow bead community, that I leave Bead Fest happy and overwhelmed (in a good way).  

I never vend there in Spring, but have been teaching there the last two years.  So, in order to do that, I must prepare for classes, and make kits, and also make beads for students to purchase or to trade with friends.  

Prep can be a grueling process.  However, once I get over the boredom of making all the little bits and pieces, I really really enjoy assembling the kits and getting excited to teach my classes. 

I had to make blanks for a carving class, condition polymer, anneal tons and tons of wire and label and package everything.  There were bead mixes to make, bronze clay beads to make and instructions to write and print.  

This year I taught Wild Wire Choker- which is a wonderful beginning /intermediate wire class.  It is a short 3 hour, but intense class.  It is really packed with lots of different spins and tricks on very basic wire techniques.  You also learn to use sari silk and make your own crimps from scrap wire.  It is such a great class, and I really think that my students will find lots of ways to use the things they learned.  Mostly, I hope it is freeing, and allows them to relax, and learn to go with the flow, even if the wire isn't doing what they thought it should do.  

Our class was first thing Sunday morning at 8:30 am!

My son Aiden had come with me to Bead Fest to shop and help out in my classes.  He is a great assistant and fun to shop with too!

Set up was a bit frantic on Sunday morning when we ran into a hiccup and had to swap out all the tables in our room!  I honestly looked a hot mess!  You can see the desperation on my face!  LOL! But we did it, and room 18 was ready for the day in time.

My class was full of amazing students and it was nice to see some familiar faces in there too!  I had some students who had never touched wire before and they walked out wearing their finished necklaces.  Everyone buckled down and wrapped and wrapped wire.  I was really proud of how willing they were to get to it and work, and how much diversity and creativity went into their pieces.

Here are the students / student work

Then we had an hour and a half to clean up, eat and set up for the next class

Aiden decided to practice his carving a bit more before class.

Up next was carving polymer.  Another wonderful class, that is 50% safety and 50% fun.  I was thrilled to see that by the end of class most everyone was being careful to not carve toward open flesh and they seemed to enjoy themselves.  Carving is so very relaxing, and the students agreed that is was something they would definitely do again!

Here is the project we did

and here is their work!  I was amazed at how fast everyone picked it up.  I also love the individuality of student work!

We closed Bead Fest classes as the LAST CLASS STANDING.  We had fun laughing about how they were circling waiting for our class to be over so they could clean it up.  They were rolling carpets up as we packed our bags.....lol  It was a great class and we had a lot of fun!

Of course, I also had beads I made to sell and trade, some necklace samples and I also made some rings.  I loved Marsha Neal's new spiral beads and so I made her ring from one (and one for me, and another to make sure she could find one she liked) because she is always such a great friend to me.  I have been practicing rings, and just thought this was a great opportunity.  Anyhow, here is some of the stuff I made for the show.

Marsha Neal and Jenny Davis-Reazor were both together in Artisan Alley.  They were kind enough to let Aiden and I stash our stuff behind their booths while we shopped on saturday.  Their booths were our little home away from home, and that is just one of the things I love about my creative fun beady friends.  They are more like family!  I also got to see Suze Weinberg and Diana Ptaszynski, stopped by CB&Co to see Kristi Evenson, got to visit Yvonne of My Elements, just to name a few.  I got to shop a bit with Heather Marston and her daughter and got hugs from Dianne Miller too.  Heather Boardman took time to drop by and I got to see her for a bit too.  I tried to at least say hi to everyone, but I will admit, I was very distracted by all the beads and on a hunt for some very specific things.  

(Bottom row center is my son and I.  I really love that he enjoys beads and jewelry as much as I do!)

(pictures from Suze, Andrew Thorton, Diana and me)

Saturday my mom brought Julia by to shop at My Elements and see Yvonne, whom she just adores!!!  My mom picked up some really AWESOME Green Girl studio necklaces (and I drooled over some of her new paper dolls) and then we all went out to lunch.  I wish I had gotten some pictures.....but I was just too busy enjoying our time together (and bead shopping, and eating...lol)

I got almost everything I had set out.  I wanted more of those great electro-plated stone beads, more large holed HUGE crystal beads, beads for bracelets and earrings, pyrite for necklaces, earrings and bracelets and small ammonite strands.  I found all but the ammonites.  I really really really wanted them for earrings and bracelets for my spring shows.  Oh well.    Here is the loot I got, its good stuff.  I also had to grab that gigantic turquoise!!!

I picked up some things from Marsha and Jenny of course, and had to have Anne Gardanne's new enameled beads with silver shimmer on them!!!  but I am maxed on art beads, so I was good in that area

All in all, it was an amazing weekend.  I love my creative friends, I deeply love teaching, and I always feel a combination of exhausted and exhilarated after weekend of such goodness.

If you missed it, try to make it to Bead Fest August.  It will be a blast!