May BJP Page

Helloooo? Anyone still out here besides me? I got another
page done! May is finally finished. I'm not so far behind because I don't like my beads or the BJP anymore. I just can't see where the needle tip is when it's going into the fabric. It's driving me crazy. I think I have to not use dark fabrics anymore for one thing. I even have trouble under the magnifying lamp.

Well I have this one done at any rate and only three more to finish off this past year. I know, it's well past by now. Ok, I'll quit whining. If you read my blog you know I haven't been sitting doing nothing but worrying over my beading.

May is the month for the Mother's Day holiday so that is my theme. I took a broken earring of my mother's and glued her picture to it. I coated it with a good layer of Delta's Air-Dry PermEnamel Clear Gloss Glaze. It's wonderful stuff, more like a resin to give a nice shiny hard coat over something. Then I glued that to my fabric.

I took a heart bead (remember I am using gifted beads somewhere in my page) my sister gave me to symbolize me and added a banana for my son and a rabbit for my daughter. The banana was given to me by my grandchildren. I would have loved to have used a surfboard but didn't have one and did have the banana. My son eats a case of them a week so it fits. My daughter loves rabbits so that's why I picked it. If I'd had a baby bead I could have used it as she loves babies more than rabbits.

Then I took a mexican bead gifted to me by my daughter to symbolize her and added four little hearts for her children. Three generations represented here.

I started beading around my mother with blue since this is the month for blue on my color wheel - my other theme going through the year. All in all, I'm happy with how this turned out even though it took so long.

November BJP Page

Done at last! It's done at last! Hooray, I finished my November page. Between getting ready for Christmas, making a long visit to family in California and then some of the blahs, this page took me forever!! Somehow it managed to get a little off-kilter too.

The big orange bead is from the little bit of jewelry I have left of my mothers. I added seven cube beads that my son gave me (remember I am trying to use some gifted or handmade beads on these pieces) which stand for the number of children my mother had. One died as an infant but he was never forgotten. The small flowers add up to the number in our family as we grew up. The star and large flower were gifted to me by Julia of Mixed Media when we swapped ATC's .

Now I am going on to my next piece but it's going

to be the red one passing over red-orange for the

time being. I have a reason and you will find out

what it is when I have completed the red piece. Ooooh, don't let the suspense get to you. It's not that big a deal but it is a story so I'll put it with the piece.

The second picture here shows the first quarter done. I think it's following the color wheel pretty well so far. I hope I can find enough colors to make it all the way around without having to fudge too much. Now I can take a few evenings and go blogging through the BJP blogs without feeling too guilty. I feel a little as I am doing some pretty small pages and still managed to get pretty far behind.

ATC Swap

About a month ago Julie of Mixed Media blog asked me if I'd
like to trade ATC's. We settled on fabric as the basis. I made her the beaded moon ATC shown at right. The green fabric is hand dyed by Grace of Barnyard Chatter (I'd previously used some here.) I enjoyed making this for Julie but I think I got the best end of the stick! Look at what she sent me.

She sent me a note on handmade paper. That's always nice to feel and even to repurpose later.

Then she sent me a Celtic prayer. I really like those. Julie, my maiden name is O'Keefe and my grandfather was born in Ireland - came over to the U.S. as a baby.

Then she sent me a packet of buttons, beads and charms! I saw a couple of orange buttons in the packet that will find their way onto my November BJP page as orange is the color for this month.

And last but the best by far, much better than what I
sent her, is the ATC she sent. She titled it The Beach at St. Ives, Cornwall. Isn't it beautiful? Seashells and sea shards along with embroidery and beads, needle felting , or maybe it's what is called embellishing and rust-dyed fabric make up the surface. She used wire to wrap the shards to keep them on the surface. I just love this. I feel the ocean through this piece Julie. You really are an artist.

Well, Christmas may still be more than a month away but I felt like it showed up in my mailbox today! Thanks Julie.

