Art Bead Swap at Bead Fest

A few of the attendees at the Art Bead Swap held at Bead Fest Summer 2012. Thanks to Amy's husband for the great group shot! Photo Credit: Amy Freeland

A fun time was had by all last weekend at Bead Fest Summer in Philadelphia! Check out my special post for the Art Bead Scene blog...

Bead Fest Philadelphia!

Bohemian-Knotted Earrings Workshop

Saturday, August 18th

I'll be at Bead Fest Philadelphia this weekend! WHO'S WITH ME? If you are going, I'd love to meet up with you. I'm there all weekend long this year. Friday, August 17th - Sunday, August 19th. 

Here's a list of events where you can find me:
 

Friday, August 17th

Meet The Teachers Event

11:30 am -1:00pm

I have a table at the 'Meet the Teachers' Event. I'll be promoting my workshop, Bohemian Knotted Earrings and I'll have samples, kits and handouts for the class on display. I'll have a few of my bohemian knotted earrings available for purchase as well as, books, kits, tools and Irish waxed linen cord! Come see me and see my earrings in person. There's still spaces left in my class and still time to sign-up at the event!

Friday, August 17th
Knotting Demonstration at the Demo area on the show floor
3:15 pm

I'll be demonstrating some of my knotting techniques to make my earrings. Come see how it's done in person.

Saturday, August 18th
Bohemian Knotted Earrings Workshop
Room #20
8:00 am - 11:00 am

Students will learn basic knotting techniques to make three pairs of stylish earrings. Techniques covered in class will included: lark's head knot, half-hitch knot, overhand knot and how to use knotting tweezers for precise knotting.

Online registration for classes is now closed BUT, you can still registrar at the event. There's still time and a few spaces left! 

Bohemian-Inspired Jewelry BOOK SIGNING! Saturday, August 18th

Primitive Earth Beads Booth #528, 530, 532

1:00 pm -2:00pm

Meet me and Lorelei! Get your copy of our book, Bohemian-Inspired Jewelry signed by BOTH of us. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the Primitive Earth Beads booth #528-532 all weekend long.

Please come and join us! See you there this weekend.

Off to Bead Fest!

Bead Fest Philly 2011 

Picture taken by Andrew Thornton.

I'm leaving tomorrow for Bead Fest Spring in Philadelphia this weekend. Are you going??? It will be a much needed getaway girls weekend with some wonderful beady friends. I'm looking forward to seeing some familiar faces I met last year, as well as some new friends, too! I will be promoting my new book with Lorelei, called Bohemian-Inspired Jewelry. Our publisher, Interweave Press, sent us some cute postcards to hand out at the show.

I will also be running a "test class" to help me prepare for my Bohemian Knotted Earrings Workshop coming up at the next Bead Fest in August. I'm so glad that some of the ladies going to the Spring show were willing to participate and voluteer their time. This test class will allow me to practice my teaching skills and gain some more experience teaching these particular techniques. I'm looking forward to the feedback from my volunteer students!

Oh, and there may be some bead shopping thrown in there somewhere, too. ;) It's funny, the beads are certainly secondary to socializing with other bead enthusiasts! For me, the people are definitely the main attraction for the event. How about you? What's your favorite part about attending a bead show? The people? The classes? The beads? Do tell and I hope to see you there!  

Bohemian Knotted Earrings Workshop

 Bohemian Knotted Earrings Workshop

Bead Fest Philadelphia August 2012 
Saturday, August 18th 8:00am-11:00am

Registration now open!  
Click here to go to the instructors page and scroll down to find my name.

YAY! I can finally announce my BIG, huge news. I will be teaching this Bohemian Knotted Earrings Workshop at Bead Fest Philadelphia in August this year! I decided I wanted to start teaching again. I miss it. I've always had wonderful experiences teaching. I used to teach lots of beading classes when I worked at the Riverwalk Bead Shop and Gallery when we lived in Amesbury, Ma. I always had such awesome students in all my classes. I miss that interaction. I miss seeing those faces light up when they are having a great time creating something. I miss being apart of that fun. It's been over a year since I taught a class. I've been away too long. I really do love sharing the joy of beading and jewelry-making, so I'm going to return to teaching....And apparently, I'm going to eeeeease myself back in by jumping right onto the national stage. Eeeeek! It's only January, though. I have plenty of time to teach some smaller classes in between now and then. And speaking of that, I actually will be teaching this same class next month, Saturday, February 11th from 10-1pm  at the Riverwalk Bead Shop and Gallery! If you are local, check out the class schedule and come see me!

Anyway, back to telling you about the workshop. For months, I worked hard developing these original earrings designs and now, this class for you! The earring projects for the class are based on and inspired by an earring project I made for our book, Bohemian-Inspired Jewelry: 50 Designs Using Leather, Ribbon and Cords. Each student in class will make 3 different pairs of earrings using various knotting techniques. Colorful gemstone rounds are knotted onto artisan-made copper and silver components by MISS FICKLE MEDIA!!! Yeah, a big thanks to Shannon for making me all those rings and ear wires for my class!

Class description:

Learn simple knotting techniques to make a trio of bohemian chic earrings! Using waxed linen cord, you will learn 3 different ways to attach colorful beads to a ring component.

