Tucson - Day 2

  Ahhh! Day two of my trip... lets see how did it start out??? I didn't have time to write yesterday so now I have to remember what I did and write two blog posts this morning. 

I think I started out at The Gem Mall- ah, yes I did. 

I wanted to see all of the vendors that usually exhibited at the "Rodeway" but were moved to the Gem Mall this year. All my "regulars" that I like to buy from. I hand picked seed bead bracelets in an array of amazing color combinations! I can't wait to get home to play with these beauties. Two words - ARM CANDY!

  I spent a lot of time at this show... A lot of the African trade bead vendors are at this show and I have a weakness for African trade beads, especially the old, old, old, dirty ones. I got some pretty cool new (to me) glass trade beads for my Summer collection. I want to buy more, but the styles I select are always the oldest, dirtiest, and by far the most expensive... like $400 a strand expensive. I would love to purchase them and expose my clients to these amazing antique beads but I am just scared to make that investment at this point in my career. So, instead I take pictures and drool over them from time to time. 

  I took a short break to grab some food from one of the food vendors. I sat at a table with some other really nice ladies and did a little networking. I met the owner of Feifish which is a wholesale jewelry company started by a woman that hated her job and started making jewelry 3 or 4 years ago!

  After lunch I headed to the Best Bead Show to visit my friends at Lilly Pilly Designs. I got some great new handmade shell pendants in spring/summer colors. I also visited with Andrew from Green Girl Studios... these two vendors are pretty much the only reason I come to this show. It's a nice show and really fun to walk around and look at all the glass artists, etc.

  From here I ventured over to Electric Park. I had some time to kill before dinner and was a little overloaded with beads/gems/etc. so I decided to go look at the massive rocks and minerals and what not. This show is really cool, massive amethyst statues and other massive stone boulders, any kind of rock you could imagine... finished and unfinished. I passed one booth that had unopened geodes and couldn't pass up the opportunity to open one... actually I opened two. My Grandfather used to open geodes for people at his shop. I spent many summer days watching him do it for other kids that were on vacation... I got my fair share of geodes too though :)

  After my adventures at Electric Park, I headed downtown to Cafe Poca Cosa to meet Stephanie of Stephanie Wolf Designs. Stephanie and I connected on Twitter and had our first "meet up" or "tweet up"... we didn't tweet while we were at dinner so I am not sure what we'd call it! Anyway, this restaurant was crazy! I had called to get reservations because apparently you HAVE to. Well, they didn't have any in the time that we wanted so we opted to just wing it, we got a table after about an hour of waiting. The food was pretty incredible... I can see what the fuss is about. I had a creamy chicken dish with an amazingly fresh salad and beans and rice and homemade tortillas. I think I still have 1/2 a chicken left! I don't remember the name of it and have no way of finding out b/c their menu changes daily! Check out their site, they are award winning and have been published a lot. And GO, if you are in the area.
That sums up day two, I headed home after dinner and c-rashed!