Bead Fest Prep and Studio Drama over a tiny piece of Brass

Bead Fest Philly is about 2.5 weeks away. But it feels like 5 minutes. I am trying as hard as I can to fill my booth, but have had two major issues all summer.

#1-my family...particularly my kids being involved in so many things over the summer. They have had some amazing opportunities. Because I am the "chauffeur", this has been at great cost to my beadmaking time. I am not very good at saying no to them when it comes to these opportunities, but did manage it a couple times.

#2-my lake house studio. As you can see here and here, I have been trying to get it set up. And it was. Except for the correct brass connector to connect the torch to the gas line. I made several mistakes which cost me precious time.

First, I didn't take the hose or the extra gas line plug the plumber had left on the windowsill. And I was trying to do my shopping in a different city than where the lake house is located. To make a long story much shorter, I finally went to the welding shop for what I thought was the final piece of the puzzle (left handed thread for the hose)

It wasn't. When I tried to fit it into the gas line side, it was way too small. I am embarrassed to say there was screaming and maybe some swearing. My 15 year old came running out to the garage to see if I was ok. Physically, yes. Mentally? Not so much.

I threatened my very patient husband with calling a plumber to deal with it. This helped motivate him to help me figure it out. Let me stop for a moment to mention that my dad and brother are both engineers. I did NOT inherit the engineer gene. Where they measure things out, I estimate with my thumb, hand, arm, leg, whatever happens to be most handy *snicker*

Anyway, paying a plumber $100 to bring the right $1 connector and to install it wasn't particularly appealing to my darling. So he had the brilliant idea to bring the connector that works with the hose end (left hand threaded) AND the plug sitting on the windowsill like it was meant for us to use it to make sure we have the right connector.

Last night we found it. Finally.

The first thing we did when we got back was to try it. Success!!!!!

Finally I can make beads to my heart's content while my kids enjoy the lake.

Are you going to Bead Fest? Five of us will be vending there. Check out this awesome spread Karen put together for us.

If you will be in Philadelphia area the weekend of August 23-25, you must come to Bead Fest and say hello to each of us (booth #'s in the photo above). And if you're not planning on being in the area, you need to change that! You can come see the 10 beads I managed to make all summer sitting lonely on my booth. 

You can also see this guy helping me for the weekend. He's pretty excited to meet a bunch of crazy bead ladies...

You can get $5 off admission to the show too. Just save this to your computer and print it out. 

Have a great week!

-Jen Cameron

Glass Addictions