October BJP08

I've finished both versions of my October page, the larger one which I started first and found out was the wrong size and the newer, smaller one which is correct. I call them "On the Wild Side" as the frog, ladybug and square beads seem to suggest.

This month was yellow orange on my colorwheel theme. I used the square beads which I received from Grace of Gracebeading, a piece of sea glass on the larger page which is a gift from some litter bug and the sea, three medium size beads in the bugle part of the fans on the small page which were gifted by my grandchildren one Christmas and a frog bead.

The frog bead was made by myself out of a smashed bottle cap "gifted" by my husband, a piece of paper and an old, used, vinyl frog sticker. I glued the items on the cap and then coated them with a resin glaze by Deco Art. I punched holes in the two ends so I could stitch it down. Actually, the other side is the side I was trying to use as an experiment with the resin but this side worked for my page.

I used Robin's paper backing idea for stitching these and then glued some thick pellon to the back, folded and glued the fabric to the back side and also glued a piece of ultra suede to the back (not all the way to the edge so a needle could still get through) before adding the beaded edging.

I am happy with the way they both turned out. The big one looked a bit plain but after I added the cross stitching to "sew it all up" I was a lot happier.

March TIF Done

I finally finished my March challenge as a fiber ATC. I even used the colors, at least as close to them as I could come. That meant using a metallic thread for the tree which worked out fine but when I tried zigzagging around the edge it just bound up on me and made a mess. I ripped it out and tried adding a binding but my new (and cheap) sewing machine didn't have a 1/4 " division even using the edge of the foot for guidance and I couldn't get any of the feet around the tree-base rocks. You can see the stitching where I tried and had to remove the stitching. (I have now wet it thoroughly and left it to dry. Hopefully this will remove the needle holes).

My moment in time comes from posting a picture of our tree just breaking into buds with a few green tips of leaves barely showing. I figure spring always happens in a blink of an eye. Sure enough, what was barely breaking out on March 1st is in full leaf as of March 31st!

I machine appliqued the layers together for our desert landscape. I machine embroidered the tree and then added brown and green #18 seed beads for the buds and opening leaves. I used OO nymo thread and a size 15 beading needle. I finally got to use some of my vintage teeny tiny beads. That was the highlight of this challenge! I also added cat's eye chips for my quartz rocks which are around the real tree. I finished it off with blanket stitch. After all the false starts and changes, I find I like the end result. It definitely took me further than I intended and was a big challenge too!

ATC Swap

I received these ATCs in the mail a few days ago. They were part of a swap I did with Lisa Volraths Go Make Something group. You can see the ones I made for swapping here.

This was the first swap I have done with CYBER FYBER's being the second I joined although I ended up doing the CYBER FYBER first and mailing these off second. (I'm getting into so many things I am starting to get confused).

Aren't they wonderful. It was a black and white swap which I thought would be difficult. It turned out to be easy and there seems to be many ways to do it up.

I have learned a few things towards making my future ATCs better now that I have actually received some rather than just seeing pictures. Two of these came in sleeves to protect them which is a good idea. I'll have to get some. The artists who made these also labeled them much better than I did. There is so much to see and do and then to learn on the internet. It's wonderful.

ATC for CYBERFYBER

I have finished and mailed off the fiber ATC I made for trade with Susan Lenz of CYBERFYBER. You can see the one she sent me here.

I am still in the process of finishing off several more of these. I'll post a picture when I get them all done. I'm making some inchies out of the same strip of fabric. This is where they are coming from.

Cyber Fyber ATC

I am trading an ATC with Susan Lenz of Cyber Fyber . I just received mine and am sharing the picture of it with you. I am showing both front and back as she stitched her name on it and I like that.

Isn't this a pretty card. I love the little hearts streaming down the front.

I owe her an ATC and hoped to have it in the mail by now. Wouldn't you know it, but my sewing machine chose just this moment to konk out on me! I went down to Walmart yesterday and picked up the best one they had. Now I can get the ones I am making done.

I also have some inchies I am making with the same background as the ATC's. Does anyone know what is usual for trading them? Do you trade one inchie or a set? I have enough to make two sets of four or three sets of three. What do you think?

