An Art Fair, A New Old Friend, and A Camera Failure

If you're looking for the Bead Soup Blog Hop reveal, go here!

Sometimes the Universe lines up just right and brings you something serendipitous and terrific.

Sometime in the middle of Sunday afternoon at the art fair I was in this past weekend, three lovely women come into the booth.  And of course, I do what any beader does -- I glance at their chests to scope out any jewelry they might be wearing.

(Random side thought -- thank goodness other beaders understand this tendency, and 

non-beaders probably don't notice, or else we'd all be in trouble...)

Anyhow, my first thought was, "they're wearing some beautiful necklaces!"  Then to my delight, one of these beautifully-bedecked ladies introduced herself as Karin Slaton of Backstory Beads.

What a treat!  Karin was (is) in town helping out with her grandsons in the week between her daughter going back to work and the boys going back to school.  I first encountered her beautiful work during the One Crayon Challenge, and have been following her blog, enjoying her creations and her writing, ever since.

It is a rare and special treat to meet in person someone you feel you've "known" for a while in cyberspace.  Karin was every bit as fun and friendly in person as she is online.  The down side was that I couldn't spend as much time just hanging out and chatting as I really would have liked.

And the camera failure mentioned in this post's title?  Karin's sister was sweet enough to take a picture of us, but something heinous happened with my phone, and the picture didn't get saved.  I'm hoping that it's user error and the photo is living somewhere unexpected on my phone, but I fear it's an "oh *#&$%" moment.

But I have a picture in my mind of this lovely new friend, her daughter, and her sister.  And that is the best thing that could have happened to me this weekend!

If you don't know Backstory Beads, go check it out.  Seriously, go now!  You'll thank me later...(although I will warn you that she has a picture from this same meeting that looks a bit like I'm mildly addled from the heat -- as accurate as it is, it could be alarming to the unprepared.  And the fully prepared.)