New Earring Monday: Weeks 35 and 36

Happy Monday, everyone and also, for my American friends, Happy Labor day!

As promised in my post on classes at Bead Fest, I'm sharing the last of my class projects here today for New Earring Monday.  Kathleen and I decided to try out one of their 45 Minute Beginner Workshops that were new this year.  The idea for these classes was that they would be quick, fairly easy, and you wouldn't need any supplies.  Unfortunately, that may not have been made super clear to all the instructors...more on that in a minute.

Anyway, we decided to sign up for the Faux Fire Opal Earrings class that used ICE Resin and what they call their Fire Opal inclusions.  I steered us toward this particular class for a couple of reasons:  1) Earrings are my favorite thing to wear and to make, 2) I'd already signed up for classes that would yield 2 bracelets and 2 pendants, 3) I've wanted to try ICE resin but have been chicken.

The classroom for these beginner classes was in a little area right off the show floor.  I think that the idea for these classes was giving folks another avenue to take a break from shopping and get a little dose of education squeezed into the weekend.  Our instructor for our little class was Jen Cushman from ICE Resin and it was fun to hear a little more about the background for their product and learn more about it's properties.  She also shared some of the challenges she and other instructors had faced with this particular classroom space (for instance no electrical and one of the classes required tools that had to be plugged in... oops!)  Jen had originally planned to have us make our own ear wires for this project, but when she realized that folks wouldn't be bringing ANYTHING to class at all, that part went out the window and she bought a mix of findings from a nearby vendor.  In the end, all most of us did was pour the pre-mixed resin with the fire opal inclusions (a shiny, colored plastic material) already added into the bezels.

After we poured the resin in, our bezels looked super cloudy... like almost white with all the bubbles.  Jen assured us that the bubbles would clear away as they cured but also showed us a trick to blow hot air from your mouth onto your bezels.  That helped a bit, but they were still pretty cloudy when we left them to cure overnight.  When we picked them up Sunday morning on our way out of town, they looked much better, but still have some bubbles in there (it's hard to tell from the picture I snapped).  When I got home, I tossed the findings and the original rhinestone rondelles that Jen had given us in favor of all brass findings and some different beads to make it more my look.  I think these will look great with the new Steampunk outfit I'm contemplating!

My verdict:  our class was a fun way to spend 45 minutes at Bead Fest, but they have some kinks to work out if they are going to offer this type of thing again.  While my finished earrings aren't perfect, I'm pretty happy with them and look forward to playing with ICE Resin in the future.  I'm going to get over my fear of mixing the two parts together... it will happen!

My second pair of earrings this week were designed to go with one of my new necklaces.  I made the necklace with a graduated strand of impression jasper but I pulled the biggest stones out because of the scale of the pendant.  I used those larger stones along with some of the smaller rondelles, some shell pearls, and brass accents.  Here are both the earrings and the necklace they go with.  The necklace features a ceramic pendant by Tracee Dock of the The Classic Bead.

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My First Bead Fest: Part Two, Shopping and More!

Welcome back for part two of my Bead Fest wrap up!  (If you missed it before, you can read about my adventures taking classes HERE.)  While the chance to take some great classes was a big part of the draw, I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't excited about the shopping opportunities that awaited me.

As I mentioned before, I've never been to a major bead show... just the smaller local shows in the Twin Cities.  While I certainly enjoy my local shows and appreciate having them within 45 minutes of my house, they are just so MUCH smaller.  The shows I've gone to before have either been in a school gymnasium or the ballrooms of a mid-sized hotel... big enough to have some interesting things but not so large or overwhelming that you can't see everything you want to in a few hours.  Bead Fest was a completely different animal!  Here, the Expo portion of the event covered two exhibit halls of the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center (the third hall contained most of the classrooms).

All those tiny square on the right half are booths! So many beads!!

It's been a busy summer and I decided to go to Bead Fest fairly late in the game so I didn't really do much (or any) pre-shopping planning.  I figured I could just wander the floor without a real plan and see what I could see.  With all the classes I was taking I wasn't sure how much shopping time I'd even have to shop... as it turns out, I had plenty of time to do some serious damage!

Even though I had a full day class on Friday, apparently Bead Fest has a mandatory 90 minute lunch break for the all day classes to ensure that students have an opportunity to shop.  As soon as I finished the morning's project to my satisfaction I made a quick stop at the concession stand for lunch and stared out into the mass of bead vendors and shoppers while I ate, already feeling a bit overwhelmed.  As soon as my belly was full, I made a bee line for Artisan's Alley where many of the art bead makers are clustered together.  While I didn't do any real planning or shopping lists ahead of time, I knew that the main thing I was looking for were gorgeous art beads.  I also figured that the earlier I shopped, the better my selection would be.  (Shop early, shop often... right?)

