TBS - November meeting

It's the second Wednesday of the month, which means it's the November meeting of the Toronto Bead Society tonight.  The guest speaker is Maria Rypan (Rypan Designs), who'll be giving a presentation called, "Embellishing Your World: Beading and Surface Designs."  (I hope Maria doesn't mind that I've copied this picture of her from her website.)

The TBS website describes Maria's talk as follows:

"“Embellishing Your World: Beading & Surface Designs” is about transforming the mundane into beautiful with an array of techniques and design ideas. Be inspired to embellish a few things once you see how people in different parts of the world meet the challenge to create beauty with materials on hand. Breathtaking photos of decorated objects and their stories will motivate you to transform a few of your own.

There will be many incredible artifacts representing the First Nations people, Pashtun tribes, Zulu chiefs, Indonesian deity, Ukrainian artisans, school kids and a former dissident, US crafters and Canadian bead artists! See beaded flowers, ‘pysanky’ eggs and ornaments. Visually "meet" some of these talented people with their folk art.

The title page and first four slides feature fascinating beaded objects from our own Naomi Smith’s Collection of First Nations Beadwork. Here’s a chance to learn more about them as they’re projected onto the screen. Nothing beats seeing the beadwork displays up close for maximum appreciation!

Come and be inspired to embellish your own world."

Do we bead artists need any encouragement to embellish? I don't think so!! But I'm sure Maria's presentation will be very entertaining - see you there.

Bead Fair

Just throwing in a little plug for the Toronto Bead Society's Bead Fair, taking place this weekend at the Metro Central YMCA downtown at 20 Grosvenor (just west of Yonge, between Wellesley and College, an easy walk from either subway station).

If you've never been to this event, I can tell you that it is a great place to go if you (a) love beads and (b) love to shop. There will be over 50 friendly vendors offering all sorts of beading-related products - it's a great way to see a lot of things you might need, all in one place - one stop shopping, you can't bead it. (I know, I couldn't resist.)

You can read all about it on their website - http://www.torontobeadsociety.org/web/index.php. This year, there are also classes available, some of which are already sold out and all of which are very reasonably priced and look quite interesting.

I'll be working the snack bar on Saturday morning (since my dear friend Stephanie Dixon - a.k.a. The Dixon Chick - signed up to be the Volunteer Coordinator for the TBS, I seem to be "volunteering" at several events these days - the good news is, it's a lot of fun), so do come by and say hello.