Bead Fest: A Feast For The Eyes

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.

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.

Gardanne Enamel Components

Explain to me how I'm supposed to do that with such fabulousness like Gardanne Beads enameled pieces?

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.

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.

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.

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...

Diane Hawkey

Diane Hawkey had some of her whimsical pot head planters and house sculptures for sale in her booth.

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!

Marsha Neal

Marsha Neal had beads, tiny pottery and her needle-felted creations at her booth.  

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.

Firefly Design Studio

Michelle/Firefly Design Studio had her beach-inspired dishes with her!

And of course there was gorgeous jewelry at the show...

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!

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!

Xuron

Treated myself to a new Xuron plier.  Soooooo comfortable!

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...

Pottery Purchases

A bunny pot head planter from Diane Hawkey, a ring holder from Marsha Neal and a dish from Michelle/Firefly Design.

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.

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!

A Pottery Adventure

I was a bit stuck over what to write about this week. I've not touched anything bead or jewellery related for a while, so I thought I'd share some of what I've been up to while not making beads. About 3 years ago, I acquired a pottery wheel. Every so often I would sit down and have a go and when beautiful pots didn't appear before my eyes I would put a board on it and it would go back to being a table.

My wheel

Here it is looking unusually clean! Can't say the same for the surrounding area... I'm a messy worker!

It's been a dream of mine since I was young to have a wheel, but each time I sat down, I got the feeling that the time wasn't right and I'd give up and pack it up again. A couple of weeks ago, I moved it to the other side of the shed where it was a bit more accessible and tried again... something clicked and I managed to make a few things I was nearly happy with.

Wedged clay ready for throwing

Throwing the clay down

Centering

Opening up to create the base

Lifting the walls

Tidying up

Cut off the wheel

I'm not quite up to making a matching set yet, but I like different!

Drying overnight so they're ready to trim

It's great to finally feel like I'm getting somewhere!

So with my new found confidence, I decided to try out some mugs. I've been mad for carving recently, (it all started with Lindsay's Eye challenge when I made Egyptian eye cabochons) and wanted to try the technique out on a larger scale. So after trimming my pots, I carved the design on to them and pulled some handles.

Action Shot - Trimming the foot

Scoring the design

Carved and smoothed

Extruded sausages ready to pull handles

Curving the handles

This is the first one drying out ready for a bisque firing.

Waiting to fire. 

Still a bit wobbly, but getting closer to looking just like a real one!

I'll be working on the rest of them this week... hopefully I won't mess them up in the glaze firing!

Crazy for Clay

Just another in the continuing series of updates from Starry Road Studio.... Needless to say, I have been knee deep in clay, relishing with joy the ability to work in this medium again after a so long a time away while transitioning from KY to NY over the past year. Yes, that's right, it has been nearly a YEAR since I packed up and left KY to return to NY. Most of my studio has been packed up in storage and only in recent weeks have I begun the slow process of getting everything set up here. I was dying to get my pottery wheel set up and thankfully I managed to throw a few pots this past week. I still have to get my spray booth set up for glazing, but for now I'll use some dipping glazes for these pots.

I am continuing to explore beads, creating a variety of new forms and ideas.

Continuing in my series of woodland-themed beads, I finally got started on a new design for "Camping Beads", based on sketches from late last summer. I blogged about it here.

I am having a blast playing with various textures. I am especially LOVING wood. This started with some woodland themed pieces (logs, trees, etc.). I am carrying it over into my line of ancient amulets and beads. I wanted to convey the sense of the ancient along with the wood texture, so I created a texture I am calling "Petrified Wood" (as seen in the dark brown pieces below). I love the mossy old stone (in the lighter, greenish pieces), and ancient wood look of these...

I plan to explore these textures in pottery. I can't wait! Here's an idea with a sort of plant form growing out of a "tree" base. I will throw this in porcelain and sculpt it after. I'll post pictures when I get around to it. And perhaps it will inform new designs for beads too. Stay tuned!

Glazing in a Winter Wonderland

This was (and mostly still is) the winter wonderland (::gags::) outside my home over the weekend.  Frankly,  I'm over winter and will welcome spring with all her pollen-induced sneezing, coughing and nose-blowing with open arms (and tissue boxes).  Anyway, since it's clear that I continue to get stuck in my home and away from my studio I took Jenny's advice and brought my glaze and bisque home.  I don't really have a choice though because Berks Bead Bazaar is almost here!

So here is the little set-up I've been working off of in my dining room. I created a disposable tray from foil and then lined it with paper towels so I can switch them off every time I change colors or it just gets too messy.

Things are moving slowly mostly because I hurt from shoveling and because I chose to use multiple glazes on a lot of my new pieces.  I'm also spending a lot of time wiping off the glaze with a wet sponge so that some of the porcelain shows through.  I love the look of this but it certainly takes plenty of extra time.

Then there is the stoneware that I like to stain.  I dab the stain on and then remove it with a wet sponge.  This is also tedious but worth the end result.

Here's how some of the stained pieces look before they get fired in the kiln.  The faces won't get any glaze while some of the steampunk-inspired pieces will get a crackle glaze applied to them.

I currently have almost 3 trays filled with finished work or work still in progress waiting for more glaze applications.  There is also another tray with bisque in it that I haven't gotten to yet.  Since there is MORE snow in the forecast (::sobs::) it appears I"ll be able to finish most of this from home.

If you don't hear from me soon, it's because I'm buried under a million feet of snow.

Happy shoveling...errrrr beading!

Diana P.
Suburban Girl Studio LLC