Bead Fest Spring came to town again this weekend, and I was very excited to attend this year! Bead Fest is a HUGE bead show that comes to the Philly area two times a year and only hits up a select other number of cities throughout the year. The very best part is that I live only 20 minutes away from the expo center it's held in so I easily zipped over this weekend to get some shopping on!
To see some recaps of past shows and the goodies I bought you can check out these past posts:Bead Fest 2011, Bead Fest 2012, Bead Fest 2013
Bead shows can be overwhelming. There are SOOO many beads and SOOO many shoppers. It's way too easy to spend WAY too much time there and also spend WAY too much money!!! As I am not made of unlimited funds I tend to stick to the cheap strand sections. You can get some really cool beads for $1-$3 a strand and not break the bank while doing so.
At some tables there are just literally PILES of bead strands to dig through. I kind of wanted to jump up on the table and have someone bury me under the beads - THAT'S how many there are. I don't think the vendors would have really appreciated that thought so I refrained haha :)
I stopped to say hello to some of the vendors this year such as the Beadalon booth. I found out recently that Beadalon is actually based out of Eastern PA, only about an hour away from where I live! Wyatt from the Beadalon team was there demonstrating some of their new finding creation tools. They really have some neat new products out! (Shout out- you can find many of the Beadalon products online at Prima Bead with no shipping!)
I also stopped by the Jesse James Bead Booth to got to meet Candie Cooper! It was great to connect with another jewelry maker in the industry to actually makes her living making jewelry and teaching others. Jealous much??? :) She was also insanely nice and let me interupt her lunch to chat a bit!
One of her necklaces was on display at the Jesse James booth that she had recently posted on her blog. It's pretty cool to follow a blog and see a project posted one week like this Statement Necklace and then show up the next week at bead fest and see it in person!
Here's the haul that I took away this year:
A good amount of strands and some metal accent findings and components. I just love this close-up shot of my beads. These are the things that make my heart go pitter patter....
I probably spent about $110 on everything. Beads are little but they sure do get expensive real quick!!!
Lastly, I thought I would do a round up of some of the tutorials I've posted over the last year that were made with supplies I grabbed at Bead Fest in the past:
So many pretty necklaces! Hopefully I'm able to make lots more of pretties and post about them over the next couple months with the new supplies I got. If I'm still lacking for inspiration, Bead Fest Summer is coming back to town in August and I mayyyyy just have to go again for another visit!
Those are seriously cute necklace and to think you made them yourself
ReplyDeleteHappy Medley Blog