I was just about to start writing my blog and we had ANOTHER tornado warning here. Now I've completely lost my train of thought. I'm thinking Stacey's blog title "Did you survive the Bead&Button Show?" was more accurate than you can imagine if you weren't here. Twice during the marketplace weekend, the show attendees were stuck briefly on the shopping floor (I know, what a great place to be stuck) during tornado warnings and I missed the Bead Social because of water in my basement.

But weather notwithstanding, I think this was my most enjoyable bead show to date. I had much more time to just talk to people and everybody I met was great. I was completely exhausted Monday but now I'm re-energized by the new ideas, cool beads, and creative people I came across.

To name just a few:

• Kim St. Jean and Kim O'Neill. They taught the two classes I took this year. "The Fabulous Fork Handle Purse" and "Free-form Resin Techniques". I learned a lot and had a great time.

• The fabulous ladies I met during my earring make-and-take demo. I had never done an on-the-show-floor demo before and I was a little hesitant, but I would have been happy just to trade tips and stories with this interesting women all day. Special thanks to Suzanne for the tip on the Urban Beader tool totes.

• Marlene Blessing, a colleague from Interweave. I said I was going to take her to lunch at the African Hut restaurant and it had closed! We ended up at Mader's, and Old World German restaurant. Talk about switching gears!

• Gus Gnorski, a local TV reporter who always comes to cover the show and actually makes me (a little) less nervous on camera.

 • Linda Hartung who manages to take my breathe away with her new jewelry creations every time I see her.

 
The list goes on and on. You'll see examples of the great beads, findings and designs I discovered at the show in upcoming issues of BeadStyle. I put some of my favorite purchases on the "Get Inspired" page of the September issue. What was your favorite bead show splurge (or bargain)? I bet we bought some of the same things.