Restaurant Festival

Thought I’d do this before I fall asleep – spent the day outdoors at the Chester County Restaurant Festival in West Chester. We were very lucky, the weather cooperated and it was a lovely day with the smell of Jimmy John’s hotdogs grilling and all kinds of other mouth-watering scents and tastes. I saw several friends today, a couple I hadn’t seen in years – the Restaurant Festival is always like that. Set up my booth, with the help of my good friend Tammy, and she took a couple of pictures for me.

me and my new banner at the Restaurant Festival

 

We discovered that the banner needs a better method of hanging – I wanted to hang it behind me from the booth frame, but the center supports made it bunch up, so thank goodness for packing tape – a down and dirty, but successful method for displaying the banner. I didn’t eat much of the food today, but my friend Nancy brought apple cider donuts that were still warm and Tammy found delicious cupcakes from Cupcakes Gourmet.

I was also very fortunate in my vendor neighbors – Jean the interior designer and Chris the frontman for beautiful Nicaraguan pottery. Had a good time today, everybody was in a good mood, and the Eagles were winning as we were packing up for the day.

I was sooo bad today…

at Intergem – I told myself I was doing a quick in and out out the convention center and I started off with good intentions, but then I found my friends at Vettri Gems and they always have an awesome budget bin, so I have to work my way through it thoroughly. I found some pretty multi-color sapphire tiny faceted coins, dark purple amethyst onion brios, small smooth whiskey quartz brios. Then I discovered the higher end gems, and they had some great smooth briolettes – I’ve been looking for some for months.

smooth brios and pink amethyst shields and sapphires

 

The highlight of my Vettri Gems spree were the humongous pink amethyst shield briolettes – I’ve never seen this shape before.

pink amethyst brios

After forcing myself away, I made my way to my favorite pearl vendors – Pearl Concepts. My friend Helena greeted me warmly and helped my pick out some amazing colors and some new shapes in pearls.

fall colors from Pearl Connection

unique & pretty pearls

 

Helena found a great strand of pearls that perfectly match a chalcedony drusy pendant I found today – and I found my favorite top drilled coins and keshi and found the colors I want to work with for fall designs.

Just as I was ready to leave I made a new friend: Ankit at Gem House USA, who had some unique beads, and was very knowledgeable to boot.

rondelles

 

shapes

 

Gem House had loads of awesome rondelle beads in all different sizes – bi-lemon quartz, pink and blue topaz, green amethyst and green kyanite. Besides the rondelles, there were some briolettes of moss aquamarine, moss amethyst and tiny multi-colored spinel. The most interesting beads today were:

mystic green quartz concave cut

none of the pictures I took show these beautiful beads to advantage.

After today, I am on a bead moratorium – no new beads until I make something from each bead I bought today! Stay tuned for pics of the work – no time today, tomorrow I’ll be at the Chester County Restaurant Festival, on North High Street in downtown West Chester, so come hang out if you’re in town.

woo-hoo!

I had my first etsy sale yesterday (a customer who is not a friend or family member)! The discerning customer purchased the sapphira earrings, part of my alumna collection.

sapphira earrings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tiny blue to white sapphire faceted rondelles linked to a round white freshwater pearl, with sterling earwires and findings.

creative juices

I’ve been extremely uncreative the past couple of weeks, I think because of the pressure of getting the library ready for the public (we opened on Friday, hooray!) and I just haven’t been thinking much about jewelry. Today, ideas started rumbling around in the back of my head – I saw a beautiful sunset on Monday, and I keep thinking about the colors – a dark vibrant orange, with shades of lavender and blue merging together. I think I also have autumn on the brain, yearning for dark, strong colors to work with.

Lucky me, I do happen to have most of those colors in my collection: beautiful whiskey topaz briolettes, graceful amethyst spiral twist beads, yellow sapphire rondelles, ruby rondelles, blue topaz, bronze keshi pearls, I could keep going but I think you get the idea. I’m hoping that some more inspiration will arrive next week, with a visit to Intergem – the Three Bead Musketeers are at it again and Lissa is bringing a bead show newbie along, I can’t wait to corrupt her!