Crazy Quilt ATCs

While making my new bedspread I took a bit of a break. I took some of the smaller scraps and sewed them to a long strip of backing fabric so I could make some ATCs and inchies from them. I drew the different pieces onto the finished strip and am now decorating them. Then I will stitch them to their backing. You can see the pieces of sea glass to the left and how I have beaded around them below. I want to add some kind of ruffle to at least one of these as they look like they could become sea anemones to me. One card just has to have a frog on it and I am adding tidbits to the others. You can see the pencil lines showing the outline of each unit if you click on a picture and see the enlarged version.

Guess I'd better get busy and finish these. It seems I keep adding projects rather than finishing projects!

ATC Swap

I signed up for an ATC swap at Lisa Volrath's Go Make Something site. I was to make 3 black and white cards but I made 4 so I could keep one. I'm showing the front and the back (of which one isn't quite done). I hope whoever gets these likes them. I know they aren't the romantic, days past mixed media that is so popular right now but black and white just said pandas to me.

I'll put them in the mail this week and see what I get back in March. Stay tuned!

Another TIF Update

I got another page done. This one took a bit more time for finding a picture of a jeep or truck from WWII that I could use than for any other reason.

My mother never tired of telling us kids her marine stories. She would sing the songs she learned in boot camp and the only line I can remember now is "....and it'd take Lana Turner, to fill the front of mine" referring to the bust area of her uniform! She would tell us how all women marines were patted down before leaving base (through a women's only gate) to make sure they had their girdles on! My mom was gleeful when telling about taking the governor's off the jeeps so they could go as fast as they wanted and said she flew down the hills into San Diego on her trips there. She really only had good memories that I recall.

The background of this card is acrylic paint and acrylic medium mixed together, spread over the whole card and then combed through. I had a picture of just the shoulders and head of my mom in her uniform so added some arms and
legs. You won't find any finesse in those limbs but they serve. I put the jeep in for body/clothing as that was one of the things she so enjoyed. Then I used medium to glue some sequin stars on the page and ran a blue ink pad around all the edges.

TIF update

I've got another page done in my ATC book for the Take It Further Challenge. This page commemorates my mother's wedding day. She got married two weeks after my dad returned from WWII. Back then, you had to wear your military uniform at all times when you were in public so she didn't get to wear a white dress and veil. She got married in her marine uniform.



My mom and dad grew up knowing each other. My dad's best friend was my mom's brother. During the war my mother wrote to my dad occasionally but they never dated till he came home from battle. My dad took my mom to see a movie called "The Best Years of Our Lives". While waiting in line a plane flew overhead. My dad threw my mother to the ground and covered her with his own body as he had flashed back to bombers just then. Maybe that's what showed my mom he cared about her!



I took the white page and layered it with light turquoise tissue paper. Over that I placed a piece of my wedding veil since my mother never got one (she made mine). Then I added the hearts and cut-out image of my parents wedding portrait. Only the lace ended up showing up, not the veil material. Then I topped it with the wording and edged the card with chalk ink. I am happy with the way it turned out.

Hopefully, today I can make at least one of the other two pages I'd like to include in this book. Stay tuned!

Another TIF Page

This is the second page to go in my ATC book for my mother. She was a very smart woman with a lot of common sense.

Since she used her head a lot I used a bigger copy of her head for her body/dress. I glazed over the print with black since she had to wear black or blue for her job (the one I remember most). I used the same printed tissue as on the cover and first page to make her flower brooch. A piece of blue wire became the blue pencil she held behind her ear. (Managers at May Co. back then were called blue pencils as they okayed things with them - you know, long before computers). I bought my mother a couple of large flower brooches when I got to go to Disneyland for field trips in junior high school. They gave her variety and brightened the two dresses she had.

The background was colored with blue pencil markings from a blue pencil left from the days she worked. I couldn't

believe it when I found the pencil in a few leftover items my father had saved of hers after she died (many years ago at age 56). I smeared a little black chalk on the background as it was too bright and stamped stars all over which were heat embossed with gold. They didn't stamp well on the glossy surface but I like how they don't dominate, just add a bit to the background.

