Beadfest Philly Summer Edition!!!!

We headed out to Philly again last Friday for the biggest bead show of the year!!!!

First stop, Abigails!!!!

We got to Philly and the boys had sent us an SOS for coffee since they had driven through the night, so we grabbed them a whole box and smuggled it into the show in my bag!!!

Of course, we had to take the pre-requisite selfie once we arrived at the show!

And then we made our first stop, the boys! Of course!!!!!

They were really busy when we got there, so it was a quick hello and on to the show!!!!

Our second stop was at this booth that Alison had suggested. They were doing a show hop, where several artisans had planned a project that you pay a flat fee, pick out your components and assemble the project. SO COOL!!! And we had SO much fun!

After that, we shopped until we dropped. I wanted to take a nap sooooo badly! Look at my eyes!!! Dry and tired!!!!

It was 5 intense hours of beads, beads, beads. If you can dream it, it was there!!!

We did get to meet a lot of the artisans of the art bead section and it was a ton of fun! There are so many talented folks out  there in the world! One of our favorites is Candie Cooper. She does a lot of live videos on Facebook and is super excited about beading, and techniques and really cool projects. I'm not gonna lie, we did kind of stalk her, but it was worth it to put a face to our names and give her some love!!!!

Here was the one of us going to see the boys. We just HAD to re-introduce her!!!!

I think I still have some star struck-ness going on. She did a video on Sunday to wrap up the show and I kept commenting, go here, show this, the things you are finding are so cool, how did I miss THAT, hahahahaha! I think she thinks I am nuts! Maybe, but I love me some Candie!!!!

Anyways, I didn't get to go through my loot until Sunday. But when I did, of course I took photos!!!!

Here you go!!!!

And yes, I bought this amazing African basket! The lady was SO cool- she hid it at the bottom of her pile and when I came back to her booth several hours later, she was like- here, I hid it!!! So I HAD to take it home!!!! 

Here is my loot....

It doesn't look like a ton of stuff, but this is my 'I use this bag for traveling and toting my life around with me' and it is one of my favorite things EVER from The Black Bunny Boutique!!!

See what I mean??? That's a big pile of stuff to carry around all day!!!!

So here it all is, vendor by vendor. I won't bore you with details of why I chose what, and if you like what you see, all the contact info is on the business cards. Enjoy!!!!!!

(This was our art bead hop necklace)

Check out this cute little pumpkin from Marsha Neal Studios. 

These ceramic beads were purchased in hopes of re-creating a piece similar to this:

This is for book club & a surprise!!!!

Isn't this resin necklace amazeballs?????

Here is another view of the same bead

Look at this bag of yummy leather scraps!!!!!

Cannot wait for the Spring show!!!!!

Woo hoo!!!!

Also cannot wait for this move to get underway so I can set up my new bead studio and get creating. Stay tuned!!!

Just for fun pieces!

It's hard to believe that Beadfest Spring was in March and that we are heading back for the Fall show this week. 

I will be completely honest and say that I haven't quite used up all the goodies that I got at the Spring show and quite frankly have amassed some other pretty stunning strands, components and art beads. 

I meant to blog about those art beads actually, but never got around to it. (Probably because I don't want my husband finding out how much $$$ I spent LOL)

I am pretty crazy excited about the pieces in this post though. These two feature some of the strands that I got this spring and I cannot be more excited about how awesome they turned out.

This is the latest and greatest. It features these crazy cool rounded triangles that are the prettiest shade of a lightweight and lightly colored gray wood. 

The large black rounds are Lava. But they are smooth instead of the typical landscaper quality you usually see. And yes, they are super heavy, but when paired with the wooden beads, it balances out beautifully.

This piece slips over the head and there is constant movement as the triangles are always flipping around as you move.

The beads inside the triangles are some sort of agate and I am quite pleased that they fit in the holes of the triangles because I really didn't want the bead wire to show and I also didn't want to have to seed bead those inside wires either!

The second piece that I made features these incredible seashell rounds. 

I also used some sea glass, some ceramic blue tubes, some brass spacers, some art glass, and the prettiest turquoise amazonite rounds I have ever seen!!! 

I just adore this piece!

I also made another shorter piece that feaures and art bead ring (artist unknown) as well as an art bead clasp (artist also unknown).

I am pretty happy with the results!!!!

Late but not Never- Luna Moth Challenge Kit

I was on a roll in July.

I had a bunch of projects in the works- even some that I had finished completely. And then things came to a screeching halt!

I put my bead bag down and it didn't move for several weeks while the projects I had been working on waited patiently for me to return to finish them up.

Life has been moving at the speed of light for me. I liked to think summer would be hot and slow and it would be a 'sittin on the dock of a bay wastin' time' kind of summer. 

But nope. 

Here are my creations for Luna Moth. BTW, this kit was incredible. I LOVE the light greens and the hints of browns that this kit had.

This month I made a TON of earrings and a lot of them are using some hoops that I found at Michaels to give them some added glam. 

I have two more projects in the works as well. Here is one of them that features some African glass, pyrite chips and brass spacers. I am not sure if I want to make this a bracelet or make it the focal point of a necklace by adding some chain to it.

And here is my second piece that is still on the table. I know that I want this to be a necklace but I am not sure whether to add chain and call it a necklace or to add two strands of the blue seed beads that I used as spacers to make it a necklace.

Decisions decisions!!!

Of course the question will be: long or short? Haha! And I guess that choice will be made later when I decide to finish it!

What do you all think? I'd LOVE to know!