Two Inchies

The theme for this week was presents over at
Inchybyinch.

I ended up making two inchies for a change.
Mainly because the first one with the embossing
powder seemed too simple. With the static electricity we have right now I couldn't keep the particles from flying all over the piece either which I could see once it was enlarged.

So I made a second one. This one is a little bit
3-D with the tissue paper sticking out of the box. It was hard finding something small enough to put in this tiny package!

As an aside, I just signed up for the 2010 Bead Journal Project. If anyone loves to do bead embroidery and would like to join us in doing one piece (or page) a month for a year go to Bead Journal Project and check it out. The deadline to sign up is rapidly approaching - December 14th is the last day so hurry!

Inchy Once More

I am back everyone - hopefully for good. I have done the inchy for the week for the group on the blog Inchy by Inch. The theme for this week was buttons. This is my humorous take on the subject. I fully intended to raid my button box but this is what turned up instead. Done with prismacolor colored pencils. Hope it made you smile!


For those who have left me messages wondering where I was, I truly feel blessed that you were interested enough to wonder about me. I just was so busy leading up to Christmas and then visited so long with family that I guess I was worn out. I wasn't feeling like art or blogging - just resting. Thankyou so much for your concern; it helped, really, to get me back into the loop again.

Now, that I am back to doing inchies, I hope to get caught up on my Bead Journal Pages also. I have actually been sewing down some beads in the last couple of days. Not only that but I ripped out some knitted socks, relaxed the yarn and rewound it ready to knit some socks that will match up in size this time. I am on the move!

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.

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.

Progress BJP 2007 and 2008 Plan

I am posting my last page for 2007 BJP as it stands in progress. I got a bit stalled but I am moving forward albeit at a snail's pace! I think there will be some repeat patterns in these blocks; there isn't a lot of space for lots of patterns but I'm winging it so we'll see. Just letting you all know I am plugging along and not skipping the end of this past year to move on to next.

For this coming year I have finally decided on my few "rules" or guides. I seem to work better with some parameters which I feel quite free to break if they are inhibiting me.

1: I am using the 12 colors on the main colorwheel for my 12 months of pages.

2: I am putting a bead that has been given to me or one I have made on each page.

3: I am using Half ATC's for my page size. This is small but I love small. I can use some 13 and 15 oughts if I need to in order to have space for creativity. I fell in love with the little rectangles in Robin's new book but decided they were a little too small for 12 months of work. I might try something that small for a brooch or top of a bookmark but not my pages. So my size is 2 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches. I don't quite know what to call these little pieces. Any suggestions???

That's it. Oh, I am using Lacy's Stiff Stuff for my page backings although I am concerned with the white showing through the beads. You know what? I think I am too worried about it so I might just put a layer of fabric over the stiff stuff in the colorwheel color for the month. I want stiff pieces so still want to use the stiff stuff but now I don't have to worry. Problem solved before it became a problem! I think Grace's blog is what helped me solve my dilemma. I went there today and saw her explanation for her 2007 pieces in the comments section of this post. Thanks Grace.

Welcome to BJPers

Welcome to all the BJPers who are getting ready to start the new year. Taking on a year's commitment isn't easy - I know as I am still working on my last piece from last year. I really hope to do better this year. I hope you all have fun and find satisfaction and peace as you bead the year through.

I thought I'd start 08BJP with finding my bead name. I've even found some beads to match. What is your bead name?

My Your Beady Name is: is Chartruese Chevron Bead.
Take Your Beady Name Generator today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

Ta Da! Sound the Trumpets!

Okay, maybe it's too early for trumpets as I don't have May done yet but I feel soooo good that I got this one done. April done and only one to go.

April is my Easter basket. This is the Easter basket I have had for 54 years. Yep, I've kept my childhood basket and have used it many times too. It's very faded and small compared to many you see today but, it's mine. At one time this basket was bright yellow and purple. Sometimes little chicks would be tied to the handle and once I remember we each got a sock bunny tucked into the grass. We had peeps too - one row to each of us kids. Not a whole package or multiple packs but one row and we thought we were lucky. A chocolate bunny or cross came in it each year and jelly beans which my dad loved (I didn't until many years later and the new jelly beans came out). We also had a hardboiled egg tucked in which we had decorated the night before. That may not seem like such a big deal but in my family we would normally use two hard boiled eggs to make 8 sandwiches for school lunches and yes, you could see the bread through the bits of egg! So a whole egg in our basket was a treat plus we got another one or two for breakfast on Easter. MMmmm. I had one sister who plowed her way through her candy in no time where I was a nibbler. I wanted it to last. (Maybe that's why I buy supplies today and don't use them but save them til they go bad on me).