You'll notice her hands are behind her back. Think of women back then whose "hands were tied" when it came to moving ahead.

My writing is atrocious and I always make mistakes. Next book I make I'll plan better and mark out the sections so I can type what I want to say. I'll bet I could say more in the same space that way too. Well, my paper figures are crudely done so my writing fits in anyhow.

I was very proud of my mother. People listened to her. They liked and respected her. I can't do half what my mother did.

TIF update

I have the cover done except for the binding which will be a spiral wrapped hopefully, around this blue pencil (I'll tell you why on one of my pages).


I am happy with the way the cover turned out but almost wasn't as the red Sharpie penwork started to smear when I added acrylic medium to glue on the tissue edging. I should have known better as others on the BJP have mentioned the red sharpie wasn't colorfast but I got caught up in what I was doing and didn't think about it till too late. It didn't smear so much that it ruined it; perhaps I shouldn't have said anything as it would have seemed like part of my "plan". LOL on that one!


First I gessoed two pieces of cardboard I had cut for the covers. I tore around one picture of my mom and edged it with Color Box's chalk ink. I used markers to do the checkerboard (and should have stayed with the Marvy ones for the red - you are now WARNED). A dryer sheet was dabbed with paint, dried and torn to fit a corner with a tad to go somewhere else. Then I glued the picture, dryer sheet bits and a part of one of my mother's old earrings to the front. My email address and web name were glued to the back.


I painted the inside of the covers with yellow acrylic paint to which I added pearl white. Then I toothbrush flicked some red paint across. When dry I added a purple glaze which was mostly rubbed off right away. I added flowers punched out from another section of the print tissue paper and rubber stamped butterflies on each half.


I wanted to use the same tissue for the edges as I did for my first page on the heart/body but I didn't want it to disappear on the background as tissue has a tendency to do when glue is applied so first I glued the printed tissue to plain white tissue. When it was dry I cut my strips and glued them with medium over the edges. I like how it turned out.

TIF update

I was really getting worried as, once I had set my
heart on an ATC book of paper dolls, I found I couldn't come up with a good figure. Finally I decided to skip the idea of a real looking figure and use the spirit of my mom instead.

So my first page of the book is of my mother's heart. On the front side I used chalk to color the white page (which is from the blank part of the photo paper as I only printed heads on part of it). Then I stamped music notes and a butterfly on top. I cut out a heart and covered it with tissue paper and placed threads under it (left from making my Christmas cards for arms and legs. The blue thread seems to have a permanent kink in it which I decided fit the image perfectly.


On the backside I wrote how I felt my mom's heart fit the image I made.

I felt good when I finished this page. It wasn't realistic and it started out with a real struggle but I like how it flowed once
I got started. I hope my other pages flow like this one and that it isn't a one time only deal.

The reason I worry is because I can't recall just making art for it's own sake before this past year after I joined the BJP. I have always been a Necessary Artist - if I needed something, I made it and if I didn't I didn't make it. So this challenge I have entered is a real challenge for me in more than one way!

TIF Planning

I finally found 3 photos of my mother that I can use to give a face to my paper dolls. I woke up last night realizing I hadn't thought about the face but only about the personas I saw in my mom. I started to panic thinking perhaps this challenge would be too much. I think I am starting to breathe again.

I cut some thin corrugated cardboard into ATC sized pieces as I am hoping to turn this into an ATC book. I printed out some faces but they are too big so need to do it again. At least I have started.

Now I need to decide if I will do all the dolls in black and white to go with her pictures or add some color to the pictures and make the dolls in color. Enough for today; I am still getting over a cold I got from the grandkids and I have other projects that are plenty behind that need some work too.

Another Birthday Card

My sister's birthday was in July. I decided to give her a birthday
card and of course, it had to be homemade. She has recently lost
her husband and is going through a tumultuous time. Thinking of
her while I was making some of those ATC's I made one just for
her and decided to give it to her as part of her birthday card.

