Here’s the scoop on Bead Fest Wire:

It was an absolute BLAST!!!

Jeanette and I drove up together to King of Prussia/Valley Forge, PA on Friday….chatting the whole way about every little bead-related thing you could think of. It is so GREAT to talk with a like-minded friend who is just as crazy about it all as I am! And that was just the beginning…imagine a convention center and two hotels full of people all there for the same reason!!

Leslie Zabel, Kerry Bogert, Me, Shelby Foxwell, Lori Anderson and Jeanette Ryan

It was wonderful to meet up with some “old” friends such as Lori Anderson of Pretty Things and Kerry Bogert of KABS Concepts (more about her in a minute). This was really rendezvous central, it seemed as if so many people were meeting up for the first time. You know how wild it is to meet someone after you’ve known them for some time only online…. sometimes they are exactly as you had imagined, and sometimes you’re wrong and their personalities are quite different. I wonder what they thought of meeting me….am I who I seemed on my blog? 🙂 Some of the friends I was thrilled to meet in person for the first time at Bead Fest: Shelby Foxwell of Sundown Bead Designs, Leslie Zabel of Bei Mondi, Jen Velasquez of Jen Judd Rocks, and Sally Russick of Wireworked.

I was excited for Kerry Bogert as she was there teaching for her first time at a national level. It was so fun to see a bit behind-the-scenes at what the experience is like for instructors.

With Interweave's latest and greatest Instructor!

I was lucky to meet other wonderful instructors and artists, such as Anne Mitchell (couldn’t resist buying one of her metal/viking knit bracelets for a special keepsake), Cassie Donlen, Kim St. Jean and Andrew Thornton. And speaking of meeting and greeting (see, it wasn’t all bead shopping!), I met Sara Richardson from Interweave and Denise Peck, editor-in-chief of Step by Step Wire and senior editor of Lapidary Journal/ Jewelry Artist.

Me with Denise and Kerry. Kerry and I are contributors to Denise's upcoming book, Wire Style 2!

Anne Mitchell

Now it wasn’t all bead shopping and bead talk, I did take a class on Saturday afternoon. Lisa Claxton came all the way out from the SF area and taught us some wonderful fusing techniques in the Eclipse Chain workshop. I enjoyed trying fusing for the first time along with some cool texturizing techniques (but unfortunately I didn’t finish my piece by the end of class).

Lisa Claxton - she compared fusing to dating in her demo, now I'll be sure to remember the steps in the process! 🙂

Fused and textured silver rings

The excitementt didn’t end once we left Bead Fest…. Jeanette and I somehow managed to travel through 5 states in one day! When you end up a 1/2 hour outside of NY en route to VA, you know something is very wrong. We’ll blame it on talking, it was dark out, no GPS and bad directions…. at least we made it home by 2 a.m.! 🙂

Bead Fest Wire was wonderful. Now I’m seriously thinking about attending the Big Bead Fest this August. If so, I hope to meet more of you there!