Bead Fest was held over the weekend. It's one of the highlights of my year and I've been attending since 2004. I've even been a vendor at it 3 times (and might again in the future). This year I went for fun; to see friends and do some (lots) of shopping.
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| Welcome to Bead Fest |
You need to be careful at Bead Fest. It's easy to go waaaaaaaaaay over budget in a short period of time (ask me how I know). I told myself to lay off so many art beads this year...hahahahahahahaha! Ok, yeah that didn't happen.
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| Gardanne Enamel Components |
Explain to me how I'm supposed to do that with such fabulousness like
Gardanne Beads enameled pieces?
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| Thornburg Bead Studio |
Nikki/
Thornburg Bead Studio brought some of her gorgeous lampwork urchins with her. I ended up buying a bunch of lampwork headpins from her though to assist me with our
AJE headpin challenge.
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| Penn Avenue Pottery |
Tracey/
Penn Avenue Pottery had oodles of fun ceramic beads to choose from. I found myself trapped (totally against my will) at her booth for awhile, with my hands stuck (yes, I couldn't pull them out) in those trays.
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| Staci Louise Originals |
After my escape from Tracey's booth, I ended up at
Staci's booth (that's a lie, I'd been there probably 500 times already by Saturday morning...my apologizes to Staci). Her booth looked like a magic unicorn had visited with all the beautiful rainbow colors. I added more beads to my gigantic Staci-collection.
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| Staci's bags |
In addition to her beads, Staci also brought some of her hand-dyed and stamped bags with her. I own a luna moth bag and it was perfect for shopping the show.
In fact, several bead-makers brought other art with them in addition to their beads...
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| Diane Hawkey |
Diane Hawkey had some of her whimsical pot head planters and house sculptures for sale in her booth.
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| Beaded Chic Fused Glass |
Donna/
Beaded Chic has been playing with fused glass lately and brought some new pieces along with her table full of lampwork!
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| Marsha Neal |
Marsha Neal had beads, tiny pottery and her needle-felted creations at her booth.
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| Jenny Davies-Reazor |
AJE's own
Jenny Davies-Reazor had some of her gorgeous tiles and needle-felted/bead-embroidery pieces for sale at her table.
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| Firefly Design Studio |
Michelle/
Firefly Design Studio had her beach-inspired dishes with her!
And of course there was gorgeous jewelry at the show...
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| Marcia Balonis and Pam Garbig |
Marcia Balonis and
Pam Garbig had a table full of beautiful samples and kits for sale. I brought home one kit and will be writing about it on here in the near future.
There were also great tools for sale!
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| Lucet |
New AJE member,
Cooky Schock had a booth and I came home with a lucet and some cord from her. You might recall the recent
blog post that Cooky wrote for us about the lucet. This great little tool helped make my 5+ hour car ride home go much quicker!
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| Xuron |
Treated myself to a new
Xuron plier. Soooooo comfortable!
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| Funky Chain, ParaWire, Gemstones |
This was just the tip of the iceberg of what was available at Bead Fest! You're probably wondering what I brought home with me, right? Let's take a peek...
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| Pottery Purchases |
A bunny pot head planter from Diane Hawkey, a ring holder from Marsha Neal and a dish from Michelle/Firefly Design.
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| Tools and Kits |
The lucet, cord for the lucet, some dyed Stiff Stuff (
Bead My Love), spiffy new XBow Series
Xuron pliers and a fab kit from
Marcia Balonis.
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| Art Bead Haul |
And this is the art bead haul. So many beads, pendants, headpins and cabochons!
Bead Fest 2016 was fabulous as always and while I hate to see it end, my wallet requires a year to recover. See you in 2017, Bead Fest!
Happy Beading!
