Where does the time go?!?!?! I can't believe I haven't posted here since the end of May. The summer's flying by me at the speed of light.

June's been a busy month. Once again I attended the Bead and Button Show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and once again I walked out of there with a slightly melted credit card. There are so many fabulous beads and supplies on exhibit that it just causes sensory overload. I purchased less than I have in past years, but I still wound up with a few pounds of new beads. My friend Colleen says I'm like a magpie, attracted to bright, shiny things.

The one new thing I did at the show this year was to attend a class. The one I chose was called 'Dragons Rule' and was conducted by Christi Friesen. She's a polymer clay artist with a unique style to her pieces, and I wanted to get a chance to see how some of her things were made firsthand. The class was fun, and although I pretty much completed the dragon I made I don't really like him all that much. I overblended the clay, which was in shades of brown and gold, and wound up making a dragon who looks a bit like a pile of poo. Ah well. I learned some stuff, though.

Last weekend was spent at the Custer Street Fair in Evanston. I went with another artist (Laura, whose internet moniker is artonthehoof). Neither of us did very well. We both attribute it to the fact that the fair, while it was heavily promoted as an art fair featuring handmade artist items, really had lots of things that were made in Taiwan or China... It was disappointing to have worked as hard as both of us did, but we learned something from the experience. Best of all, I have a new friend now. Laura and I have lots in common, it seems; and we just kept discovering more and more similar things about ourselves and our backgrounds. Weird.

Custer Art Fair... It's looming. June 16 and 17. I hear the sound of the music from 'Jaws' in my head as the date gets closer and closer.

So I'm making lots of things to take to the art fair. Chicagoland envelopes with notecards. Magnet sets. Artwork. Jewelry. All kinds of fun things!

In addition to getting things ready to sell there, I have to figure out how I'm going to display them all! That's a project unto itself, as I don't have readymade jewelry displays, shelves, or much of anything. I'll have to scrounge around in the garage to come up with some creative ways of showing off everything I'm spending all this time making.

It's really nice that I'm going to be at the art fair with someone else. At least I'll have someone to talk to all day, although I hope we're both so busy selling our artwork that we don't have time for chatting! Laura's a hoot to talk to (that's Laura, who sells under the moniker 'artonthehoof'), so I'm really looking forward to the weekend.

tick tock tick tock tick tock...