The Show!

posted: Saturday, 17 October 2009

The day of the 3rd Big Bead Show is finally here and after an early start (leaving the house at 5.45 with an added panic when I thought transport might let me down) it was a fantastic day- of course!

I got to Sandown at just gone 7am and was the only one in the big hall for half an hour so got to wander around and eat my breakfast looking forward to the day ahead- it still looked very empty!

When others began to arrive we set about setting up the display for the British Bead Awards and it was a joy to get to see all the pieces again and know that keeping the results a secret would soon be over.

At 9.30 am I got changed out of my unglamorous (but warm) clothes and out on my new dress and best jewellery all ready for the day and my next task of filming a piece for Bead-TV with the queue to get in (which by 9.30 had filled the cafeteria, snaked 3 times around the foyer and was trailing down the stairs!)

Then the doors were open the day had begun properly.

The next 7 hours went in an absolute blur but some higlights were getting to catch up with old friends, meeting up with forum members- and eating cake with them- and presenting the awards.

I was very nervous about standing in front of people and announcing but as soon as I began, the joy of letting people know they'd won soon overshadowed my nerves.

I spent a lot of the day trying to avoid the magazine's stand with its large screen TV playing films of me demonstrating making projects from the magazine- very disconcerting! But I did try to hang around to encourage people to vote for their favourite choice of covers for the next issue.

By around 4.20pm I had done all my work for the day and had a quick chance to wander around and shop but by then my brain had shut-down so all ideas of my shopping list went out of the window and I went for the items I could just not leave without buying! So I bagged a lovely cab from Designer Cabochons and a lampwork bead on an antique key from By Keiara.

Of course I put my camera away as soon as the show opened so have no photos here after that- but check out issue 19- out the 18th November- to see photos of the show as well as all of the finalists of the awards.

You can see more photos from the day on my editor's blog here.