Bead Fest Philly ~ Day 1

   For those of you who weren't able to attend Bead Fest this year - here's a taste of what you missed! There are a lot of great sponsors - The Urban Beader provided our badges and Metalliferous gave us these great totes for hauling our loot! Thanks Guys!!

   After checking in I headed straight to the Exhibition Hall -  this is where all the shopping fun takes place!

This is a look up the first aisle - there are over 300 vendors selling beading products from all over the world. Normally, I go to Bead Fest with my DIL - she's awesome at keeping me focused, organized and grounded. Sadly, she wasn't able to go with me this year so I might have run amok a little, ok - a lot!

There are so many vendors that I HAVE to get to! Usually on the top of the list is seeing Yvonne at MyElements - I have to get my fun, color fix. There will be picts further down of what I bought!

I also have to get to the wholesalers who come and take up as many as a dozen tables that they heap with piles of long strands of every kind of bead you can imagine. These are at least 75% less then you can get them anywhere else and the dealers always have show specials.

The very first purchase I made was from Harry and Heather Boardman of HMB Studios. I just loved all the fun color combinations of these disks. Heather was so nice - she let me break up a set so that I could get just the right number of disks with orange. Harry is a truly talented portrait artist - check out their website!

At Julie Miller's booth I added these nifty little spacers that I use in a lot of my work.

Finally got to Yvonne's booth which is an absolute explosion of juicy, fun colors and shapes. I had to pick up some of her hand painted plexiglass pieces in my favorite boomerang shapes. I added some chain and lots of odds-n-ends in bright colors.

One of my favorite things about Bead Fest is that I can stock up on all those little bits that you have to have - bead caps, spacers and filler inners that you use in every piece you make. Bulk is awesome!! Each of the bags of pewter components only set me back $3.00!

Found a whole rainbow of these little glass circles (75 in a bag) for only $5.00 each!

Another of my favorite stops is the Parawire booth where I picked up a pile of 18 and 20 gauge wire to add to my stash. I love this wire - I make my own jumprings, clasps, hooks and toggles as well as using the wire to add that extra element to my colorful jewelry.

One of my last stops was ABR where I picked up this graphite paddle thingy. I have no idea what one does with such a thing but its on my list of supplies that I have to have for my lampworking class. I'll be spending Saturday learning how NOT to set my self on fire while making non-lopsided beads - I've been practicing by patting my stomach and rubbing my head simultaneously - I'll post the results soon!