I'm back and I survived BeadFest, barely. Or at least my bank account barely survived.
The drive down was pretty okay - a bit of traffic on the NJ Turnpike, which was to be expected. We got to the VFCC around 11, and was shocked to see how crowded it was. I thought there was a recession going on!
What was equally surprising was the long line for check out at Beyond Beadery - I couldn't believe how many people were there waiting to check out. They had a great selection, but I didn't have the patience to wait - just too many other goodies to look at.
I like to walk through the entire show before buying anything - I just don't want to commit my budget so early in the day. This year, I had a pretty extensive shopping list, including pricing data for things like silver wire and certain tools, which was very helpful. What surprised me was the derth of copper findings this year - for the past few years, every metals vendor seems stocked to the gills with copper head pins, cones, clasps, etc. This year, I couldn't find a single copper headpin - okay, that's not exactly true - one dealer had copper headpins with the machined flat end - I was looking for something fancier. I couldn't find any magnetic copper clasps, and larger cone beads were just not there. Plenty of silver and vermeil, but not copper.
What did I buy?
An assortment of silver wire. This is where my research paid off - Rio Grande hasn't been carrying higher gauge half-round for a while (they are selling "low-dome", which really isn't the same thing, and large gauge standard half round, which isn't what I want), and while I thought that FMG had good prices, the drawback with them is that they only sell in pre-packaged 5 foot lengths. One of the vendors (can remember the name) had excellent prices - $24 an ounce for half-round and square wire (which come out to $2.05 an ounce less than FMG, and $1.22 less than wire-sculpture.com), and they were only charging $.85 a gram for Hill Tribe silver. So I bought some.
Pearls. I am a sucker for pearls, and the guys at You and Me Findings always do right for me. More teardrop pearls, stick pearls, peacock green and pink/grey button pearls, and wheat colored rice pearls. I also picked out some nice, heavy copper "S" clasps, which they ended up giving to me as a gift.
Patterned Brass Sheets - Metalliferous was there, which kind of shocked me - they usually don't do shows. I'll use the patterns for both my PMC work and to incorporate into some designs floating in my brain.
Ammonites - I hope everyone who went to Beadfest stopped to take a look at Gary Wilson's booth (where my budget went to hell). He is a true artist, and I am a sucker for ammonites - particularly three-dimensional ones and reverse ammonites (I'll definitely post pictures of these soon). I'm going to make molds of them for a Copper or Bronze clay project, as well. I also couldn't resist a piece of Bubble Calcedony and a large rectangle of Druzy somethingorother (I'll check the name of the material, it's on my receipt).
The drive home was awful. We left around 4:45, and immediately got stuck in a traffic jam on the PA Turnpike. When we finally got to the NJ Turnpike, it was slammed as well. We ended up getting off at the ever-so-lovely Woodrow Wilson rest stop, and waited out the pouring, then torrential rainstorm. When we finally got back on the road around 6:10, the traffic eased up just a bit. We finally made it home around 8. I was exhausted and crawled into bed.
I can't wait until next year!
Lita