I made my new basket for this page with real weaving. The purple bands were peyote (probably should have done brick stitch, and the yellow bands are ndebele stitch. I started them at one edge and worked across weaving as I went. Then I came back and tacked the strip down to form the curve I needed. My bunny was done separately and sewn on . The handle was strings of beads I couched down.

Hope you've enjoyed the look-see. I am always glad to have visitors.

April Started

I have finally started on my April page for the Bead Journal Project. This one had my stymied for a while. I had trouble envisioning how to go about making this one. Flat embroidery didn't seem to be the right way to go.

I want to thank the BJPers who offered support and advice when I called on them over at the BJP blog. It made me feel really good to know I wasn't alone out here.

So, I started by making my chocolate bunny shown here on the right. I figure I can stitch him down wherever he might fit when the basket is done. And, I have now started on the basket. Hopefully, the work will
move along briskly now. Keep your fingers crossed!

March BJP - To My Mother with Love

I've done it! I have finished my March page. It
didn't take near as long as any of the others. I love how it came out as it looks pretty true to the real thing.

The "real thing" was my mother's Cecil Bruner rose bush. It was a climbing rose with small flowers that my Dad bought for her and planted on the fence that was at the edge of the pool which I did for my July page.

I used some fake pearls that my mother had (they were really, really in bad shape but worked great for this page) to make the centers of the roses. I goofed and used dark purple for the background instead of light as my other purple page was but there isn't anything like serendipity as the dark purple symbolizes suffering and my mother did a lot of that. Her dad was killed be a hit-and-run driver while crossing a street, her third child (first son) died at one month while sleeping in bed with her so she was blamed by the coroner for his death, her fourth child needed open heart surgery and was about the 5th one to use the new heart/lung machine which gave her a 50/50 chance of survival (she did and now has 3 children of her own), and then she got multiple sclerosis finally dying during surgery for a ruptured appendix at age 56.

I didn't know what I was going to do on this page except that it would be for my mom as this was her birthday month. I thought of a sewing machine as she made a lot of the clothes us five daughters wore plus doll clothes and some of our wedding dresses. I thought about making a decorated cake as she did many of those including some of our wedding cakes. After many other ideas I found myself worrying about a family situation and so I prayed to her asking her to pray for my family. The next day I knew I wanted to put flowers on her page. I didn't know what flowers or why I wanted to do this so clearly so I wrote to my oldest sister who understands odd things like this. I told her only that I had a strong urge to put flowers on Mom's page but didn't know why. She came back with: She LOVED pink Cicel Bloomers, the very small pink rose. And I think that she is sending you love which she would do with pink roses. She is letting you know that she is with you and sending you blessings. It is a be in the moment thing again. sewing, decorating cakes, hats, shoes, are all doing or memories, roses are an enjoy the beauty of the moment, growing thing, that we get to enjoy. Tell me if this helps, for she is enjoying your company and the honor that you give to her. It was so perfectly tuned to my prayer which my sister did not know about. I did feel so close to Mom just then plus to my sister. (Sisters are one of life's blessings as are daughters and...). So, roses it became and it went soooo smoothly and quickly.

February Page Done!

I have it done! February is finally finished after stops and starts and what-have-you!

Winter cold can be a bit of a shock for a transplant from southern California. Back in December of 1974 my husband, I, our son (16mos.) and our daughter (two weeks old) left California for Great Lakes Naval Base by Chicago, Illinois.

Driving ahead of a severe winter storm all the way we first went to Bennington, Vermont to spend Christmas with my husband's parents as he hadn't been with them in several years. Then we backtracked to Illinois and set ourselves up in a motel. It was 60 below wind chill in that area at the time. I remember walking to the car from our room and saw our son walking forward but going backwards due to the severe wind. A few days of looking at rentals and the waiting list for base housing had us looking at the base mobile home park where we could buy a home and not have to wait long to move in. Then we got the phone call.

