Back to Beadin'

I was going through all my old bead magazines trying to thin out all my "stuff". I came across many patterns I still want to try so I saved those and chose one to do after reading a post about making time on Kathy's blog Catching Happiness. I let time slip away without anything to show for it much too often. I will give this necklace to my daughter at some point. She has a birthday coming up and then there is always Christmas or just as a "here, this is for you" gift. It was a fun project and I think I will make a few more.

I am working on other things now to. Every so often I guess I just need a swift kick in the rear to get moving!

Beaded Flowers

I mentioned doing beading in my last post. These are some of the flowers I made. The pot is about 2" high and the larger daisies are not quite 1 1/2" across. I also made some roses but they are not in an arrangement yet so I'll share them later.

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.

Weekly Inchy

The theme for this week's inchy is circles. Fiona of Inchybyinch used circles as the base for her inchy and I tried that but it didn't work for me so I went back to the square inch and stamped some circle designs. Then I put some circle looking beads on it and coated everything with embossing powder both clear and one with a sparkle to it till I securely imbedded the beads. I don't think this is my favorite one of all time; it seems funny that circles would be such a challenge.

April BJP Done

Whoo hoo! Another page done! This is a biggie as it means I can now get pics of the ones I have done on the web page for the BJP. You have to have eight pieces done before doing that and that's where I am. Yay. I am two-thirds through the year with this one completed.

April's page is on blue-violet of the color wheel which fit nicely with the usual Easter month. I ran into trouble finding gifted beads this month but found some seed beads my sister had sent me from Japan. They are the shiny ones in the vertical striping. Since April is the typical Easter month, I used a cross that is actually a purple if it is held up to light. It doesn't look it on the beadwork but if you compared it to black or another color you would see it. I added the butterflies as they are also a symbol of spring and new life. There are three for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. (Hmm, it doesn't hurt that 3 is a good number in design either). This is a simple piece but I like it.

Now on to May. I'm having a tough time thinking of what I want to say with this one. It will be blue and that's as far as I've gotten. Stay tuned....

March BJP Finished

At last! I have finished anothr of these tiny little pieces. Remember, they are only half the size of an ATC! They should not be taking me so long. This one could have been done a little sooner but the thread on my edge kept breaking but that would only have saved me a couple of days working on it. I've just simply been doing too many other things. Robin, when you started the BJP I had no idea what was out there in cyber world and didn't know I'd be tempted as badly as Pandora to open the lid to everything!

This piece is my purple page. It has flowers I got when I traded an ATC months and months ago with Julie at Mixed Media. Thankyou so much Julie as these flowers are what gave me the idea to use gifted items this year - yours and Grace's beads she sent me. I wanted to use them and what better way than this. The frog bead was a gift from my grandkids. I wondered just how I'd manage to use this bead and I like it here. The leaves that make up the shamrock (St. Patrick's Day tribute) were mine but the pearls that hold them down are from my mother's wedding pearls. They arent' real but they have more worth to me than real ones since they are from my mother. The theme here if you haven't guessed is Spring.

Well, it's on to April now. That means Easter to me and blue violet for my color choice. Hmmm, what can I find that has been gifted and fits that theme...... or will I need to change something here. Well, stay tuned (hopefully not for as long as this one took) and you'll see.

Gifted by Grace

Grace of Grace Beading blog had a giveaway for her second blogiversary and she was so kind to send me a super gift just because I find her blog interesting enough to visit when she has a new post. What did she give me? This pin she made. Isn't she beautiful. Grace does an excellent job on her beadwork. Thank you so much Grace. I truly appreciate it.

December BJP

I have finally finished my BJP page for December. Remember
I have already done January - I am behind but not quite that badly!

This page is done in red-orange to continue on my colorwheel scheme. The beads that were given to me (the other part of my scheme) are the blue and greenish beads that make up the tree. They are actually miracle beads and the clear coating doesn't look near as nice in the picture. The square beads were also gifts.

