Canadian Bead Oasis: LadeeBee meets the Juicy Bead Ladies

I remembered today that the Canadian Bead Oasis show starts this weekend. So even though I have a million things to do (what woman doesn't) I jetted down to Union Station, through the maze that is the MTCC, down, down, down to the basement until I came to my final destination.

As I walked through the long hallways, and rode down escalators, I wondered why on earth they chose to hold the Bead Oasis so far from civilization and then I realized it must be to build up suspense. Well the suspense was almost the most exciting aspect of this disappointing show until I came across the Juicy Bead Ladies. The Ladies did not disappoint, and I can tell you they were juicy.

Before I get into the good stuff I have to explain why so disappointing. First of all the vendors were all virtually presenting the same things for the same prices and the same prices I can get any time at any Queen Street bead shop. There was nothing new, nothing different, boring, boring, boring or irrelevant in the case of bedazzled bra strap peddlers. Enough ranting, my trip was made worthwhile all because of the Juicy Lady discovery.

Juicy Bead Ladies had lots of plastic. Plastic, plastic, everywhere plastic. Already I was attracted. Then Maureen (a Juicy Beader) told me it was "vintage". Did she mean vintage-style or vintage-old? She meant old. Old as in the beads were manufactured sometime in the 40's or 50's. Apparently, the lucite beads fell from grace, people stopped buying and they were stored for years until they were rediscovered and reintroduced to the beading world and now their popularity is steadily on the rise. At that moment, in my imagination, I felt I had personally stumbled upon a warehouse full of lucite beads spilling from copper urns (a la Indiana Jones). I was an explorer stumbling upon a piece of beady history. I salivated. My eyes could not get enough of the colours. There were so many varieties, how does one choose?

I made my purchase carefully on borrowed dollars. I felt like I must've spent 40 minutes at that table ruminating on what I really wanted and not just on what I wanted, because honestly I wanted it all. If I had a thousand dollars I would've spent it and not felt an ounce of guilt. (Good thing I was broke) Okay maybe a little guilty, I kind of felt like I was cheating on yarn ;

So at the end of the day it was a good time. I couldn't wait to handle the beads again so on my way up the escalator I stuffed my hand through the tissue papered bag to pull out a tiny strand of vintage lucite beads, and mumbled to myself "I can't believe she wrapped them individually in tissue". I looked up for a moment and a lone woman on the down escalator made unapologetic eye contact with me. A fellow beader. She smiled and I replied, "I can't wait to play with my new toys." she continued to smile knowingly, "I know aren't we awful." Yes, we are. We are just awful.

See the Juicy Bead Ladies for yourselves at: http://www.juicybeadladies.com/