5th BEADERS BEST Bead Art Fair - show update!

Hello everyone!

So a couple of weeks ago I was writing a blog post about the build up to the 5th BEADERS BEST Bead Art Fair in Germany and now here we are the other side of it. I spent nearly 4 months preparing for the show (creating designs, writing patterns, making samples, practicing etc.) and to say I was nervous beforehand would be an immense understatement - right up until an hour before the show started I was seriously considering quite literally running away because I doubted my own ability to put on a convincing performance. But with the support of my husband Simon, the Preciosa Ornela team, the show organisers and some wonderful beading friends, everything ran smoothly and I would imagine that visitors to the show had no idea how I very nearly wasn't sitting there showing them how to make Pipflinks, Candles, Ripple Crown Pins and Kumihimo bracelets! Of course I know I can bead, I can write patterns and I can teach, but it was the unknown factor of doing public demonstrations at a large fair for a huge company that scared me, but of course I was worrying unnecessarily and now, looking back, I would even go so far as to say I enjoyed it and that I wouldn't hesitate to do it again! You can read my more formal review of the show over on the Bead and Button blog, but this is a simple personal post, showing a selection of pictures that tell the story of when Kerrie Slade went to the 5th BEADERS BEST Bead Art Fair.

Me with some of the fantastic Preciosa Ornela team, just before the show opened.

Talking to the wonderful Olga Vinnere Pettersson from Sweden minutes before the doors opened. Olga has an aura of calm and tranquillity about her and she kindly passed some on to me - along with some lovely Swedish chocolate!

This giant poster of my 'Pipflinks' design never failed to make me smile and remind me of just why I was there. I love how Preciosa kept my made-up word for the name of the project!

This is how much of my time was spent, sat at the Preciosa stand doing demos of my four projects alongside their very talented in-house designer Helena Chmelikova. In this shot I am chatting to the great Francesca Walton and her lovely friend Suzanne.

Of course sitting at the back of the booth gets boring, so I would often go to the front and talk to beading friends and visitors - here I am chatting to Gerlinde Lenz about her new beading book.

Day one finished with an excellent barbecue. Simon and I sat with the Preciosa team and the US designer Adele Rogers Recklies and her husband - a really lovely evening!

Day two held more of the same but the fair was much busier and went in a whirl of demos and mini workshops for me. Here I am showing a couple of ladies how to do Kumihimo.

I met lots of wonderful beading ladies during the fair and this is an example of just one of the many photos that were taken of us all. Take a look at Nadya's amazing necklace (far right).

Sunday was the third day of the fair and I think you can see from this photo (taken by the talented Sandra Scholte) that by now I had relaxed into it and was enjoying myself!

Towards the end of the show Freddie Ott (the creative director of Perlen Poesie magazine) took this picture of me wearing 'Garden Party' the necklace that made the cover of the current issue. I had no idea this was going to happen so it was lucky I happened to be wearing a matching top that day!

If you had given me a crystal ball before the show and let me glimpse this picture, I would not have believed my eyes! At the end of the fair I joined in with the fashion show and paraded on the catwalk wearing my necklace. Note to self - if you can do that, you can do ANYTHING!

At the end of the three day event, me and Simon on our hotel balcony sharing a little toast.

So there you have it - three days in twelve pictures! Despite all my apprehensions this turned out to be a really fantastic experience for me. So if you ever find yourself in this situation and think 'Should I? Could I?' please, just say 'YES!'

See you next time!

Kerrie ♥

Ripple Crown Pins!

Hello everyone!

I notice it's been nearly two months since my last blog post and I am wondering where that time went. I guess it went in a frantic whirl of meeting various deadlines for magazine and book projects (all to be published later this year or early next), followed by visiting family for a couple of weeks and then coming home to find my trusty 8 year old PC had virtually died. My computer is sort of limping along at the moment but this is the last blog post I will ever write using it. I am very attached to this desktop as I bought it in 2007, just before I turned my beading hobby into a business, so every pattern I have ever created, every diagram I have ever drawn and every blog post I have written have all been done on this computer. After doing a lot of research, I have decided to jump ship this time and I have invested in a shiny new iMac which is sitting waiting patiently in its box, ready to take over from Old Faithful.

