Bead Fest Bead Swap- Bead Fest Blog Part 2

Hello friends!

So my second Bead Fest blog is about the amazing Bead Swap put on by our very own, Diana P(like I am going to attempt to spell her last name from memory! ;P).

Here is a photo of Diana calling off winners for the extra giveaways!

Some of our ladies that attended the swap. 

We all received these very special buttons for our swap. ONLY members that were swapping received them ;) You wouldn't believe how many ladies wanted our buttons!

I was lucky enough to get Mary Welsh Hubbard of White Clover Kiln for my partner(SCORE!).

What a great action shot of our box exchanging by Linda Landig :)

Look how darling she is! I clicked this pic so I had a photo of her opening her goodies from me :)

I wanted to do something really special for Mary so I came up with this amazing idea to do "A Tour of Genea Beads". I decided to gift Mary with some of my most favorite and popular beads in my body of work. 

Here is her introduction card for her gift.

I then created a card for each bead with it's title and a little story about how the bead  came to be. These cards were then put into pretty crystal clear cello self stick bags.

Each bag was then filled with it's matching "bead"(clasp, headpin, etc). Don't they look so pretty?!

Next I wrapped each bead and marked them with a number. They were to be opened in the order of which they were created(this is part of that "tour" part). 

Here is a close-up of the "finale" package. 

Next I needed a perfect package for all of the pieces. The one thing that was challenging to fit was the headpins. 

I went to Target to look for some pretty packaging and came across this wonderful little plastic pencil box! Ricky brought this style box to my attention. We only found a crazy 80's style in zig zags to start, but upon digging in the demolished back to school section managed to find this awesome hot pink one!

The box was PERFECT! When you undo the snap you could slide out the interior to expose the contents.

I loaded up the box carefully inserting each tiny package inside and stacking the first numbers on top.

The finished box looked like this when Mary opened it. Inside was her  "welcome and instruction card" and a pretty business card with my popular Bright Earth Bubble Button Wing Dings on it. 

Here were some of the beads and findings she received. From left to right: Ocean Urchin Egg, Wing Ding, Weeny Ding, Rainbow spiral s-clasp,  Lime Stone textured glass headpin, Starfish headpin,  Midnight Jewel headpin, and Spiral Beach Stone Coins(not pictured). 

Here are the gorgeous beads I received from Mary!

In the center you can see what Mary calls "Hubbard Green". A super BRIGHT limey color with turquoise! Yum! The paper rolled beads were created by her youngest daughter. She paints paper, cuts the paper and rolls them up into these fanciful little beads :)

I hope you enjoyed a look into our bead swap! What great fun!

See you soon for Bead Fest part 3!

xo Genea