Marcia Does Beaded Beads

Marcia DeCoster is in town, teaching classes at Beadfx for the next 3 days (she'll also be teaching at Beads of Colour this coming weekend). I've taken the day off work in order to take today's class about making beaded beads. I've always wanted to learn how to make them, I even bought an entire book on the subject ("The Art of Beaded Beads", a Lark Jewelry book edited by Jean Campbell) but, as with so many other things on my "to do" list, I haven't actually gotten around to trying to make any just yet. So this class should be a good introduction.

You may recall that I took a class with Marcia last year at Bead and Button - you can read all about it here: http://cynfulcreationscanada.blogspot.com/2009/08/marcias-new-book.html. I am looking forward to seeing her again and renewing our acquaintance. Hopefully we are going out for dinner afterwards, at least, that was the plan last time we emailed.

BTW, I took this glamorous photo of her off her Facebook page. I love how she colours her hair, I wish I was that brave!

This other photo is off the Beadfx website, showing a sample of the Bellisimo bead which I assume we will be learning how to make today. Can't wait!

Have You Heard?

Guess who's coming to town? Yeah, yeah, Santa Claus is coming but do you know who else?? Marcia DeCoster, that's who!! But you're going to have to wait a little bit longer for her arrival, as she's not coming to Toronto until next summer. Actually, she's coming to Dundas, which is about 45 minutes or so west of Toronto, down towards the Hamilton area. She'll be teaching classes at Beads of Colour (see my post about this fabulous store back on December 5th). I don't believe the exact dates have been determined as yet but watch this space for more details:

http://maddesignsbeads.blogspot.com/

Bead guru extraordinaire Marcia is the author of this fabulous book:

which is a delightful visual experience, even if you never undertake any of the beaded projects within - but I'm pretty sure that once you see the gorgeous pieces, you're going to want to make one or several for yourself.

I am really hoping that she will teach her ringlets course (see photo below) because they're not in the book and I think they're fabulous!! My sister and I were discussing the pink and orange colour combination earlier today - I love it, it's one of my favourites!!

Back to B.O.C.

I finally made it back to Beads of Colour in Dundas today, which I have been meaning to do since my first visit to this lovely bead store with my friend Heather back in August (see post of August 19th - http://cynfulcreationscanada.blogspot.com/2009/08/beads-of-colour.html).

Since then, I have met the owner of the store, Debi Keir-Nicholson, although I had to go all the way to Tucson to do it! She also attended Kate McKinnon's PMC workshop in November, so today's visit was planned so I could return a vest to her that she had left behind in Tucson and we could do lunch. Which we did, at a lovely little tea shoppe called Taylor's Tea Room. The food was delish and I brought back a scone with me which comes highly recommended, along with some peach jam and real Devon cream to go with it, which I am planning to savour while I watch Coronation Street tomorrow morning to get the authentic British scone experience!

We then took a stroll along King Street in Dundas. Lots of beautiful old buildings and storefronts, I had to keep asking Debi to stop so I could take another photo. I loved this old post office building, which is actually for sale, if you can imagine! (I bought a lottery ticket on my way home, just in case). Wouldn't you love to own a building that has a clock tower? I don't know why but for some reason, I believe I would.

Check out these three storey buildings. Dundas must have been a prosperous town back in the day when these main street structures were built, as 3 floors seems quite a lot for that time period. Debi took me inside one of the stores in this section, Heirlooms, which is currently a bridal shoppe but used to be the hardware store. It still has all the old wood inside, including the counter and beautiful wide planked wooden floors. Even the ladder that they used to use to climb up onto the shelves to find some piece of merchandise. There is also a beautiful wooden staircase at the back of the shop. A lot of the wood is painted a baby pink now, which is rather a shame but at least it looks pretty with all the wedding gowns. Sadly, I didn't take any photos inside - I know, what was I thinking? Or not thinking, in this case! Next time.

After checking out a few more stores, including the thrift shop (where I picked up several old books to use for art projects in the near future and Debi got a little electronic piano toy for her grandson), we then strolled back to Beads of Colour, to spend some time chatting with Chris, who works with Debi and where, as you can see, I did remember to take some photos inside the store.

All in all, it was a lovely afternoon! Thank you, ladies!

Beads of Colour

There is a lovely little bead store on the Main Street of Dundas, ON called "Beads of Colour", which my friend Heather and I discovered yesterday. It is filled with all sorts of bead supplies, either displayed nicely on the walls and tables within the store or very cleverly stored in space saving cabinets and drawers - they really do have a lot of stuff packed into a very small space. I don't mean to suggest that you feel cramped while you're in the store, you don't at all - it's just that if you look around for a certain something and don't see it, be sure to ask because they probably have it, it just might not be immediately visible to the untrained eye.

Heather and I spent at least an hour puttering about the store, checking everything out. They had some very unusual beads and components in stock, things that I haven't seen in other places. For example, these funky flower power sequins:

They actually had quite a big selection of vintage sequins, both Heather and I bought several in various sizes, shapes (i.e. round or star-shaped) and colours (pink, red, silver, turquoise, brown and gold). I'm not entirely sure what I will end up doing with them but I'm excited to add them to my stash.

I also picked up these unusually shaped beads, I think they are lucite. They came in all sorts of colours, but I picked these ones because I've been collecting components in pink, orange and white ever since June when I got some very special beads at the Bead and Button show. However, I haven't done anything with them yet and summer is almost over - must...get...busy on that project!!

They also have many interesting types of chain available, and again, nothing like I have seen before in other bead stores. Heather and I both bought a metre of this copper daisy chain to make a bracelet like one they had made up in the store. Perhaps I can prevail upon Heather to send me a picture of her finished piece and I will post it together with mine, so you can see what we made. I have a feeling both of us will make something similar to the store's sample and yet each put our own different twist on it. Stay tuned.

They also offer a huge variety of classes there. I picked up a copy of their brochure, which, amazingly, lists all of the classes they will be offering between October and February - 74 of them! Saturday, September 19th is registration day and the store opens at 9:30 that day so people can sign up. I have this vision of beaders lined up around the block, waiting to get in and register! I must just end up being one of those people when the time comes.

You can download a list of the classes and check out their website here: http://www.beadsofcolour.com/. If you need to look up directions to the store, I would recommend using Google Maps and keying in "65 Main Street West, Dundas", which will give you accurate results, because Mapquest got us totally lost (turns out, both Hamilton and Dundas have Main Streets and they join together!).

All I can say is, I have a feeling it will be dangerous for me to know that I have yet another fantastic bead store located only about a 40 minute drive from where I live!