Students will learn basic knotting techniques to make three pairs of stylish earrings. Techniques covered in class will included: lark's head knot, half-hitch knot, overhand knot and how to use knotting tweezers for precise knotting. Using waxed linen cord, students will learn 3 ways to use knots to attach beads to a ring component. Students will have the following color choices for each pair of earrings: red, orange, green, turquoise and blue.Variations on the three designs made in class will also be discussed, so student will be able to expand on the techniques they have learned. 

I'd love to see you in class! Hope to see you there!

Bead Fest Philly

I went to Bead Fest Philadelphia for the first time. I had the pleasure of meeting many wonderful, beady friends, that I hope to be able to make lasting connections with! My husband, Josh and 10 month old, daughter, Nora were unable to make the trip with me. Nora is in the middle of teething and we decided traveling with a cranky, teething baby wasn't such a good idea. So instead, my Mother-In-Law, Nancy Siegel made the trip with me. When we arrived Friday night, we met up for drinks and dinner with my friend and Co-Author, Lorelei Eurto along with Nancy Schindler, Lisa Petrillo, Diana Ptaszynski and her husband, Colin, Mary Hubbard and her daughter, and Melinda Orr and a few others. Later that evening, the amazing Melissa Cable came over to our table. What a treat. A fun night of meeting, drinks and chatting!

On Saturday, at the show, we went straight to the Ornamentea booth, where I met owner, Cynthia Deis and ceramic bead artist, Elaine Ray.

 Ceramic beads, pendant and button by Elaine Ray from the Ornamentea booth.

There, we met back up with Lorelei, Nancy, Lisa and also Kelley Wenzel. From there, we popped over to Green Girl Studios and chatted with Andrew Thornton. Then, it was off to Earthenwood Studio to meet Melanie Brooks...

Ceramic pendants by Melanie Brooks of Earthenwood Studio. Greek Leather from Ornamentea.

And also, Diane Hawkey, who was my Bead Swap partner.

Ceramic beads by Diane Hawkey.

After that, we headed over to meet Barbara Lewis at her Painting with Fire booth.

Enameled metal beads and recycled sari silk from Barbara Lewis of Painting with Fire.

Then, a bunch of us met up for a bead swap hosted by Diana Ptaszynski of Suburban Girl Studio.

Diana Ptaszynski at the bead swap with a button by her swap partner, Kristi of Artisan Clay.

At the bead swap, I met Kristi Roeder, Jenny Davies-Reazor, Marsha Neal and Anne Gardanne for the first time. After the swap, we all met up for dinner Saturday night at Legal Seafoods, which my MIL and I were fashionably late for. A BIG thanks to Diana for making this event extra special and fun! She even made us all cute "Bead Snob" buttons. The whole experience was so much more fulfilling with the get-togethers and that was the main reason I even wanted to come to this show in the first place. To meet creative, like-minded people and make connections.....and well, the beads aren't bad, either. ;)

Here's the rest of the bead stash I snagged at the show on Saturday:

From top left: Coco shell beads from Priscilla Beads, Hand-rolled paper beads also from Priscilla Beads. Seed beads from Bead Biz and Metal nugget beads from Hands of the Hills.

What a great time! Looking forward to it again next year.

Bead Soup and August Happenings

A special THANK YOU goes out to Lori Anderson for hosting another amazing Bead Soup Blog Party! It gets bigger and better every time. It's an honor to be apart of this renowned event. Here's a sneak-peek teaser of the bead soup I sent my partner, Anna Sabina of Total Escape Clay Studio. She is a polymer clay bead artist and I can't wait to see what she sends along.

And now, here's a list of a few beady events coming up in the month of August:

Tuesday, August 16th - Michelle Mach's Mostly Metal Challenge -
 I'm participating! I can't wait to see what the other participants made with Michelle's mostly metal bead kits! I choose the Gunmetal Love kit. I'm pretty excited about the jewelry I made for this, so be sure to stop by my blog on Tuesday to see what I created.

Friday-Sunday, August 19th-21st - BEAD FEST Philadelphia -
I'm finally going this year!!! I'm so super excited! I'm mostly looking forward to seeing all my beady friends there. What was that, you said?...What about all the beads lying around? Ah, well...those are a nice bonus, too ;0 Can't wait to see my friend and co-author, Lorelei and Nancy and Kelley, too. I'll be meeting TONS of new beady friends from the beading and blogging community that I've been wanting to meet for years. I. CAN. NOT. WAIT. Are you going? Will I see you there? Please let me know if you will be there, I would love say Hi.

Saturday, August 27th - Lorelei's Shadow Box Challenge -
I missed out on this one, but I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone does with those enameled boxes from C-Koop Beads.


Monday, August 29th - Andrew Thornton's August Reader's Challenge -
Geesh, another one I missed this time. I'm excited to see the results from the ones that did participate, though. It's always fun to see what others create. I like Andrew's idea of creating bead kits for the challenges. It's always interesting to see different ideas come to life from the same components. I really enjoy having a limited pool of materials to work with. Sometimes that makes it much easier to be creative. I will be on the look out for Andrew's September challenge kits to participate next month!