Bead & Button Show Day 2 Part B

When it got near 4 pm, I got into the neverending line which mercifully moved quickly. Then I was in the show floor!
Trying hard to manage my bubbling excitement (I'm here, I'm finally here, look at all the BEADS EVERYWHERE!!!) I followed my plan to start at the FIRST of the show's 12 rows, instead of the last like I've always done before. Distracted by the line of booths along the facing wall, I stopped at Christi Anderson's Elemental Adornments booth to admire her staggeringly detailed silver clay birdhouses (her impossibly blue-eyed son seemed to remember me from last year--maybe he loved my necklace too) and at Andrea Guarino-Slemmons' booth, where I always want to buy several of her signature beads, each one costing as much as my plane ticket. But a simple black feather bead on her table caught my eye.

At only $15, it was well within my price range, and it felt special, as if I had an important design that needed this feather to be complete. Being a good girl, I didn't buy it right away, but following my plan for the show, wrote it down on my list of possible things to buy (I bought it the next night) while chatting with her a bit. She's very personable.
Barbara Becker Simon of the glass-fish fame, remembered me as well, asked where my necklace had gone and when I told her it had sold, exclaimed ruefully "You didn't tell me it was for sale!" Maybe I should think up some graceful way of letting more people know upfront that my pieces are for sale.
Despite rarely using cabochons, I succumbed to the temptation of some magical-looking 'dewdrop' clear dichroic cabs from Karen Nan. I'd purchased a dreamy large piece several weeks prior at Beads on Parade, the shop where I teach, and used that as a justification for buying these. "I'll put them together in a bead embroidery piece" I told myself.

Being dichroic of course, the photo doesn't nearly capture their beauty.
And at last, after loving chalcedony from afar, I bought my very own half-strand of irresistibly hot pink briolettes! Even though strands of chalcedony can be found on many a bead show table, historically, the price has always been too high for my cheapskate side, and I could never make a colour selection, but these bright fuschia ones hit a high note in my designer's brain somewhere--I just knew this was the right thing to buy.

One of the things that made me do a double-take in the Bead Dreams exhibition was Robert Jennik's clever new design--glass nails! He had done a set of what looked exactly like metallic dark silver nails, bent in various contortions, but in glass! At the Knot Just Beads booth, he explained the thrill of making little things generally perceived as worthless (nails), and elevating their desireability simply by changing the material from which they were made, from metal to glass. I could not resist picking up a clear one.

After the show floor closed, I took a few photos of my newest acquisitions back in the comfort of my hotel room.

More to come later!