Meet our Fab Instructors

Andrea Mazzenga, RN, is a wife, mother, grandmother, and lampwork artist. She owns and operates Buttercup Beads, her beautiful little bead shop of 13 years, along with her daughter Carlie in Audubon, Pennsylvania. Art has always played a large role in her life, and she enjoys many other artistic avenues such as painting, photography, and poetry. 

She was pulled to her love of everything beads with her first glass flameworking class over 17 years ago. In 2007, she decided to leave medicine for sparkly things, and hasn’t looked back. She has taught her designs at BeadFest and has been published multiple times in both Bead & Button, and BeadWork magazines. 

In 2017, her projects were also featured in Creative Beading, Vol. 12 – The best projects from a year of Bead & Button Magazine. Andrea believes that everyone should take the time to explore their creative passions because it makes for a happy and satisfying life.  Her students thinks she's an extremely patient teacher and only smacks their fingers with a ruler when it's absolutely necessary and they don't pay attention. (eh, 12 yrs of catholic schooling....)

Carlie is Andrea's youngest daughter and main job now is to keep little Billy and her new set of twins from pulling at all the beads in the store. 

Since having the twins - she mostly works behind the scenes with bookkeeping, buying, sorting, creating. But she is also quick to help customers with tip and tricks as needed. 

She is our resident independent artist and often helps create new patterns and samples when time allows. 

She is considered the "Mixmastercolorcoordinator" at Buttercup Beads. Her innate sense of color palettes are somewhat of a mystery to all who know her, and we don't care.  When you are looking for that certain blue mystery bead, Carlie will surely help find it for you, or you risk her smacking your hands for sticking with the colors that you had already picked...

Gina Struebel is a juried member of the Reading/Berks chapter of the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen. She specializes in one of-a-kind sculpted and woven wire art jewelry. Her pieces are inspired by nature and created to highlight the beauty of natural gemstones. She uses many different gauges of wire and cold fusion techniques such as coiling, weaving, wrapping and sculpting wire into beautiful one of kind wearable art jewelry. Her jewelry is handmade using natural gemstone and bead components, artisan custom cut cabochons, and copper, bronze, silver or gold wire along with handmade charms and findings. Her pieces have an elegant blend of traditional and contemporary designs, some delicate, some big and bold.

She has been passionate about the arts all her life. We are thrilled to have Gina on our team.

Ellen Krawiec began beading fifteen years ago after seeing a crochet beaded rope at a knit and crochet show. She added chain maille and fused glass soon after. She enjoys combining different techniques in her pieces, for example, bead crochet and chain maille. She also enjoys sewing, machine embroidery, quilting, knitting, crocheting and weaving. She recently discovered European bead crochet and is hooked. Welcome Ellen to the Buttercup team! You will love taking a class with Ellen!

Patricia Parker is an award winning bead artist that has exhibited internationally. She is a member of the Beadsmith Inspiration Squad. She has taught at Beadfest and Bead and Button, and is the author Colorful Components, Stitch Dazzling Designs with Multi-hole Beads. A former bead store owner, Patti has been beading for over 35 years. Her beautiful beadwork and patterns have been published in multiple beading books and magazines throughout the years. Her passion is three dimensional beaded flowers using all types beads and techniques. You can see some of Patti's fabulous projects at https://roseblubeads.blogspot.com/

Beth is known for her beautiful brick stitch patterns featuring everything from Mother Nature to Mona Lisa. Her realistic designs are a great accessory for any wardrobe! We welcome Beth to the Buttercup creative team! Beth says: "I don't remember when I first started beading. But I was a member of a the local Bead Society for a number of years. I have tried lampworking, stringing, bead embroidery, etc. My favorite techniques include bead weaving and Kumihimo. I design my own bead weaving patterns with a computer program. Most days I can be found working on gourds or with polymer clay. But I am always looking for new bead patterns and beads."