I headed straight for Heather Powers' booth with a little detour to say hi to Michelle McCarthy of Firefly Design Studio and snatch up some of her pretties.  I didn't have a ton of time (and of course there was lots of chatting with Heather, her aunt Rosanne, and my friend Terri) but I did manage to amass quite the collection of Humblebeads!  My apologies to the shoppers who came after me!

So... I might have gone a little overboard on the Humblebeads! 

Having spent most of my lunch break pawing through Heather's gorgeous beads, I didn't have too much more time for shopping but I did do a quick browse through more of Artisan's Alley to get a lay of the land.  As I was wandering down the aisle I heard a voice behind me say something to the effect of "hey, I know you."  I turned around to find Jenny Davies-Reazor and her lovely booth (which she shared with Lesley Watt of Thea Elements).  I was thrilled to finally meet Jenny in real life since I've enjoyed following her posts on her own blog and Art Jewelry Elements over the years (I've even won some of her components of the month!) and we are both in the Inspired by Reading Book club.  I didn't have too much time to chat, but I did manage so snatch up some of Jenny's lovely firefly pendants before I headed back to class.  After my class wrapped up, I was able to get back into the Expo and do some more shopping.  I swung back by and picked up some more things from Jenny and Lesley.  By that time, Lesley Watt had arrived so I got to meet another artist that I have been following online.  She came from all the way across the pond in England to be at Bead Fest!  I stocked up on more pretties from both Jenny and Lesley and even got to see some of my Bead Cruise friends before it was time for me to drive into Philadelphia for dinner with my librarian friends and bring Kathleen back to our hotel.

Ceramic, bronze clay, and polymer yumminess from Jenny Davies-Reazor and Lesley Watt.  (Jenny's are the pieces on the right hand column plus the other firefly pendant at the top.)

I have to admit that it was sort of amusing to see the same deer caught in headlights look on Kathleen's face as I had probably been wearing the day before when we wandered into the Expo after our morning class on Saturday.  We took a somewhat more systematic approach to tackling the exhibit hall, although we did make a serious tactical error right off the bat.  We were sitting right by Nirvana Beads when we were eating lunch so we decided to go ahead and start with them since I knew I needed to bite the bullet and do a wholesale order with them.  Seems logical, right?  WRONG!  I ended up with at least ten pounds of Czech glass that I then had to carry around the rest of the day.  Live and learn!

Despite how this looks, I did leave some Czech glass for other shoppers!

We wandered around the show mostly aisle by aisle, stopping whenever something caught our eye.  I'm pretty thrilled with my Bead Fest shopping finds... although a tiny bit embarrassed that I bought so much!  We kept running into friends from the Bead Cruise... thank goodness Diana Ptaszynski actually thought to take a picture or I wouldn't have a single people picture from the show... just pictures of my class projects.

Reunited and it feels so good...  Kathleen, Diana, and myself with Jenny photobombing us!

Here are most of the rest of my Bead Fest finds... Now I need to sit down and start creating with all this yumminess!  I stayed pretty true to my plan of mostly getting art beads (I love seeing everything in person and picking the "best" ones) and things that I can't easily find at home...  Well, and Czech glass... but I've been looking for a good wholesaler that would work for me for a while.  As you can tell from my pictures, I bought a lot of charms for earring pairs (you know earrings are my favorite to make!) as well as matched bead pairs.  

I found lots of great wood beads and some funky barkcloth beads.

Clockwise (mostly) from top left: ceramic from White Clover Kiln, polymer clay from Staci Louise Originals, lampwork by Alice St. Germain, pewter and bronze from Green Girl, and more ceramics by Firefly Designs

At the end of the weekend I left Philadelphia happy and tired and with a very heavy backpack filled with new beads.  I feel so re-energized to get back to my bead table and making fabulous new designs.  One last thing... Did you notice how I titled these posts "My First Bead Fest"?  Oh, yeah... I'm totally going to go back!

Kathleen took a quick selfie of us on the shuttle back to the airport after dropping off the rental car.  So glad I got to see this lady!

My First Bead Fest: Part 1, the Classes!

