Well, you see what happens to me when I am away too long....forget which buttons to push. A lot has happened since I last wrote....so, here goes...hope you don't get too bored. Last time I wrote, I was getting ready for my adventure with Carol Hamilton and Debbie Taylor....riding in a car for 12 hours to go to Purdue for the PMC Conference. I started on Monday and we left together on Tuesday (Carol and I), to pick up Debbie in West Virginia for the rest of the ride. As we got close to Debbie's, we passed a "lovely", "gentleman's club"...you know, the kind where they do lap dancing....and under the sign for the club, they were offering a lunch special of....CRAB LEGS! Too funny! I almost wet my pants laughing! What a way to start a road trip!
We had a fun time laughing and talking and took a break in Columbus, Ohio for the night. Carol gets some really great upgrades at Hilton and we lucked out with a suite to work in to finish the "Charms for Charity" for the raffle. The next day as we were finishing the drive, we swung into a small town to go antiquing as a break....we did some damage as I taught Carol what to look for in antiques. Debbie bought a beautiful little Santos and Carol got some fun texture bits and bobs and I got some great pieces to make molds from. Once we had spent our money and made alot of strangers laugh, we continued on to Purdue.
We started by setting up the display booth and Carol was selling more tickets for the raffle and then around 2, the keynote speech was delivered by Linda Darty. I had the good fortune to take a three day class with Linda a couple of years ago....very good teacher and nice person. It was interesting to see how she took her inspiration of a tree house and her children's drawings and transform them into enameled little jewels. Then it was on...three days of going, going, going! I only got to one of the early morning lectures...early morning is hard on night owls! But I did make it to my own demo in time...whew! I think it went well...I heard a couple of comments later by people in the audience who said they are going to try my antiquing with paint idea....didn't get to show all that I wanted too, but it was a start. I went to Mary and Chris's demo...that was fun...Mary is a no holds barred kind of girl...probably why I like her. I have known her since the 90's when we were both into fiber....and she is still the same girl...nice! I got to a couple of the lectures...Patrik's was fun...I love it when the person doing the talk starts by throwing chocolate around the room! How can you go wrong? And a talk about thinking outside the box! Perfect!
We had a fun time at the raffle drawing. Tim and Nettie had arranged for a room with cocktails and nibbles for before hand like a big social. Too bad only about 10 people won anything...everyone else who won, wasn't there! 39 bracelets and one necklace....but they all got shipped out...alot of people pitched in for the postage since all the money raised for the bracelets went to the charities. Thanks to all of you would did!
Then it was time for the dinner that Rio put on...Carmen on stilts was the headliner! The food was pretty good and the company was great! A group of us ended up closing the place down...Tim politely kicked us out (and you should have seen them trying to get those huge balloons onto the shuttle bus! They wouldn't fit thru the door and they were beating up the poor bus driver with the bounce back!) and then some of the girls wanted to go bar hopping....we could hear the bar a block away! That was when my friend Gloria and I gave up! I was so happy to be going back to the hotel to put my feet up! You should have seen Gloria with her balloon though...two or more could have flown her back to Baltimore with a good wind behind her! Wish I had a photo of that!
Then it was time to go....we left Sunday after the brunch....and went back to our suite in Columbus for the nite. We ate at Spageddies and you should have seen the meal they brought out! Huge! Three people could have dined out on what they brought just to me! Of course, the next day, on the way home...we stopped at another antiques shop and stayed for a couple of hours! and we only got halfway through! did pretty good there too! They had a huge bin of antique silverware for a dollar a piece....good thing I have studied silver....I went through it one piece at a time till I had about 50 really great designs. Alot of Art Nouveau and Victorian designs....to go with all the fab stones I got at the Conference!
And I got some nice drusy's and faceted stones....non-fireable, so we will see how good I can get at stone setting! I also got the kits for enameling that Yolanda had made up. She did a lot of research on the copper clays and it looks like fun! Debbie also got the kits and we are going to take a couple of days to work with them and see what we get....should be fun! Yolanda's examples were beautiful!
Everyone who went to the Conference got a package of Bill's new FastFire Bronze clay....I am looking forward to trying it out.
We were doing good by then although I had hit my hand on the car door and it was so swollen by the time we got to Carols that I thought I had broken something! Can you believe by the next day, it wasn't swollen and I didn't even get a bruise?!
We had some fun as we were nearing the end of our ride...right on the border of West Virginia, a car passed us...three guys and a blow up doll...who waved to us! You should have seen Carol and Debbie scrambling for their I-phone cameras! Debbie got a photo of them...and then a van passed us with two guys and a plastic owl! The owl looked out the window as they passed and then as we passed them again, it was doing a little dance....I bet those guys (all of them) were having great trips...can you imagine the stories? Then as we were waiting for the light to turn, four guys got out of their car and played musical chairs...twice...it was a long light! Although, I do worry about the guys in Maryland and West Virginia! I spent the night at Carol's again and went home on Tuesday! What a long week! And I have only told you a little bit.....
So, after I got home from all that excitement...I wanted to get to work on some proposals for teaching at Bead and Button for next year...but you know Murphy's Law...what ever can go wrong, will...and it did...maybe I will write them up as step by steps.
I have been working on some fun polymer and metal clay beads for the BeadFest show in PA...August 18-22...I am sharing a booth with Darlene...hope you will come by and say hi! I am revisiting some of my older designs and combining the two mediums helps keep the cost of the beads down...and hopefully, you will like them. I am having fun working in the studio on them....may have to keep a couple for myself! I will try to post some photos tomorrow since it is too dark outside to get a good photo right now....talk to you tomorrow...or the next day...I just got invited to go to dinner with Gloria, Joyce Scott and Kate Fowle Meleny....a night of polymer, lampworked glass and beads...should be fun! Have fun in your studios til then, Kelly