My husband's father died of a heart attack in the beginning of January so he had to get us out of the motel and drive us to Pennsylvania where my sister lived so he could go home for the funeral. We were running low on money so he tried to get help from the Navy Relief Society but they said they had no money to give or lend to us. That was alright going to my sister's but when all his business was taken care of and we got back to Illinois it was tough going. We had applied for a loan for the mobile home and hadn't heard anything. We got down to the bottom of our money.

We were so low in money we didn't have any for a motel for one more night. We were looking at sleeping in our car that night with our two babies in that super cold winter. We were really kind of scared but didn't know what else to do. My husband was on duty and when you are in the military you can't just come and go when you want. They had already let my husband have emergency leave for his dad; they weren't going to give him time off to take his family back to his sister-in-law's. Well, he called me from work. The loan from the credit union came through that day and we got to sleep (albeit on the floor) in our new old home that night. We were so happy. I took our electric skillet we'd been cooking with and made us some tacos we ate picnic style on our floor. We were warm, safe, and very, very happy people!

This is as close as I could come to how our home looked. As Janet of The Lavender Loft said this home is now retro! It was a 12'x60' two bedroom home which worked out great for our small family. The homes were placed like the spokes of a wheel with the playground at the hub. It was a great first home.

I beaded it with springtime flowers and butterflies instead of the cold winter snows as once we moved in I felt like all the troubles and cold were left behind. We were on a new start and that means spring, not winter! I really don't remember the cold after we moved in. I guess life was at a real dividing point there.

BJP Progress-Really!

This is my February page for the Bead Journal Project - at least, what I have so far. I am almost done with the mobile home and then will do a few flowers before saying it's done. But I am close. I just thought I would remind everyone I am a real, live, beading, behinder-but-working-on-it member of the project. I haven't given up even though it looks like I gave it up for inchies.

Remember, you get the story when I post the finished page! Check back later!

January BJP Done!

January is done and technically it's still February so I will only be one month behind tomorrow, March 1st! I am catching up and in the meantime I have changed my mind on the theme for my February page. I may not be beading intuitively but I am letting the theme be chosen that way! Being a very security conscious person, just letting go and being totally free with a blank page is still a bit scary. Even if there is no BJP for a second year I may very well take some steps to bead differently for a while myself and see what happens. But enough of that; here is the story for this page.

When I was quite young and living in warm and sunny southern California before freeways a trip to see some snow was a magical thing. I only remember going one time in my very early years (which is how often we went to Disneyland and it held the same attraction). The nearest place for us to go was Julian, California. It was about 3500 feet above sea level if memory serves me right (and that might not be too trustworthy) which means there was a pretty good snow depth without having to travel more than a couple hours at the most.

Anyhow, one weekend my parents said let's go and all of us kids piled into the big old green Plymouth station wagon. There were eight of us packed in the car but it was pretty big and us little ones sat all the way in the back cargo area. (Not a safe thing to do but we didn't know it then). When we finally got up to the snow level my dad had to find a parking space among all those other people who made the same trip to see snow. Finally, finally he found one and we all hurried to get out of the car. In my hurry I gave a bit of a push to my younger sister who fell into the snowbank. It was an iced over snowbank and my sister cut her gums on a piece of the ice. My mom let us all go play while she took care of the cut gums but since she couldn't seem to stop the bleeding after about 15 minutes (the time really is fuzzy; it just seemed like a very short time) she called us all back and we had to go home! I've never forgotten than my hurry wrecked our snow day. You'll see in a close up of the picture a single red bead by the edge of the road for the blood my sister left behind.

The next memorable trip to the snow came when I was engaged to be married. I was all of 17 and in love with a guy from Vermont who couldn't understand my fascination with taking a trip to see snow. He agreed to go with me though and we went to the same general area as I had been to so many years before. We stayed for a while, longer than my first trip but not real long as it wasn't to exciting not having sleds or anything and it had been pretty well beaten down by previous visitors. The trip home took over five hours! The traffic was horrible and my fiance got madder and madder about all this for a bit of snow. By the time we got home I had decided the heck with him and was going to break off my engagement. (See my security thing; I didn't do anything while on the road. I waited for the safety of home). My aunt was visiting and saw how upset we were. She told me that it was obvious I loved the guy so go out and tell him so. I did and we got married and have lived several times in the snow country where I finally got my fill of it although I still love the occasional snowfall we get that melts off within an hour of sunlight.

And now you know my January story. Yep, I've got another one for February. Stay tuned.

(I've tried and tried but can't seem to be able to leave a space tonight between paragraphs.)

