Before we headed into the Marketplace, I stopped by the Loose Bead Society booth to say hi:
At the LBS booth there is a package check (for only $3 you can leave your heavy bag behind and save a visit to your chiropractor!), a raffle (4 different prizes, $1 a ticket or 6 tickets for $5!), and a bunch of flyers with information about dining in the area and all sorts of things. There are also Swarovski 2014 calendars for free. Stop by and pick one up!
I thought I took pictures of more vendors than I did. I think it was a cross between wanting the blog process to be quicker today and that I had Steve with me. Every time I take a picture of someone I talk to them for a while, and I didn't want him to end up hanging around waiting for me. Well, that reason ended up falling flat because I ran into a number of people I wanted to chat with. Poor Steve. At one point he left me to go sit on the Kalmbach booth's bench when I ran into my friend Michelle. He knew it wouldn't be a quick chat. Since he works for another Kalmbach magazine (Model Railroader), I'm surprised they didn't put him to work.
So. Vendor #1 of the day is Kismet from Bar-Maids:
How cool is her name? I briefly mentioned her Lo-Lo Lov bars (those yellowy circles in the foreground) in my Retreat wrap-up post. They are really good moisturizers in a double plethora of scents. Yes, I just made up "double plethora". Do you see that list in the upper left of the picture? Well, that's not even all of them. Here are a few of the bars so you can get an idea of what some of the scents are:
She has other moisturizing products that, I hate to admit, I didn't look at that closely today. We were chatting about where I bought the Lo-Lo Lov bar (Funky Hannah's in Racine, WI), how great the scents were, and about this blog. I'm going to have to go back tomorrow and check out her other products. There's one for feet that Steve would probably appreciate I use.
Next up is Raven's Journey. They have an unbelievable number of Czech beads in so many different shapes and colors. Here is Lenka and Brad:
Lenka was really nice, and we talked about where their products are available online (Artbeads.com, although it takes a while to find the specific shapes. There is a lot on that site! Click here for some purple spade beads that are gorgeous - and not just because they're purple) and about their wholesale policies on their own website.
Here's a shot of one small part of one of their tables:
It's fun to dig to see all the neat beads there.
The final vendor of the day is Virginia Blakelock from Beadcats:
She, along with Carol Perrenoud, have a wonderful booth with drops, daggers, leaves, and much, much more. Do you see all of those boxes around her in the above picture? Each compartment of each box has a different style and color of bead. I didn't take a picture of them close up because it would be too difficult to tell what all was there. If you're at the Show, please stop by and take a peek in those boxes. They have a lot of supplies, too, as well as some kits and the tiniest of scissors.
Some of the beads they have are drops. I asked Virginia about them today because I couldn't find them online to find out exactly what they were. She said they're Czech and really old, which is why I had problems. They're a really neat shape, and they have them in two different sizes - the ones I used in a brick stitch project here, and some really tiny ones that were adorable. You can see the bigger drops better in this post's second picture. They are the first ones in the sample, and the rest of them are Rizos, magatamas, and fringe beads. If you go to the booth, the Czech drops are pretty much right behind where Virginia's standing.
Wow - even with only three vendors, I still took a long time writing! There are a few more folks I want to show you, so tomorrow's post will be a lot like this one. Then on Monday I'll show you what I bought.
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