Melanie Strikes Gold (and Silver) at Faerie Con

Recently, I attended a show of a different kind for me. I spend a lot of time at bead and jewelry shows, but I heard there was a convention centered around Faeries and Fantasy art in Philadelphia, and my brother just moved there, so we packed up and flew off to FaerieCon!

This was the sort of convention filled with artisans and artists, and fanciful things...not too different from a bead show there. But one of the main differences was that many attendees and vendors came all decked out in costumes. Here is me as an earthy, bird like faerie: Of course my costume would not have been complete without a fabulously ornate necklace fit for a faerie, so I crafted this one for myself with Vintaj findings and my porcelain art beads.But if you know me, I am a true beader at heart, so it wasn't hard for me to sniff out the beads at this event. And I came home with some real beady treasures that I want to share with you:

mmmmm...look at my *precious*.... The little treasure above is a coveted Green Girl Studios one of a kind silver/polymer/resin creation. And she is all mine! I saw a few of these at Bead & Button, but before I could even get to the booth, *poof* they were all gone. The nice thing about seeing Green Girl at Faerie Con for me was that I got my pick of some of the more unusual treasures they have that I can never get to in time. I love her, and I expect to do something really neat with her.

Here is Greg from Green Girl, hamming it up Gelfling style. He looked great, and the handcrafted double flute in his hands actually worked! He won first place in the costume contest! Andrew from Green Girl, showed me some new beads, including the gold plated mermaid beads below, which came home with me. It's funny, I almost never use gold. I am a silver gal, sometimes copper. But I have been very tempted by the raw brass findings that are available now, so I have added that to my vocabulary. I made the Faerie Con necklace with them. So I guess I need to take the plunge into gold now too. These pieces will make it easier, because they are so beautiful.


Next I will show you the silver treasures I got at Faerie Con. I had read the show list and was excited to learn that NeoMythica was going to be there! I had seen the ads in the bead magazines before and their website, so I was excited to see these great items in person! And I was pleased to meet Margaret, the artist behind the designs. The booth was filled with jewelry, very beautiful and elaborate jewelry, which was a sight to behold. But I came for the exquisite clasps. I have a thing for artist findings, what can I say? So I saw the collection, and carefully chose these four clasp designs below. I made a very serious attempt to think of the bead/component from my line that would work well with them, so I have paired them up here to show you my thought process. I stole the great pics from the NeoMythica site , hope they don't mind! By the way, they have an incredibly beautiful website! Go there NOW! ooh, there are things that I didn't even see at the show that I want now, like the bails and some of the charms and the cones! I could get in real trouble...

One of my friends has put dragons in my head recently, so this clasp was probably the first to grab me. I am thinking of pairing it with my goth and vamp wings, which I will likely make into links. Or maybe keep them as charms, I don't know. Maybe I need to do a bat...

I love this fairy clasp. I can see a tassel making up a skirt below her upper torso. I figured I could pick up some colors of one of my fairies.

Oh, I love this one! A flying heart. I think it will go great with reds and silver and my big flying heart pendant. I hope to add these big pendants to my website soon.

This is just a really nicely designed viney clasp with leaves. I don't think I have shown my newest colors of acorns and pinecones before, so here they are. I added them to my website a couple of weeks ago...

So the moral of this post is to keep your beady sense aware where-ever you go. You might find art beads in some of the most unusual places.