5th BEADERS BEST Bead Art Fair!

Hello everyone!

I've only just realised that although I have mentioned the 5th BEADERS BEST Bead Art Fair in a couple of recent entries, I haven't actually written a proper blog post about it and yet the fun starts in Hamburg just next week! The show is organised by the editors of Perlen Poesie magazine and I was lucky enough to teach some workshops at the first fair back in 2011. I had a great time there and met lots of beady people from around the world who had all flocked to the new fair in northern Germany. Of course the event has grown since then and moved to a larger venue too and so I am really looking forward to attending again and catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. Things are different for me too this time around as instead of teaching workshops in a private classroom, I will be doing free demos at the Preciosa Ornela stand.

On all three days of the fair I will be demonstrating four of my recent Preciosa projects: Kumihimo Pips, Pipflinks, Decorative Candle and Ripple Crown Pins and there will also be a display of some of my work together with the winning entries of Preciosa's recent "Flower Party" contest. There's no need to book, it is all quite informal and relaxed so people will be able to drop in and watch for a few minutes, or stay for a while and have a chat with me and the Preciosa team or even sit with us and have a go at one of the projects. There will also be free leaflets available for each project and I believe that Preciosa will have some little beady gifts for visitors too.

Of course there will be all sorts of other exciting things happening at the fair as well including a wide variety of workshops from well known international teachers, fun contests and even a fashion show along with a huge range of beads, books, beading materials and finished work being on offer. You can find full details including a list of exhibitors and a floor plan on this page of the Perlen Poesie website. It promises to be a great event and I hope you can join the Flower Party - you will be able to find me at stand A5 so be sure to come and say hello!

While at the show I am also hoping to spend some time wandering around taking pictures and chatting to exhibitors, teachers and visitors, as soon after I get back from Hamburg I will be writing a report on the show for the Bead and Button magazine blog (as well as for my own blog) so watch out for that in a couple of weeks time.

See you next time!

Kerrie ♥

Garden Party!

Hello everyone!

I've been pretty quiet on the blogging front lately but, as usual, there has been a lot of unseen activity going on. Some time last year the editors of the German beading magazine Perlen Poesie asked if I would be interested in having a project and an artist profile article in their magazine and as I have followed and enjoyed this magazine since its inception in 2009, I was quick to say 'yes please!' I already had some experience of working with the people at PP as my 'English Rose' necklace project was published in issue 8, I taught my 'Popper Flowers' project at the first Bead Art Fair in Hamburg (organised by Perlen Poesie) in 2011 and I was also one of the judges for their 2013 IBA contest so I knew that working with Perlen Poesie was likely to be a smooth and enjoyable process and I wasn't disappointed. I'm very fond of maximising opportunities and so I decided to involve Preciosa Ornela in this project too and I chose to use pastel coloured Preciosa Traditional Czech Beads to create a lush flowery necklace which I thought would be suitable for the summer issue of an international Bead Art Magazine. You can see the result, 'Garden Party', in the picture below.

The instructions for the necklace are on page 92 of the magazine but as it's made up of individual flowers and leaves it would be very easy to adapt it to a bracelet or even a pendant or earrings if flowery collars aren't your thing. If you would like a copy of Perlen Poesie magazine you can order it direct from their website (in German or English), or if you are in the US you can purchase the English language version from here or ask if your local bead store carries it or can obtain it for you. If you are in the UK, then The Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd stocks the English language version. You can also find an 11 page profile article about me and my work which starts on page 10 of this issue and I have to say that I am VERY pleased with the way this turned out. Freddie and Andrea Ott flew to the UK to interview me as they wanted to see me in my 'natural habitat' and as you can see from the photo below, that is just what they got! The picture below shows me in my favourite beading spot, chatting to Andrea and working on my trusty beading tray that Mum painted for me and lined with a piece of her old velvet curtain. You may notice that the tray is now held together with yellow sticky tape but I will always treasure it and I'm quite happy that my 'warts and all' tray now appears in an exclusive magazine - how fortunate that the sticky tape matches the daffodils on the window sill!

The duo spent a couple of hours at our house with Andrea asking me lots of questions and recording my answers while Freddie took numerous pictures of both me and my work. Then we all headed off to one of my favourite places, the village of Edwinstowe to meet Robin Hood and Maid Marian before having a lovely fish and chip lunch and a leisurely stroll around Sherwood Forest. Next it was back home to decide which pieces of my work they would take to Germany with them for more detailed photography work - I have rather a lot of beadwork so Andrea found it hard to decide which pieces to take and Freddie's case left here bulging at the seams! It might seem a bit unusual for the editors of a magazine to go to these lengths but this is where that level of dedication and enthusiasm pays off because although they already knew about me, this time they got to know the real me, enabling them to write an accurate article. Once back in Germany, Freddie and Andrea took some staged shots of my work and of course I can't give too much away but I would like to show you this one - the way they have Podger, Flash and Crusty set up in a garden of tasty looking flowers with absolutely no input from me lets me know that I made an excellent choice in working with Perlen Poesie magazine again.

So after months of behind the scenes work the magazine is now out and you can buy it, you can read the article (as well as several others such as an interesting article on the history of simulated pearls) and you can make the 'Garden Party' necklace along with lots of other beautiful beadwork projects. For me, this is not the end of my work with Perlen Poesie as I will be at the 2015 Beaders Best Bead Art Fair in Hamburg and I will be giving more details about that in a future blog post. In the meantime, if you are in the area and you would like to see 'Garden Party' in the flesh, she is currently on display at The Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd so feel free to drop in and have a look and perhaps buy yourself some beads while you are there.

See you next time!

Kerrie ♥