Craft Gossip

The largest independent craft review site since 2007

Handmade Glass Bead Trunk Show and The Whole Bead Show

by

Amy Caswell
Amy Caswell

‘Tis the season for bead shows and craft fairs and trunk shows and backyard crafty gatherings. Everyone needs gifts. Crafty types need to sell people those gifts. So here’s a trunk show being held in the Ventura County area of Southern California. Newberry Park to be exact. Creative Castle to be even more precise. There will be six handmade glass bead makers, and for reasons of complete disclosure, I am one of them. If you live near Thousand Oaks, stop by and buy beads by Amy Caswell, Bernadette Fuentes, Jackie Mixon, Cathy McNassor, Debbie Sanders and myself. The show is from 10-5 this Saturday, November 14th.

Jackie Mixon
Jackie Mixon

Now if you happen to be further south, say the San Diego area, you can visit The Whole Bead Show. It’s being held November 13-15. Check out their site for more details. At that show there’s a fine variety of beads, vintage, handmade, and many many more. The Whole Bead Show is a traveling bead show that makes it’s way across the country through the course of the year, even Hawaii. If it comes to your area you should check it out. They usually offer jewelry classes too. Check them out. As I said, ’tis the season. Shop Handmade!!

Read These Next

Have you read?

Lesson Plans – Moss and Lichen Unit Study

I guess moss and lichen are more things that you see in the spring than in the summer, but there are some deep shady parts of our yard that stay mossy all year, and summer is a fine time to look for plants that like to live in shady, wet areas.

Raising Up Wild Things has a really pretty set of printables to use for a moss and lichen unit study.

And just in case you’re like me and don’t really know the difference, moss is a plant that grows in damp wooded areas, while lichen is a combination of fungus and algae that live together. Lichen can live in different environments but are often found in places where you would find moss, too.

The printable includes drawings of some common moss such as sphagnum moss and wood moss, as well as common lichen shapes (crusty, leafy and shrubby). There are good sized images you can print out and laminate to use to compare to specimens you find when you are exploring nature.

There’s also a forest floor coloring page and a printable journaling page where kids can write or draw their observations and there are a few questions older kids can answer.

You can use these when you go on a walk in the woods (or the back yard) to talk about what you are seeing, or combine them with other resources to talk about things that live in the forest. Check them out at Raising Up Wild Things.

This PDF from the Morton Arboretum has a bunch of pictures of different kinds of moss and where to find them, which could also be helpful in your studies. Learn more about lichen, including what they are and what they are not, in this article from the US Forest Service.

[Photo: Raising Up Wild Things]