My First Bead Cruise

I (Michelle from Firefly Design Studio) returned a few days ago from my first Bead Cruise.  Our own Heather Powers says she plans her dream vacation and invites 65 friends to join her!  Heather keeps us busy, but there is plenty of time to enjoy the ship and ports.  For me, it was the top notch classes that got me excited.  This is what I took and learned:

Kerry Bogert is a wire worker expert.  She has written 3 books and has so many tips and tricks that she is willing to share.  My first class with Kerry was an earring class.  We received sheets of copper and brass, 24 g and 18g wire.  We punched circles and cut rectangles as well as punched small circles around the edges of our shapes.  It was fun texturing the metal with fancy hammers.  Here they are!

Next I learned chain making from Kerry.  She also showed us how to make a few kinds of clasps, which I was excited to learn.  We made 1 chain each hour.  We used dowels, pliers, punches, and made jump rings.  Which is your favorite?  Mine is the circle one, third from left.  I plan on dangling a ceramic bead at the end of the extender chains I made to make these bracelets and 1 necklace "me."

This necklace that Kerry taught us is so cool!  We used a coil machine, or hand coiling, as well as wrapping 16g wire around different sized dowels.  We connected our links together for this statement piece design!

Beverly Herman is a very talented, patient and fun seed bead instructor.  This is only my third time doing bead embroidery.  Time Traveler used multiple sizes of seed bead, pearls and a ceramic disc that I had the honor of making for the student kits!  I am about half finished at this point.  Isn't it going to be gorgeous?

Bead Cruise 2017 is already more than half booked.  I know the ship departs from Texas and is going to the Western Caribbean next year in February.  I am already going on a cruise in February with my friends, so I didn't think 2 cruises in 1 month would work with my schedule.  If you'd like to learn more, go to www.beadcruise.com and check it out.