Inchies

Inchies are back again. This week's theme is "stars". This is my take on it. Star glitter, a plastic faceted star and some printed out paper has been glued down with matte gel medium. I edged the square with a Kryon gold leafing pen. We'd love it if you'd join us over at Inchybyinch with your own version.

Ta Da! Sound the Trumpets! I'm Finished!

I did it. I did it! I finished my last page of BJP 2007.

This is my May page. It's based on my Grandma O'Keefe's wedding ring quilt. You can see my posting about that quilt here . The quilt caused a bit of a ruckus in the family with some thinking it was a valuable heirloom and it didn't help when my dad said two (that I know of) granddaughters would get to have it when he died. Well, with it almost hitting the trash bin as we were cleaning Dad's garage out, I somehow brought it home and still have it. We didn't get much from our grandmothers as other grandkids managed to get it instead. Grandma O'Keefe's stuff I'm afraid to say, probably went for drug money. Sad but that's the way life goes sometimes.

I wanted to see if I could do this like a charm quilt where every piece is a different fabric. I succeeded. I couldn't do fringe or too much texture as I was emulating fabrics - old fabrics. Some of the ugly-coating-coming-off pearl beads were the last from my mother. I figured this was a good place to use them. The two hearts in the middle are for my grandmothers. The fabrics are from their aprons we saw them wear so much.

I was going to sew all of these pieces from the year into a round penny rug table topper. I have changed my mind. I always cover up a table with junk and projects so it would never be seen and I didn't feel anyone else would ever want it in that form. Instead I am going to put them in three groups of four and sew them, still penny rug style, to a backing and put them in three matching frames. I think this will be a better way to display them all.

And now, I can go on to October 2008 guilt-free. Yay.

September BJP08

I have my September BJP08 page done! I am so happy. I really hate getting behind as it seems you never catch up. (As in my last page from 2007 which still isn't done - but now I have the rest of this month to work on it).

My color is yellow. Yep that's pretty obvious. The gifted beads I used are:

1. The mexican tubular bead from my daughter Tena.
2. The three small cubes at the top are from my son James.
3. The dark, matte seed beads making up the circles are from Grace.
4. The 3 tiniest brass beads are from my niece Katie.

I don't think I will have so many gifted beads to use on most of my pages and none at all on some (where I will have to come up with something I make) but this made a very good start to the year.

This piece is measured 1 3/4 x 2 1/2 or one half of an ATC card before trimming and adding the edging. It's just a tiny bit bigger now.

I have two children and so I added the two hearts on this piece. I had no idea how this would turn out. In fact, I ended up turning it upside down at the end just before adding the hearts as it seemed to look better that way. That means the bird on the mexican bead is upside down now but I still like how it looks.

Now to start getting supplies out for the next page, draw a fairy my granddaughter challenged me to and finish my last 07 page.

Face Pin

I have been enjoying the face pins over at Grace's blog
and decided to try one of my own using the larger beads
around the face as she did. I got the UTEE face cab from Sammy last year in an ATC trade. The short bugle beads were a gift from my sister. The backing is ultrasuede and I stitched on Stiffstuff. The flower beads are much prettier and sparkly in person. I don't know if I can send it in time to join in the beaded face swap or not but I think she will make a nice gift if not.

Today I am hoping to finish my September bead journal page. Wish me luck as I keep saying things like this and then it doesn't happen!

Wedding Anniversary

September 16th was my 36th wedding anniversary. We celebrated by exchanging cards and going out for a chinese lunch. My husband also gave me a 2lb. box of See's chocolates he'd snuck into the car on our way home from California. He was a bit worried as he doesn't drive with the air conditioning on (just one of thousands of things we do opposite of each other) but it came through just fine and I am eating them up like I've been starving!

I used inchies to make him a banner and a card. I had to do it while he was busy and hoped he wouldn't catch me. It was simple stamping and stringing - hey these inchies fit the definition of beads too! Just thought I would share this idea as I think they turned out pretty neat. It's hard to shop when we go almost everywhere together and I almost always make my gifts anyhow.

Autumn Inchy

I am a little late with this inchy but here it is anyhow. (I took an impromtu trip to California which put a kink in my productivity rate - which is never that high to begin with).

The theme for this week is Autumn and what do I get every time this season rolls around? Candy corn! Doesn't everyone?

This is colored pencil on Strathmore art paper. I am quite pleased with this one. Whenever I draw something that comes pretty close to what I had in mind, I'm happy!

BJP Progress

I've been making progress on a lot of fronts. I'm taking drawing classes online with one of my granddaughters but I won't bother you with my homework pages. I'm starting a face pin trying techniques and the idea I saw on Grace's blog
And last, but certainly not least, I have been working on finishing my last page of last years BJP and on this years first page. I feel like I'm doing pretty well. Hope I can keep up the momentum.

Inchy

Fiona of Inchybyinch has been feeling a bit down like so many of us recently. I made this inchy thinking of her and gave it with the suggestion of using The Blahs as our weekly challenge. She took me up on it so for this week, I even got my inchy done quickly. We all have our down times, our just can't get up the energy for creating times. I love it that people have helped me through those times. Don't we have a great blogging community?

Have you got the blahs? Show us how you interpret it on an inchy and put the link to your picture over on the Inchybyinch blog. Come on and join us.

BJP 2008 Underway

Nothing too exciting so far. I have my Stiff Stuff ironed to my fabric and the outling basted. I've gathered up some yellow beads as I am starting with yellow for my color wheel. Why yellow? I don't know. I usually see red at the top of the wheel but I guess I'm feeling kind of rainbowish or something. The gifted bead I am going to use is the larger yellow mexican style bead on the left just to the right of the box of beads. The seed beads below them were a gift also. Now to get brave and pick up a bead and attach it to the fabric.....drum roll, please.