Weekend show review and new projects

We spent our weekend doing a show in Canon City, CO.

We had done this show before, but not in this venue -- it used to be in a park down by the Arkansas River, right where the train that goes to the Royal Gorge comes by it.

This was our booth.

We actually made a small profit on this show -- hurrah!!

I can tell you that I'm draggin' my tail this morning -- in the process of setting up, manning and tearing down a booth, I obviously use different muscles than I do in other activities -- I've got lots of sore spots today!


As I mentioned, the show was at a new venue -- The Abbey Winery grounds.

This is the kind of bottle they put one of their wines in.

I went and "made nice" to one of the tasting room staff to get my hands on this little gem (yes, its empty, I got it that way)

I have BIGGGGG plans for this that includes breaking (YES!!), tumbling and future beading

But first we're going to experiment with a more mundane green bottle that we have on hand -- and maybe a brown one too


I think these are shells from hickory nuts (someone tell me if they know otherwise!)

Our booth was set up right under the tree and I picked these up

Got plans for them too that include soaking (and possibly boiling), making of molds from polymer clay and (Yup!) more beading


As is usual when I do a show where I take my beading, I try to have something on hand to work on.

For one thing, I want folks to understand that these beauties are created by hand, by me!

For another thing, it keeps my hands busy so I'm not tempted to spend a whole weekend snacking!!

This is the piece that I just sort of "threw together" on Friday evening, and I have to say that so far I'm real pleased with it.


When I did the bezzeling around the face (that's a piece of carved bone I've had for quite a while), it was deeper at the top than the bottom, so I used a slightly different technique where I did some extra beading across the top of the bone that helped hold it instead of making the entire bezzel taller (I didn't want to cover any more of the face than I had to).

I liked the results so well that I decided to put some additional details on top of the "wing" bead too.....

This piece promises to be another very unusual one



As also sometimes happens at a show, I spend time looking at the pieces that are complete and on the table.

This weekend I pulled these two pieces to undergo a "make over"

I'm planning to add more "fringe" to the bottom of the tiger eye piece and possibly submit it to a magazine for publication.

The leaves are cool, and they get lots of comments at shows, but I think they are just too much and the "chain" is too short, so I plan to remove each leaf from the "chain" and remake this into at least 2 necklaces -- maybe more.

We'll see how that goes.

And this is the only other thing I did this weekend --- this is yet another piece of the previously shown mystery project

Any more guesses about what we're making?

So today its paperwork (after a show there is ALWAYS paperwork) and laundry and unloading the van and just trying to recover!

time to get started