Bead Fest Pix

Shopping + friends at Bead Fest Philadelphia = good times!

Everybody has her own way of shopping a bead show. My strategy is to walk the whole show, make mental notes and then go back and walk it again to make my purchases. Of course, there's some chatting and visiting along the way. I love this collection by Elaine Ray.

Tracy, Cynthia and me in the Ornamentea booth, home of these fun gals and so many beautiful things. You should visit their website for project sheets. I loved the creative spirit in the booth and hope to go to Raleigh someday to see the shop for myself!
I was lucky to catch up with world-class teacher Kim St. Jean during her lunch break. I'm pretty sure she never sits down! You'll get to see Kim on Beads, Baubles & Jewels and she also has a series of DVD's with Beaducation. Her newest is the Metal Fold Forming DVD. (That's her fold-formed bracelet in this pic.) I especially love her Bodacious Bangle.

This Earthenwood Studios pendant by Melanie Brooks really makes me smile. When we lived in the city, I spent a couple of years commuting by bike. Rain or shine, it was better by bike. Diane Hawkey has some lovely new designs, too. I think I'm smitten with ceramics.

Here's Wyatt White demonstrating wire wrapping in the Beadalon booth. That's my necklace up there on the Artistic Wire banner. Woo hoo! There were a lot of great demonstrations going on during the show: Atlantic Gems, Crystal Clay and Beaducation all showed a variety of techniques.

I love the shopping, but it really is nice to get to catch up with friends at these things. I'm so lucky to hang out with these amazingly talented people. Here's Leslie Rogalski, me, Fernando Dasilva and Tammy Honaman.

Can you believe Fernando made this gorgeous flan? A work of art. Daliciuus, darling!

Creative Collaborations

I like to give Beadalon's education director, Wyatt White, a hard time about the huge mess he makes anytime he's demonstrating new products at shows. But, the truth is, sometimes a mess can work to your advantage! At CHA last month, I picked up a piece of chain he'd been working on and it inspired me to create this matching wire-wrapped pendant.

Collaborating on a project is a great way to infuse new color palettes, techniques and other ideas into your work. I can't guarantee that you'll find anything as gorgeous as Wyatt's chain in any old pile of leftovers, but I do recommend trading with a friend. Round robins, Internet swaps and bead soup nights are all easy ways to get your own creative collaborations going!

In case you're wondering about our design: Wyatt used 16-gauge Artistic Wire to make silver S-hooks. He also made twisted jump rings from 16-gauge gold and 18-gauge silver. He connected double S-hooks between jump rings. For the pendant, I banded three 16-gauge silver wires together in three places using 16-gauge gold then folded them upward around the stone and banded them at the top. You can get great instructions on stone setting in Wyatt's book, Wire Wrapping Components & Stone Setting.

Making Sparkly Shoes

My fellow CREATE YOUR STYLE Ambassador, June Beach, told the best story recently about her daughter's sparkly shoes: June bought a bunch of crystal flatbacks, glued them onto a pair of sparkly shoes for her daughter, and sent her to school in her fancy shoes. When her daughter got home, most of the sparkles were missing. June was shocked. "What happened to all of your crystals?!" And her daughter basically says, "all of the kids wanted one."

When June told me this story, I could only think of the children's story Rainbow Fish. We had a good mama's laugh about it. Of course, sparkle isn't cheap, but how can you get mad at your child for wanting to spread the sparkle?

A few weeks after hearing this story, I found these awesome rainbow shoes in the sale bin for my daughter. I knew just what to do! I used clear drying epoxy to glue 4mm and 6mm flatbacks across the toes. I won't mind too much if she shares some of her sparkles, but hopefully there will be a few crystals left at the end of the day!

Super Simple Choker

Here's an idea for a simple beaded choker. The base of the necklace is made from memory wire and the repeating pattern combines shades of gray and silver. (If you don't want a choker, you could string the pattern onto beading wire and add a clasp.) I filled the Katiedids™ Creative Components pendants with 3mm round mixed metallic glass beads and added a little bit of wire wrapping to give it a handmade feel. You could make it even easier by adding just one pendant instead of the trio.