January BJP Update

Yes, it's just my January page, not February or March yet. This is how little I have done. I am showing it because I am going to post another picture on this posting tonight to show how much I got done today. I figure that just might give me a good push in the derriere!! So, if you see this today, check back later and tell me off if you don't see progress!

Okay, I did get some done today, not as much as I wanted but my retired husband wanted to spend some time with me. I'll work on it a bit more but I was losing the light I take pictures by and I wanted to post the picture as I said I would.

December BJP Page Done

It's done, it's done! I have finished December but
not until February. So much for plans to catch up in January. I can still hope to catch up in February though.

Okay, here's the story. When I was very young, my mother worked at the Nut Tree, a store in Vacaville, California. This is where she bought the cookie jar portrayed here and many beautiful, transparent ornaments some of which were quite large at least in those days. (This was probably 1958 or 1959).

We moved to San Diego for a short time which is where I remember the cookie jar being used. My oldest sister was in her teens and was trying out new crafts and recipes at Christmas time. One of the recipes was for Biscochitas, a good butter cookie with the subtle taste of anise from a light amount of seeds in the dough. That is the only recipe I have ever remembered in connection with this cookie jar and after she left home, I made them at Christmas time. The cookies really are delicious even though my children and husband didn't care for the aniseseed flavor. Now that Mom and Dad are gone, I have the cookie jar. (I found out many years later that biscochitas just means cookie in spanish). Here is the recipe so you can enjoy them:

Biscochitas

1 lb. butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

6 cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons anise seeds

4 tablespoons dry sherry or brandy

Cream butter, add sugar and mix well. Add eggs and anise seeds. Mix dry ingredients and add gradually to creamed mixture. Add wine or brandy. Roll on floured board 1/8 inch thick, cut into shapes. Sprinkle with mixture of 1/2 cup sugar and 2 teaspoons cinnamon. Bake 10-12 minutes in 375 degree oven or until light brown on edges. Remove from cookie sheet and cool on racks. Mmmm good!

Now, on to the broken ornament. We had recently moved from San Diego to a new home in El Cajon. When it came time to set up the new tree my parents couldn't decide where it should go. Now that I am older I see that around this time my mother was beginning to get sick (she had multiple sclerosis) and was still working full time. Not having a lot of money, Christmas could sometimes be a bit stressful with six kids hoping for a few gifts! We all shared in decorating the tree. My father did the lights, us kids put on the ornaments and my mom, with some help from us kids, put on the tinsel one tiny strand at a time (no garlands, just hundreds of strands of silver tinsel). It looked very pretty when it was done. But wait! My dad (or my mom, I can't remember which) wasn't happy with where the tree was so they picked it up and moved it. Obviously the tree wasn't too big and heavy! Oh no! They moved it back....and forth....and back and forth. Every time it was slammed down in a new spot a few more ornaments fell off. We kids began to imagine there wouldn't be a Christmas. We hoped we would still be a family!! Well, they finally settled on one of the spots, we fixed up the tree best we could and the rest of the holiday went fine. Phew! Sooo close to a disaster!

Mind you, I kept Christmas pretty darn casual after I got married. No big turkey dinners requiring us all in the kitchen cooking and cleaning. I just let my husband decide where the tree would go. Perfection just isn't that important. Now, we spend Christmas at my daughter's home where she runs herself ragged just like my mom did. Maybe, it's simply that the genes skipped a generation!

Well, Christmas is over and I am moving on to January. Yes, it's February but first things first!

Time's Up!

Well, I didn't make it. I will have to carry December over to February but it shouldn't take too long now.

Getting ready to take a picture of how far I got, my dog Brandy had to have a look.

The ornament is being done in a stylized way. I saw some beadwork done in one of my magazines but don't know which one. Perhaps one of you know the artist who does much of her work in circles like this. This isn't my usual way of doing the work on these pages but since it's a round ornament I thought I would have fun trying out her method.


Well, on to February via December and January!

Busy Day

Today was a busy, productive day for me.

I worked on many different projects for a change.

One of my new year's resolutions was to work from front to back in a good beadweaving how-to book to get my skills a little better all around. Today I started a bracelet in green and purple peyote. This is lesson one in the book Mastering Beadwork, A Comprehensive Guide to Off-loom Techniques by Carol Huber Cypher. I liked the pattern so that made it real easy to give my plan a try. I haven't looked ahead as I want it to be more like a real class.