I didn't want to attach the ATC permanently to her card so I made some photo corners by cutting small strips of colored paper
which I folded into corners (see picture) and glued onto a background rectangle. I glued the rectangle to a piece of cardstock I cut and folded for the card.

Next I glued two pieces of leftover strips of decorated cardboard leftover from my journal project on both sides after first wrapping them with thin (28 gauge) copper wire on which beads had been strung.

On the back I stamped the card with a stamp I had made for me with a design I came up with about 7 or 8 years ago. I have used this a lot on the backs of cards and boxes I have made or decorated over the years. I didn't get such a good picture of the stamping so I took a picture stamped on plain paper so you can see it better.

I haven't given the card to her yet as I will be seeing her shortly.
I sure hope she likes it. She isn't quite into abstract or mixed media as I am but she does a fair amount of quilting, folk painting and other paintings (just how would I label an ocean painting, a wolf in the woods painting and a rustic cabin painting when

putting them in context with the quilting and folk painting??, anyone??) but she appreciates what I do usually.

Fish Carving

Busy making my ATC's with my kindergaarten background, I decided I wanted to stamp on one of them and not knowing which of my few stamps are angel stamps, I thought to make my own. So, I pulled out my cheap little break-off blade knife and some Speedball Speedy Cut Printing Block rubber, drew a quick picture and proceeded. I drew the picture in pencil, turned it over and rubbed it firmly with my fingertips while it rested on a small piece of block I had cut off the larger piece. That's all it took to transfer the design. I ran over it with a sharpie pen and then started carving trying to keep in mind not to undercut and lose part of my carving which I must have done as I lost one dot and had to glue it back in place. This picture shows the block half carved because in my enthusiasm to start something new I forget I should take pictures all along the way for my blogging friends to see! I had heard these blocks cut like butter and those comments aren't kidding. Trying not to cut too much is the hard part.



After I was done with the carving I went back to one of my background pieces I had made earlier. First I stamped and embossed white shells to change the background a bit. Then, thinking the fish wouldn't show up very well on the bright background I glued a ragged piece of tissue on and then stamped the fish over it. The tissue took away too much of the brightness so I took the same trusty ol' knife and scraped away some in the center of the card. That was better. The card was too plain though, so I added sequins (I finally got to use a few!) for fish air bubbles.



I really like my fish carving; it reminds me of a wooden printing block. I am not quite as happy with the ATC so now I need to come up with another project in which to use the fish. First I will just print some in different colors on different papers and put them in my drawer for what if's (quite often that is how I work: what if I lay this on there, how does that look? No? Yes? hmmm.. well, let's try this...)







I think my fish could be used with fabric ink for a border on
a quilted cat block or in shrink plastic for card tack-ons. I'm sure I will think of other uses.

ATC Fun

I have been having fun playing around with ATC's again. This time I thought I'd make a whole page of background. I think I'd call this background Kindergaarten! It was fun and relaxing to do. I colored with markers on bristol board. Then I cut it into pieces without trying to find the "best" parts. I thought I would just work with them the way they turned out. A minor challenge - the best kind! I have several more to play with.

Looking at the two enlarged cards, one with hearts and words of love is for my sister who just lost her husband. The other started as a doodle by another sister. We were at a party given by
yet another sister. Tena was playing a game and
getting bored so in her boredom she doodled this
pitcher. I asked her if I could keep it; she thought I was nuts for wanting junk but said okay. Now I have used it; I knew it would come in handy sometime. I am pretty happy with what I am doing with these. They are bright and cheerful which fits me well. Hope they brighten your day as well.

ATC series Done

Hey, I was able to make a series of these
doodle ATC's. I am happy with the way
they turned out. But, enough is enough.
Now I am going to try decorating a large
page and then "find and finish" some cards
from it. Maybe someday I'll find time to
check out some ATC sites and see what
others are doing. Right now I am having
fun just playing around.