So because of technological interruptions I am a bit late in letting you know that the latest issue of Digital Beading Magazine is out now, packed with 178 pages of projects and inspiration. Although I don't have a project in this one, there are a couple of adverts in there that use my work - the newest one being the Ripple Crown Pins that I showed you in my last blog post. I can also tell you that the instructions for these little pins will be available from the Preciosa Ornela website in the coming months.

I am actually very sad to announce that issue 15 is the last ever issue of Digital Beading Magazine as Kelly (the editor) is moving on to an exciting new chapter in her life. I have been on the design team of DBM since the first issue back in December 2012 with 14 projects and an artist's profile published during that time. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Kelly and I would like to publicly thank her for all the support and opportunities she gave me (one of my favourite is pictured below) and I wish her and her family all the very best for the future. I hope you have enjoyed reading DBM as much as I enjoyed designing for it and don't forget that you can still purchase the current issue and back issues via this page of the website.

That's all for this time but I do have some exciting news bubbling under the surface, so I will be back with details of that within the next few weeks.

See you next time!

Kerrie ♥

Ripples!

Hello everyone!

A few days ago Preciosa Ornela released their brand new Ripple™ bead onto the market and I'm happy to say that I had the good fortune to be involved in making some sample pieces using this interesting new bead, so let me tell you a bit about them. The Ripple is a circular pressed glass bead with a 12 mm diameter and it has a wavy curve to it - hence the name. It comes in a wide range of the most beautiful vacuum coated colours in both shiny and matte finishes and I have to say that although not necessarily ideal for the usual beadweaving stitches, I fell in love with this new bead. Because these beads have a much larger surface than most beads I usually work with, you really get the full impact of the colour and what with the pleasant S-shaped curve of the side view, it's hard not to be drawn to them. Like many larger pressed beads, they really want to take centre stage, but they do mix well with a few seed beads - here is what I did with my Ripple beads:

It's difficult for me to stay away from a seed bead, and so for my 'Ripples on the Surface' bracelet I firstly made a narrow strip of herringbone using bright silver seed beads and then I decorated it with glittering Ripples in glorious California Green. For the finishing touch and to bring out the other colours in the Ripples, I tied it with a length of pink ribbon.

For the next experiment I chose California Silver and California Graphite Ripples (in both shiny and matte) and using more silver seed beads I made lots and lots of little stems and loops for them. Then I threaded them all on to a sterling silver screw end bangle so that they were very tightly packed. This encouraged the Ripples to bunch up and show off their lovely surfaces which you can see in 'Clustered Ripples' shown above.

Still liking the options that little seed bead loops gave me, I went on to make more using California Silver Ripples and black seed beads. These Ripples are silver on one side and gold on the other and so I made sure I threaded them all the same way round to create 'Reversible Ripples' which (as the name suggests) can be worn with the silver facing the front or the gold.

I really like the side view of the Ripple beads and so I wanted to find a way to display that lovely curve as well as the finish on the flat side. After a bit of experimentation I found a way to stabilise a circle of Ripples and then nestled them in to a bed of seed beads to make a sparkly little crown shaped brooch. I enjoyed making these so much that I actually made a set of three 'Ripple Crown Pins' using California Blue, California Graphite and California Night Ripple beads.

As time was running out but there were still Ripples to use and colours to show, I finished off with a simple strung bracelet which I've named 'Ripples and Pearls'. I chose the matte version of the California Green Ripple bead which has a lovely pink and gold finish to it and I mixed them with some creamy 4 mm glass pearls to make a slinky 3-strand bracelet using a fabulous silver clasp from A Grain Of Sand.

So there you have the results of my Ripple experiments, but there are many more ways to use these delightful new beads and if you take a look at Preciosa's Flickr album you can see some really wonderful work by the other designers.

See you next time!

Kerrie ♥