Conference Wrap Up

The Bead Bazaar was my biggest show to date, and I was really pleased with how I did. This is exactly the kind of show I like to do, it was a combination of loose beads and jewelry. I mostly sold my focal beads, which was great since they are my favorite bead to make.

I feel like this show gave jewelry makers my area a great education on lampwork, and hopefully it will result in more interest and demand for art beads.

The only down side of the show was that I did not get a chance to see all the other vendors. Some of the best glass bead makers in the world were there, with this high caliber of work at the show it felt more like a gallery opening.

My old and new friends came and were so supportive, and kindly offered to watch my booth for me, but I felt too distracted to leave. Thank you LL and Lucinda for your support and encouragement.

When I was setting up before the show I did get a chance to snap some pictures. The beads in the pictures above are truly stunning, the artist is Holly Cooper, each focal is a work of art.

The above two pictures are examples of work by Sharon Peters. Sharon's skills at sculpting glass into fun characters is wonderful. The first photo shows her new work, she is mixing polymer clay and glass components. Apparently the temperature to bake the polymer clay is not high enough to harm the glass.

Here is my booth, those are trays of loose beads, one had sets and the other one had single focals. Next time I am going to sort my focals into similar styles and techniques, for example all ivory and turquoise beads together. I noticed that if someone found a focal they liked, they wanted to see all the choices in that style before they made a decision. I will also add some sort of fabric backing to the trays, so the beads don't roll around so much.

Feel free to give me input in the comment section, I can take it.

This was my little necklace and bracelet collection. The necklaces on the left will be showing up in the jewelry shop soon. The beads on these necklaces are made on the end of the mandrel, there is only a hole at one end of the bead and the other end is a continuation of the glass design that is not interrupted by a hole. I found some Tierra Cast findings at Let's Bead, they are glue in bails that I attach with two part epoxy, its a neat finished look.

I am pretty sure the idea to drape the necklaces over old books came from display pictures from Humblebeads, thanks Heather.

The earring display was a bulletin board on an easel intended for painting. I have new earring cards, thank you Beth, with my logo and email. Nancy of Round Rabbit displays her earrings this way, thank you Nancy.

So as you can see this blog community is a continued source of inspiration, and has helped give me the courage to get out there and show my work.

So that's it for the conference, there may be some tidbits in the future. I would like to show how techniques I have learned in the workshops develop and evolve in my future work. I hope you enjoyed this little taste of what was a very full 10 days.

Stay tuned for a double giveaway next week. I managed to totally miss a giveaway for my 400th and 500th sale, so I will be catching up with two prizes and two winners.