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The PMC Connection held a great gathering of gurus at Perdue University in July this year. I'm just now adding my diary of sorts with pictures to my blog. The Conference was so busy and yet full of good times with new friends and re-visiting with 'old' friends. I am such a people person - guess I never really realized it that much but I sure am. No wonder I can never get any shopping done at gem shows or other conventions - I talk too much! It's all good. Maybe you'd enjoy re-living my experience.

WEDNESDAY (7/16/08)
Awoke at 3:00am to be able to leave our house at 4:00am to drive to Dallas/Ft Worth airport. Plane left at 6:20am. Had a 45 minute layover in Memphis, Tennessee. Arrived at Indianapolis Indiana airport at 11:00am. Time change added an hour. Took the Lafayette Limo ($27.00) to West Lafayette, Indiana (62 miles) arrived at Holiday Inn Downtown somewhere a round 1:00pm. Went to the room Cindylynne Brazzel had reserved since the Saturday before. Rested, etc … then took a free Trolly into the great unknown to Purdue University. Had absolutely no idea where I was, but knew –at least in Texas- that friendly people would help me find “The Union”. Wha??? Time now 4:45pm.

Met with LOTS of nice students as well as metal clay artists everywhere! Whew … I was no longer in outer space. Found CindyLynne in Linda Kline’s Bezel setting class … immediately wished I was in that pre-conference class … alas, not enough bucks for that this year. Thanks to Cindylynne’s generosity I was able to attend as I didn’t have to pay for a room or use of a rental car. I’m ever so grateful to have been able to go at all!!

In Linda’s Bezel class I walked in the door and was immediately welcomed with lots of people wanting to talk to me … because I had called CL on my cell phone (couldn’t find the class at first) and CL told them I sold the name stamps she was using. I had quite a fun time talking to everyone… (note to self: next time bring flyers about stamps). Went to dinner at La Scala with Jane Shaffer, Kitsy Carnes, Cherry Delaney, Cindylynne. We immediately bonded (and ate) and formed the Purdue University graduates group with a BFA degree “Best Friends Forever”. Loved every second and felt like I had known everyone for years. What great fun is that? Back at the hotel, fell into bed at who knows when.

THURSDAY (7/17/08) mY 63rd bIrThDaY!!!
Cindylynne woke me up with a huge birthday present – btw, CL lives in Sherman, Texas – over 70 miles away from where I live in Dallas. I met her online and we immediately knew we’d be best friends forever ……….. what a wonderful gal!!

Her present is a two foot tall ceramic mermaid statue that is holding a shell overflowing with pearls and colored starfish…. Ohmygosh! As my Yahoo online name has been Mystic Mermaid for over 10 years and of course I love beautiful mermaids, I was over whelmed with CL hand carrying this on the airplane and painted the colors on her so beautifully. I loved her!! I thought I’d just have some fun with this little lady and took her everywhere I went on Thursday – and believe me it was fun. Before the day was over people were putting money in the shell. :D






My mermaid even got to stand on the stage with Tim McCreight and Angela’s little gnome from France. What a thrill… now she’s famous to boot!







I yakked it up with so many wonderful new friends up and down the hall in the Stewart Building… we registered for the week-end, received a VERY GENEROUS goodie bag from the Vendors (Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!) and at 2:00am went to hear the Keynote Address by our speaker, Don Friedlich. Don very graciously stepped in for Linda Darty who’s son was very seriously ill – rumor has it that it was his appendix, but I never heard for sure. I sure hope he is better now.




At the 3:30-4:30 time slot we had a choice of speakers:
Tonya Davidson, “Art of Marketing”
Bill Struve, “Intro to Bronze Clay”
Robert Dancik, “Those Who Can Do More, Teach”

I choose Tonya’s seminar and I was certainly not sorry. She spoke 100 miles a minute as she had 80 slides for us to see and each one was jam packed with very valuable information. My finger’s flew on the note pad. She generously gave every person there (and there were almost 400 of us) a really sweet Whole Lotta Whimsey note pad - - - for free, mind you. AND a handmade button that had a quote that she used in her siminar from Ben Franklin which you can see on the right. The meaning of this should be obvious. On Tonya’s blog: http://www.tonyadavidson.com/ she has some fantastic information and pictures of the conference. The Bad News? There was no handout – at all – none – nada. But she mentioned that she just *might* put it up on her blog – so let’s keep after her to do this ok? Like she has time to put this up – maybe she can ask someone to do it for her. I sure hope so.

4:30 – 5:30 I took a Rings class in the Tech Expo Area in the Stewart Bldg from Metal Clay Findings http://www.metalclayfindings.com/


Chris Darway taught us an easy-sneezy class on working with their fine silver ring bases. How easy and great to know that it will come out exactly the right size EVERY TIME. Good golly, why didn’t I think of this? We later added a bezel that was simple to poke in the wet clay – they fired it for us - and I finished I finished it up by adding the hematite stone at home.


6:00 – 7:00 Second Rings Class at Metal Clay Findings.
This ring was done on a flat fine silver ring base (in size we specified again), but this time we added strips of paper clay. They fired it for us and we picked both up the next day. Fun and easy to do. Everyone will love making rings with these ring bases. They also have many, many other fine silver pieces we NEED too! Like ear wires, curved tubes for bails or even bracelets, and those little eye-pins that you simply stick into your wet clay for a loop to stick out to attach wired gemstone. Very cool – I’m glad I was able to get in those inexpensive classes – $25.00 – you can hardly beat that!

5:30 – 7:00 Dinner, but as you can see I missed that so I could be in the Rings classes.

7:30 – 10:00 Dessert Reception and Charm Swap. I got oodles and oodles of wonderful hand-made charms from people all over the world. I treasure each and every one!




11:00 – fall into bed exhausted. I’ve talked so much my little brain is pooped!!

- END OF FIRST NOTE, TWO MORE TO GO -