TBS Garage Sale

This past Wednesday, the Toronto Bead Society had its last meeting of the 2008/2009 year, which was their annual "garage sale". Members rent tables and sell off some of their stash. For them, it's a chance to get rid of some older stock or things that have been hanging around, like old beading magazines and books, and for the rest of us, it's a cornucopia of treasures! It's one of my favourite nights, a chance to chat and mingle with everyone while picking up new beads, what could be more enjoyable? In fact, I was having so much fun socializing and shopping, I didn't even get a chance to check out the delicious buffet of food that was provided!

Here are some photos of some of the beautiful items I brought home with me:

This unusual bracelet was only $5.00. I also picked up some individual loose cones like the ones already attached here, so I can make matching earrings and/or a necklace or add more to this bracelet.

I picked out a lovely collection of beads made by Amy Waldman-Smith, which were such a total steal at 50% off, I had to stock up.

I also snatched up a couple of the marble beads made by Erin Maloney of the type that I coveted a few months ago when I first saw her wearing them at a lampworkers gathering, one in the traditional polka dots she is famous for and one with cool turquoise swirls.

I also stocked up on orphan polka dot beads made by Laurie Morgan, both because they were only $1.00 a piece and because my own dot beads never look this good!

I also got some chain, a string of silver discs that I might be able to stamp, a few little bags of various types of beads and a bevy of buttons (from Jennifer, who only charged me 50 cents for a bag full), as well as a book called "Button Jewelry and Accessories" because I have to admit, I'm starting to get a thing for buttons ever since I picked up all those ones in Mexico in January (wait until you see the vintage buttons I picked up at the B&B show last week). Now I need to do something with them!!

Back in the World

I consider it the sign of a good vacation if you can go away and forget your day to day life and lose track of what's going on in the rest of the world. Of course, when your vacation is over and you're back in the regular routine (always scary how fast you fall back into the old patterns), it takes a few days to catch up on what went on while you were away, since the globe kept turning and things were happening that you may or may not need to be aware of.

Imagine my shock when I got in my car the day after returning from the Bead and Button show, pushed my preset button and there was some other music playing on one of my favourite radio stations. Who knew they were going to change their format six days ago, while I was out of town??? I was sure someone had been in my car and reset the buttons, until I realized it was the same station, just different music (and not necessarily good music, if you know what I'm saying).

Before yesterday, I'd never heard of Web 2.o but apparently, someone has been counting the number of words in the English language and this is number one million. Hmm. Might have missed that if I was on vacation this week but gee, don't think it would have mattered. No one I know personally has ever used that word/phrase in a sentence in my presence, including my computer geek friends (love you guys!), even though it was coined back in 2005, so how exactly does it get to be that common that it gets added to some online dictionary?

Before two days ago, I didn't know what a medical isotope was or that Canada was the 3rd largest producer of same. I've now Googled the issue and realized it's something to do with chemistry, which I did not take in high school and 30 some years later, I seem to be doing just fine without knowing exactly what is a neutron or a proton, so I'm going to let that one go as well (although I do hope that everyone that needs a scan, gets one and is not traumatized by the lack of this formerly unheard of whatchamacallit).

Before two weeks ago, I had never heard of Kate and John and their 8 (8!) kids and now I've heard way too much about them and their marital problems.

Sometimes being out of touch with the news of the world is not such a bad thing, if you ask me.

A Transformation in Progress

I'm still trying to process all of the sights I saw and the lessons I learned in Milwaukee. Eight days of beads, glass, metal, fibre and clay, nine different classes and teachers, four days of shopping, all manner of beads, glass, metal, fibre and clay, getting up close and personal with various rock stars of the jewellery making world - it was quite an overwhelming experience, in a good way and definitely an overload of the senses.

In her blog a few days ago, Kate McKinnon described the sensation of feeling completely emptied out as part of a transformation leading to a time when "my world cracks open so I can step out into a bigger one...like a snail between shells." That is a very apt description. It feels like my brain is a very new, blank, wide open canvas and the new ideas haven't yet formed, although there are lots of colours and impressions swirling about. It's like the coffee has started to percolate in the pot but hasn't yet trickled down to start filling the cup.

I'm not sure what the result will be or how it will manifest in my creations, but I'm looking forward to finding out!