I painted the faces on four sheets of paper stamped with this image of a woman. These are going to be used for cards I am making for my nieces business. I will be layering the hands and face over the base layer of the same stamp. She wanted some 3-D effect. Tomorrow I'll add more colors but it felt good to get so many copies done of just the face today.

As I did some of this work today, I thought of MaryTafoya's advice to get up and move about every so often and to sit so we don't strain our necks and backs. (She gave this advice at the beginning of the BJP). Needless to say, I thought of it when my neck started to hurt!

The decorative background paper started as a paper I stamped extra ink off of my face stamp onto. I added more stampings, chalk ink over paper strips, then tore up the paper strips and added them. I glazed over the whole thing and smushed plastic wrap over that while it was wet and then removed it to dry. Some more rubber stamping in gold and silver which needed embossing now that the paper was sealed with

glaze. I don't know whether I want to use this for ATC's or note cards but I'll get several out of it either way.

The red piece is for my TIF project. I need to add blue stars but the red is the basis for the marine page for my mother. Not a lot done on this page but a start is a start.

Last, but not least, I got some beading done on my BJP page for December. My eyes must not have been doing too well as I can see I should have added a bit of a darker green for the deeper shadows. I'm not going to change it now though. It's looking reasonably like the cookie jar in the photo under it.

That was my day of crafting. Hope your day went well too.

December BJP Plan

I'm moving on! This is my idea for December. You can see the pictures but the story comes later! Still hoping to get this done and January started before January is finished but this looks more involved than I intended so we'll see. At least I am moving along again.

November BJP Completed

Happy Birthday to me....

This is my birthday month so I did a page on that subject. It's true that in every life a little rain must fall but remember that every cloud has a silver lining!!

This page is a reflection on three of my birthdays. The first is the birthday I turned six years old. I was a first grader and rather timid. My mother said my sister and I (her birthday was pretty close to mine) could each invite a few school friends for a birthday party. I took the invitations to school and when others than the ones who got them asked if they could come I didn't know what to say so I said "sure!" I never said anything to my mother as details have never been something I have been good with. On the day of the party my mother was REALLY surprised when all the kids showed up! I don't remember details of the party (of course) but I do remember it was the last real party I ever had. So this was one reason for the cloud.

The next birthday I'll tell you about is my tenth. It's a very simple story; I was playing with my dolls on our front porch. Our house was very small especially to hold eight people so I escaped to the porch to play. Back then (too many years ago) the rainy season actually started around October and so it was a beautifully (if not too damp) rainy day for me, my dolls, and my musings. I was hoping so badly my mother would have understood all my hints and would give me the Italian doll I accidentally found on the shelf in her closet. She did and the doll became Dolly and was my favorite forever. See clouds do have silver linings!

The last birthday is recorded only because it happened while I was part of the BJP. So, there are 54 candles around the edges of this page to commemorate this year. I made them in many colors as I just love color and the more of it the better. I don't know whether this is a "rain must fall" or "cloud with a silver lining" event. It's been a good year getting to be a part of a good group on the internet but it is my 54th year and that is not small stuff so you decide for yourself which it is.

Hope you enjoyed my musings and now I need to start December before I get further behind!!

November BJP Started

At last! I have begun to work on my November page. I really have a bit more done but I took the picture while I still had some sunlight or I would have had to use a flash which doesn't work too well as you all know. I feel SO good to be back at it!

October in December!

Well here it is - October is done!

This is a picture of the big old bean pot my mother had. It was never used for baking beans. Instead it was brought out on Halloween for us kids to put the candy we collected into. Then we would all share the candy. It was a big pot but with eight people in our family it seemed the candy didn't go far enough.

Halloween has changed a bit through the years. My mother remembered moving outhouses in her day. (I bet people were not too happy about that). In my day, one of my older sisters (no names will be mentioned) showed us how to soap the windows of people who weren't home. Hey, this was a mild trick for no treat! Now, the kids go around with their parents if they go trick or treating at all.

I used a picture of the bean pot my sister Kathy sent me. I beaded right over the picture and then removed the picture by bits with a needle nose tweezer. It was great to work over the picture but not fun to remove later. Still, I would use this method again if I want a more realistic picture when I am done. I didn't have any disc shaped beads for the suckers so I made some of the candy out of Sculpey polymer clay. I am quite happy with the way this page turned out.

Now, on to November and December!!