Sunday, August 1, 2010

A Few Nuggets from the Pasadena Bead Show

Yes I went. Yes, I tried to limit my spending. Yes, I failed. Though not miserably. Perhaps mildly crankily.

But I saw many many coooool things. Way cool. OooooOOoooh that's cool!  Nifty even.

Some I purchased. Some I merely yearned for. Others I marked for future session of bead-lust.  I think the part I liked best was talking to the folks. All were pleasant, many were complimentary of my amber necklace, which I was wearing (pictured in the previous post). It's always nice to have unsolicited comments. Everyone was willing to take time to socialize, imparting useful information, even if we weren't purchasing at the moment.

Most cool, I think was these clasps, designed by an engineer and an artist. They are very easy to unclasp, yet designed not to do so by accident. And they're beautiful. No gold ones, but they do come in bronze, so you can remove the patina to get a goldish color. The magnetic clasps are wonderful too.  I only got one clasp, as we found this booth late in the show and my budget was blown by then.

I'll be purchasing more as budget allows, though.

I got a few sweet lampworked beads from the ladies at The Glass Studio, and admired but didn't buy any of their cupcake beads. So cute! Their website is apparently not working yet, but they did say that they were opening a retail store, in Highland Park, CA, soon. So keep checking! Very worthwhile to seek out.

Next most favorite was the borosilicate glass in multitudes of shapes and sizes from Unicorne Beads. They must have some busy elves, because their selection is immense. I got a few teardrop beads, which have the colors in the depths, and then a magnifying cover of the clearest borosilicate glass imaginable. Nifty! My dear sweet husband was giving me mixed messages at this booth. He kept finding really cool things and shoving them under my nose and then saying "but don't spend too much!" The booth vendor tried to hire him, his sales technique was so good. 

Of course there were 300 vendors there, so I couldn't spend quality time with more than a fraction. In addition to bead vendors of every variety, there was also a plethora of fabric and wearable art vendors. In my beading frenzy, I only gave most of those a passing look. There was a great selection of finished pieces for inspiration too, of all levels. Several kit vendors. Some metallic clay and glasclay demos, which I wish I'd had more time to see. 

I collected quite a deck of vendor cards, so I'll review some more in another post. It was a quality show!

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