Memories of Milwaukee

I really enjoyed my trip to Milwaukee last week and not just because I met a lot of wonderful people and got to spend the week making jewellery and playing with beads and metal. I was pleasantly surprised by all of the beautiful architecture to be found in the downtown area. I'm not sure what I was expecting, all I really knew about the city was that there are a bunch of breweries as well as the corporate headquarters of Harley Davidson located there, but I was blown away by some of the beautiful buildings we saw, both new and old.

Of course, the most astounding of all was the Art Museum, which is topped by the beautiful Burke Brise Soleil, a sunshade fashioned as wings that are opened and closed at different times of the day (or if the wind speed off Lake Michigan gets higher than 23 mph).

They also have a lovely Riverwalk, which runs alongside the Milwaukee River through the centre of the city. It was there that we found the Bronze Fonzie statue, a tribute to the character from the TV show "Happy Days". We had to do a bit of searching, the locals we asked weren't quite sure where it was located (one was too young to have watched the show and the others cited the excuse that it was just put up last year and they hadn't seen it yet).

I'm sure there is a lot more to see than what we did, we just didn't have time! Perhaps next year...

P.S. I read on the Internet today that similar sprinkler pranks as the one we experienced also happened in Alabama last Friday night and Arkansas on Saturday night, prior to what happened in our hotel in Milwaukee on Sunday night. Obviously a "prank wave" spreading across the U.S. and not a very amusing one.

Home from Milwaukee

Arrived home from Milwaukee about noon today after an eventful morning at our hotel that included a fire alarm just before 3 a.m., waking up at 5:15 a.m. to get ready to leave and finding out there was no water in the shower (but luckily, there was water in the sink and the toilet still flushed) and discovering at 6:15 a.m. that the elevators weren't working (luckily, the front desk was able to send someone up to help us lug our big, heavy suitcases chock full of new beads, tools and books down the 11 flights to the ground).

Poor beleaguered Bill at the front desk told us that someone had phoned a woman on the 3rd floor while the fire alarm was going off and told her that there was a fire and she needed to break open her window and start the sprinkler system, which she did (although Bill wasn't sure how she broke the window, he thought they were unbreakable. One of our fellow beaders on the flight home suggested she probably had a ballpeen hammer or bench block handy and used that!) Of course, her room and probably all her stuff is now totally flooded, she's listed on the police report as a "victim" and all that water interfered with the hotel's electrical system, which is why the elevators weren't working. The police had advised Bill that two other hotels also had similar "pranks" pulled on them last night as well.

I don't know how anyone would find this sort of stunt/vandalism amusing but unfortunately, there are people out there in the world that get enjoyment out of causing random inconvenience and distress to other people and that's just sad.

Fortunately for us, this was our only "bad" experience on the whole trip and I'll be sharing my stories and photos (once I sort through all 611 of them) with y'all in later posts. It was a truly amazing week and there is lots to tell!!

In the meantime, I'll share this cool photo I took as we were taxiing on the runway in Milwaukee earlier today. I love the contrast of the stripes and the swatches of colours.

Photo Pendants Under Glass

It's hard to believe it's our last day in Milwaukee already! This morning is my last class, a 3 hour session taught by Susan Wade making photo pendants.

I'm looking forward to learning how to do this. My friend Carin in Whistler, B.C. called me a couple of months ago to suggest I fly out there and drive down to Portland, Oregon with her to take a class making these very sorts of things with someone else but the class was already full, so I didn't go. Luckily, the B&B catalogue arrived soon afterwards and I signed right up!

After class (Colleen is making beaded beads this morning in her session), we have the afternoon free to do some last minute bead shopping and/or exploring of Milwaukee and tomorrow morning, Colleen and I fly home to Toronto.

The Quadrille Medaglia

Don't you just love the name? I have no idea what it means, but it's a bracelet being taught by Marcia DeCoster. I'm looking forward to meeting her. She is good friends with two of my favourite teachers, Kate McKinnon and Rachel Nelson-Smith so I'm sure I will like her. She seems like a lot of fun, judging from her blog postings: http://www.maddesignsbeads.blogspot.com/

Class runs all day until 5 p.m. and then tonight is the bead social and both a silent and a live auction. This should be quite the event. I do love a good auction! All the beads they made last night at the Lampworking Madness event will be for sale and well as many other donated items. Proceeds from the event go to the Medical College of Wisconsin's breast cancer research project. According to the program, there will be a special guest - Carmen Banana. Now that sounds intriguing, doesn't it??