First is the Xuron booth with Abby and Ashley (not Abigail, as I had originally posted - BAD Traci!):
You can't see it, but Abby (on the left) is wearing the Stitched Saucer bracelet she just made (you can read the blog post about it here). Xuron has great tools, demonstrated by two lovely ladies. I'll be spending more time with them this weekend!
Another vendor I make sure to go visit every year is Priscilla Marban. I posted about her a few years ago (check it out here). Wait, that was four years ago. Wow.
Here she is:
She has neat decoupage beads and pendants, but the best things are her recycled sawdust items. The sawdust is dyed and embedded within metal shapes, and the pieces are sealed. Let's take a look at a few things that really caught my eye today:
In the middle are strands of owls. Let's look at them closer:
So cute! And I found some large kitty pendants, too:
I will be going back to get at least a few things from Priscilla. If you're at the Show, please stop by and see her. No picture is going to do the sawdust items justice. She's all the way in the back in the 800 aisle.
I stopped by Brenda Schweder's Now That's a Jig! booth, but she wasn't there. I think she was teaching. Here's Dawn holding down the fort:
On the floor below the Marketplace, there's an art installation with collaborative pieces Brenda made with a number of other artists. All of the pieces will be auctioned off at the Bead Auction tomorrow night. Here are a few pictures of the installation:
From there I wandered up to where the bead quilts are on display. I've posted about them before when we were assembling the ornaments and such (posted here and here). They were packing up, but I was able to see a few neat pieces.
It was behind glass, so there's a reflection. I love the background on this one! While I was there I ran into Helen, who was pointing at one of the quilts and how shiny the beads were in the sunlight:
It wasn't until I went around to where Helen was that I saw what she saw. I took a picture, but it's only about 1% as stunning as it was in person:
In the foyer of the Show there are frequently demos and make 'n takes going on. I sat in on a lampworking demo from my friend Karen Crown from Lady Crown Glass. You may remember her from the GLOW booth at the Art Glass and Bead Show (and my post about them). I love seeing her, and watching her work was great! She was demonstrating how she makes these shells:
Here is Karen not lighting herself on fire (which I would be hard-pressed to avoid):
I took one of Karen's shells home (the one on the right in the above picture). I think it would be a perfect centerpiece for a Riding the Waves necklace. Thanks, Karen!
Back on the Marketplace floor I visited another glass artist, Tammy Rae Wolter from Glass by Tammy Rae. Her items are Borosilicate glass, which is a bit rare among lampworkers.
Here are some of her items close up:
Since I first visited Tammy in her studio (before she moved to Neenah, Wisconsin) about 4 years ago (again, wow), I have wanted one of her keys with a bead on the shaft. Since it would be an indulgence for me, I've been putting it off. She posted them again recently on Facebook, and I decided now is the time. I want to stitch a tube above and below the bead. I think that would be very pretty. I wanted a purple bead (of course), but Tammy didn't have any with the colors of purples I was hoping for. We were about to discuss her making one just for me, then I saw one I fell in love with. The bead was gorgeous (of course), but what made the decision for me was the shape of the key. The bead is a purplish color, but there are elements of blue and pink and green, so I have a lot of leeway in what I stitch, and I can't wait to choose my colors. I'm going to wear it tomorrow so I can match colors as I shop.
This picture isn't the best, but I'm crashed on the couch and didn't feel up to playing with light and angles. Isn't the shape of the key great?
The final vendor I'm going to show you today is Joy Munshower, the Tile Goddess. She's another glass artist, and she proves that you can find absolutely anything made out of glass. Shield your kids' eyes, and if you're at work, you might not want to linger on this picture too long:
Yes, they are what you think they are. She does have non-penile works that are amazing:
Those are made out of glass. Remarkable!
Here's Joy, trying to be in the picture and not in the picture at the same time, like some having tea/no tea thing in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
I chatted with her for only a few minutes, but in that short amount of time I really liked her. I hope to chat with her more, at the Show and on Facebook!
You may remember that I was teaching a class tonight. Unfortunately, I only had one student, and she didn't come. I knew that was a possibility, but I hadn't heard for sure if she was going to make it or not. I was hoping for a few more registrations, but that didn't happen.
Ah, well. I'll keep plugging away and hope that next year will be better. I wore my SDN15 - Dino-spine bracelet on the Marketplace floor tonight, and a few friends who hadn't seen it before really loved it, so I will submit that as a class for next year's Show.
Tomorrow Steve and I are going back, and I'm going to take more pictures of vendors to show you. Maybe not quite as many pictures as today, because this blog has taken me well over an hour to write. :)
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