Bead Fest - King of Prussia

Recently I went with my daughter Robin to the Bead Fest in Philadelphia. We both took two classes, one the same and the other was different from each other's. The first class we took together was on cold connections and resin. We really wanted to learn more about cold connections but the teacher spent about 10 minutes on that and the rest of the afternoon on resin.

The second class I took was with Meredith Arnold on polymer clay. If I hadn't learned anything new it would have been an interesting day since I love working with polymer clay. We used pearl-ex, textures, glitter and other things to make the polymr clay more exciting. We made a bracelet of tiles with Buna cord pressed into each piece to mark the holes the beading wire would go through. I learned some things to NOT do the next time I make a bracelet like that.

After the classes, we shopped...and shopped. There are so many interesting booths to see and new techniques and products to see. We loved it!

Red, White and Blue Jewelry

I made several pieces of the red, white and blue jewelry but Apropos weren't taking any new jewelry at this time. I put the pieces on Etsy.

Red, White and Blue Jewelry

I wanted to make some patriotic jewelry to take to Apropos where some of my pieces are for sale but I didn't get them finished in time. I'll just say they are made for July 4. I did finish one of them and decided it was for me. I wore it on Sunday and Monday (Memorial Day).

I'm looking forward to taking a class this Saturday in Columbus with Julie Picarello. I've admired her work for a long time. Robin got me her new book for Mother's Day. Really good book.

Easter

My granddaughter Sierra made me some colored Easter eggs, just plain, no design. When we made egg salad sandwiches, I saved the shells to make a mosaic on polymer clay. I think I had the grout too thin. I've never made a mosaic so didn't know what the grout was supposed to look like. I saved the rest of the shells, but I don't know if I'll ever go back to mosaics again.

After Christmas & New Year's Day

Last week I made a steampunk heart and a heart with the leftover black clay that had silver leaf crackled on it. I wanted to try doing the steampunk heart differently than I had in the past. I need to put the UV resin on it to see how successful it was. I need to buy a UV lamp to cure it because when I put a batch of pieces in the sun, half of them don't cure. They become contaminated I'm told. I hope I can find a lamp around here and not have to send online for one.

New Year's Day we went to Jenny and Bob's. Carly and Tony had gone to Sara and Josh's so there was only nine of us - Chris and Sheila and Austin, Nathaniel and Susie, Bob and Jenny, Clayt and I. The guys went out to the shed to shoot and Susie slept because she has had a bad cold for a couple of weeks and Bob gave her some peppermint schnapps that put her out. Jenny, Sheila and I played Skip Bo and Austin slept.