Thanks to all of you who visited our booth at The Heritage Festival in Rapid City, SD over the 4th of July. We had such a fun time meeting you and sharing our story and the little Bead People. Several hundred more Bead People went off into the world over the four day festival. One of my best moments was when a little guy—he could not have been more than four—picked up a heavy, red Bead Person and said, “He is me. He is me.”
Another great moment was when I got to see some of the young men from last summer come by the booth. They had all grown about a foot but were happy to stop in and say hi. One of them hugged me, kissed my sweaty forehead, and told me he loved me. I love you, too!
We had such enthusiasm from a number of people with 4-H groups and youth groups, and with ideas by the millions for how they could use The Bead People in their own projects. I particularly enjoyed the young people in the booths on either side of ours. One was selling hemp jewelry (the Inner Hippie booth) and the other (Tim Roman) was crafting glass beads from liquid glass. I found out he was a friend of my son’s and will be coming to the wedding in November. Hi, Tim.
We have no plans to do other festivals this summer because we are heading north to (finally) play with building a small strawbale structure on our land in Minnesota. We are, however, planning to set up the first ever Bead People Peace Festival for next summer. Stay in touch and maybe you can come. Our goal is to plan and build a different (small) alternative structure every summer and end it with a Bead People Festival. This summer it may be just family and a few friends . . . but it could grow. Our land is just outside of Cass Lake, MN (near Bemidji) so if you are in the area . . . give us a call.
A special hello to Lynette and Nicci in Lincoln, NE. Check out the website to find out what our Lincoln chapter is up to! And Nicci—this is the first post on our Bead People Blog. I’ll send you the access so you can add your own stories. I loved that you had several blind people building Bead People—and I am jealous of your pretty booth.
Don’t worry—bead happy!
Jamie Lee
This sounds wonderful, I wish I could have been there and am jealous of you but mainly because Rapid is my hometown and I know exactly what the heritage festival is like.
I am also interested in our fan’s stories when they come back to our booth. I always ask if they have seen any Bead People? If we could all be on the look out, we might just start to see them in public like I did a month ago at a health fair in North Lincoln. I was telling my friends that we should start a festival booth ourselves when suddenly someone walked into our health fair booth; a lovely woman who had a bead person hanging around her neck. She had retrieved it from the LLL Breastfeeding conference where I had set up a Bradley Method table display. She had found a chain to attach to it and was wearing it in public. It was at that moment that things changed for me and it had to do with seeing a bead person, so cute and so perfect for this white haired lady.
Maybe we should have a comment space for fans to tell their own stories surrounding these dynamic little people sightings…
Sorry to hyjack your blog thread… good luck in Minnesota, we have our first downtown haymarket farmers market event in 6 hours.
Nicci B Walla
Jamie,
You mentioned Tim Roman in your blog and i was wondering if you had his E-mail adress. I also met him at the festaval and again in Spearfish for the Festival in the park. I had his card and lost it and would love to get in touch with him. Thanks.