True confession... Even though I've been making jewelry for about 8 years and live within driving distances of one of the biggest bead shows in the country, I had never been to a major bead show before last week.  For the last three or four years I have wanted to make it to the Bead and Button show in Milwaukee but the timing just never worked out.  (Next year... it's gonna happen!)  Anyway, when I discovered I couldn't attend Heather Powers' Inspired by Nature Fall Retreat this year due to a scheduling conflict I decided that I would fly to Philadelphia for Bead Fest instead!

I'm not sure if I would have made the leap without the encouragement of some of my beady friends, but I'm so glad that I did!  Many of my friends that I've made on the Bead Cruise were going to be there as well as lots of folks I know from the online world of Facebook and various blogs.  And as another added bonus, my friend Kathleen was also able to take the train up from D.C. to join me.

My sweet husband really encouraged me to sign up for as many classes as possible since I was taking this trip in lieu of a weekend workshop.  The shopping (I'll cover that in a second post!) was just an added bonus.  I took two shorter classes (3 to 4 hours each) and one full day class.  Kathleen and I also did one of the 45 minute beginner classes but I'll be sharing that project in my next New Earring Monday post.

I flew out on Thursday morning and chose a flight time that should have given me plenty of time before my class that night.  My flight got delayed a bit so I ended up having to rush more than I would have liked, but at least I made it to class on time! I started class a little flustered but settled down once I started looking through all the gorgeous stones to pick the perfect one for Kim St. Jean's Armature Pendant class.  I was a little nervous having never really used a butane torch before, but Kim is a fabulous instructor and I was soon torching away!  We used copper wire and brazing rods to build an armature to hold our chosen stone.  (I picked a lovely green druzy!)  

My armature pendant: Before and after!

I LOVE my finished piece and can't wait to get it strung on some nice leather cord or something so I can show it off.  I really enjoyed learning this technique and can see how useful this will be for me.  I have some rustic ammonites that we bought at some caves years ago and now I finally have an idea for incorporating them into finished jewelry.  Since I don't do bead embroidery or any sort of fine stone setting, cabs have never seemed very appealing to me.  Taking this class certainly opens up some possibilities for what I could do!

Day two of my Bead Fest adventures was mostly filled by a second class taught by Kim.  (When I was first deciding to go I asked for recommendations for instructors and she was high on the list.  An added bonus was that I didn't need to bring any tools since there was no way I was going to be able to sneak a butane torch onto the plane!)  Anyway, my day two class was her Air Chase Cuff and Necklace workshop... this was an all day class and it was AMAZING!

We turned copper pipe and copper sheet into finished pieces that look like a million bucks (in my opinion anyway)!  See for yourself below...  I'm still not sure if I'm going to wear my pendant in the vertical position or add another hole and wear it horizontally like I have it in the picture.  I'd love to hear your thoughts.  I'm leaning horizontal at the moment...  I can totally see myself making more of these cuffs.  I love the look and the process of all that hammering is sort of therapeutic.  It's just not the right project for a day you're working on a headache!

Kathleen arrived in town Friday evening and we were able to arrange having dinner in the city with some of our other librarian friends (and their family too).  After filling up on delicious pizza at Earth - Bread & Brewery Kathleen and I headed back to the hotel to rest up before our Woven Bracelet class with Ronda Stevens the next morning.  I would like to improve my wire working skills but I'm not convinced that wire weaving is necessarily the technique for me.  Those of you who know me in real life know that I'm a little tightly wound... that seems to translate to my jewelry making.  I grip my pliers too tight, get a death grip on my hammers, and, as it turns out, pull my wire weaving way too tight too.  

My wire weaving in process and the completed bracelet.

I ended up with a decent bracelet that I think I will wear now and then (y'all know I'm not a bracelet girl!) and had a good time doing it, but overall this just wasn't a technique that got me excited to do more.  But that's what is so great about taking classes and trying new things... you get to try something new to see what you do like and then take the elements that speak to you and incorporate them into your work.  On the other hand, Kathleen really liked this project and plans to play more with this technique.  I can't wait to see where she takes it!  

Kathleen's bracelet... her's is much more relaxed and lacy looking.

I have an IOU from Eric for my birthday and I now have a good list of tools and supplies on my wish list.  I think this girl is getting a torch and all the accessories so that I can start using my new found knowledge and hone my skills!  Stay tuned for more of my Bead Fest adventures when I share my experience on the Expo floor and show my gorgeous bead finds. 

Update: You can check out part two of my Bead Fest adventures HERE!