Bead & Button: Day Two...

When it's nearly 100 degrees and sweat is pouring off my brow at home, I always imagine that Milwaukee is going to be as warm or slightly less warm, but still on the warm side nonetheless. It is almost summertime after-all! But it was chilly and I needed to pick up a hoodie before the show started to prevent freezing. As a result, we arrived at the show early – which was nice since it was one of the few times that I could walk around. I did need to take a break later in the day to pick up some much needed supplies.

Here are some snapshots from the second day at the Bead & Button Show.

I always look forward to seeing Pam Wynn! She's just a sweetie! Pam is Heather Wynn-Millican's mom and they both create beautiful polymer clay beads. (Their booth is also conveniently located next to Anne Choi's booth!)

They weren't sure if they were going to make it, but it's nice that Aly and Kevin Sly of Lima Beads stopped by! It was great hearing about their new features on their website and about their exciting new plans of what's to come next!

(From left to right:) Lori Anderson of Bead Soup Blog Party (showing her recent door-prize win), Katie Wall of Fusion Beads, and Danielle Fox (editor of Stringing magazine and author of Simply Modern Jewelry).

Jill Wiseman of Tapestry Beads got a chance to swing by! She has some exciting news. She'll be coming out with some great new books from Lark Crafts. Keep an eye out for them!

On her way to help out at Gary Wilson's booth, Kelly Angeley stopped by. Her and Barry are always delightful to see. I kept joking with her that if I was in her place, I'd probably leave with a pile of beads in lieu of a paycheck at the end of the week.

(From left to right:) Jamie Hogsett of SoftFlex Company and author of Stringing Style, Joanne Zekowski of Z Designs in Glass, and Patti Cahill of Dyed in the Fire.

I first met these lovely ladies in Hawaii at a show there! Katherine Natalia Wadsworth and Sara Sally LaGrand are both talented glassworkers and innovative thinkers. They were only one row over, but we didn't get a lot of time to talk this year. Sara Sally was sporting a fabulous hat she made for hat day.

It was nice to see some more friends from the Interweave Press crowd. I met both of these super nice folks this past Tucson: Jamie Bogner, the new editorial director for Beads and Jewelry magazines at Interweave Press (aka the new Marlene) and Mindy Brooks the new editor of Beadwork magazine (aka the other new Marlene). It's funny that I should only now meet Jamie; he grew up 10 minutes away from me in Florida and probably lived 10 minutes away from me in New York City. You should Follow him on Twitter to encourage him to keep Tweeting!

(From left to right:) Fernando daSilva (author of Modern Expressions) and Meredith Roddy of Beadalon, Brenda Schweder (author of Steel Wire Jewelry and Vintage Redux), and Kay of Star's Claps.

I think one of my favorite parts of the show is catching up with people and seeing where they are in their lives. For instance, Aisha Formanski of Aisha Celia Designs (who used to work for the Bead Monkey in Minnesota) now lives in California and has joined the Beaducation crew. Linda Larsen (on the right) has flown solo with Objects and Elements and is making serious strides towards eliminating stress from her life.

Above is a shot of Kristal Wick (author of Fabulous Fabric Beads) with Heidi of LillyPilly Designs. (Jodi is in the background hamming it up for the shot.) LillyPilly has come out with some great new textured metal sheets that I'm looking forward to working with.

(From left to right:) Lorelei Eurto of Tin Snippets and Designs by Lorelei, Erica Cessna of Reed's Beads (which has closed its brick and mortar shop in favor of an online beading realm), and Sherri Haab (author of Sherri Haab Jewelry Inspirations, Jewelry Upcycled!, and The Art of Metal Clay).

Above are the guys at PJ Tool Jewelry and ImpressArt Metal Stamps. This is their first year at the Bead & Button Show and they debuted by doing a really great thing... they gave away a free breast cancer awareness ribbon stamp to anyone who left a donation. All donations collected were passed along to the Medical College of Wisconsin's breast cancer research program.

Tonya Davidson at Whole Lotta Whimsy was a lifesaver! She carried with her bags of activated carbon, which I desperately needed in the studio. Tonya recently debuted a brand-new project called Artful Success where she's going to help artists achieve their full potential by providing helpful hints on exploring their artistic side, increase productivity, and help avoid costly mistakes.

This picture makes my stomach growl for the delicious Thai food at the Thai Palace! We had eaten their the night before with Anne Choi, but decided that the Italian place was too packed, we were too hungry to wait for said Italian, AND that the Thai food was too good not to go to again! From left to right: Bob, John, Jen, Kay, Greg and Jennie. (We were also seated next to the lovely ladies of Vintaj, who are not shown.)

After dinner, we went to the Rockbottom Brewery and Port of Call to try some of the regional microbrews. Boy was it well deserved! I'm partial to the Lakefront Brewery's Cream City Pale Ale, Bell's Two Hearted Ale, and Goose Island Oatmeal Stout. Yum!