My meanings for this page:

1. A Christmas tree - after all this is December so I am celebrating this holiday. These beads were given to me by my grandchildren for Christmas two years ago.
2. Presents which we get and give to those we love. In this case, the presents are made of the cube beads my son gave me for Christmas last year and they represent the gift of having four grandchildren. Notice how they are all tied up in ribbon. That's because they are so special to me.
3. The ripples going out from the tree represent how Christmas plannings and doings seem to grow and grow.
4. The bit of space between the edging and the main beading caught my eye as I worked on the edging. I thought about fixing it so the fabric wouldn't show since this piece is an all-over beaded style. I decided it fits in very well with my Christmas theme as it is since it seems Christmas always has a way of doing what it wants and plans we make just don't always come off as we'd like. The best thing is to just go with the flow of each year so I left the space as is. This is a journal page after all. I'm not making the piece for a contest.

At first I was thinking how badly I centered the tree. It is way off but it seems to have worked out anyhow in the end. I thought it was going to be too plain at first as the only thing I originally had in mind was the tree. It sure came together in the end as I let the piece work itself out. I am quite happy with it.

Now I am ready to begin February and I have what I think are some perfect gifted beads for the month. They are rather clunky for such a small piece but we'll see how they work out. Wish me luck!

Inchies

The last two weeks had the same inchy theme, cats, but it took me till the very end of that time to come up with one. I ended up catching a photo and broke my camera - I don't think it was because of how my inchy looked!!

This inchy is made with beads. I ended up poking one extra little hole so my husband suggested I add a scarf round his neck and that hid the hold very nicely. Thankyou Hubby.

Have you ever tried beading an inchy? Why don't you give it a try and join in this week over at Inchy by Inch. It's fun!

Now on to this week's theme.

January BJP Page

I finally finished my January page. (No you didn't miss one,
I still don't have December done).

This page came about as a real journal entry. In January two women made my family miserable so I thought I'd put it down in beads.

One of the women who made us miserable is my son's principal where he is interning as a teacher in San Diego. He teaches both science and math which is supposedly a much sought after skill. His principal liked him well enough at first and wanted him to try for getting known as a star teacher (any teachers out there will know more than me about this but I understand less than 10% of teachers get this). But, they had a run-in when my son didn't want to kick one of his students out for not trying and being a problem. (I guess a lot of the kids are problems in this school and that's why they come to it in the first place). He was against it because the boy had started shaping up and was now doing his work on time and participating in the class - in other words he'd turned around and my son wanted to give him a chance. Well, the principal didn't and said with his parents being well-educated they could take him elsewhere. My son doesn't believe in helping one kid less because his parents are better supposedly in some way - a kid who needs help is a kid who needs help. Then my son didn't watch the Presidential inauguration with the students which he found out later the principal wanted and when she questioned him on it he said he would think it's a momentous day when race doesn't make the day momentous anymore. So, he will be finding a new job next year. That one person can kick him out of the intern-teacher's program. His student's love him, by the way because he IS fair to them. So his being a great beginning teacher doesn't count if politics becomes involved.

The second woman was a family friend from Italy (currently lives in Vegas)who was visiting my daughter and her family. To make a long story short here, the woman's daughter jumped on the family dog and grabbed him around the throat while he was chewing a bone. The little girl either got nipped or scratched (the girl says scratched) on the face and had a few bleeding spots. My daughter stopped the bleeding right away but several hours later the mom wanted her daughter to go to the emergency room where she demanded a plastic surgeon even though the doctor on duty said no stitches were needed. The next day they went from my daughter's home to their own. And then a call came that the dog was to be picked up for quarantine. It turns out (by the animal control's own admission) that the mom wanted the dog killed not just quarantined even though under these circumstances the usual thing is to quarantine a dog at his own home. Well the dog was taken for 10 days, no rabies showed up and he went home (they would not kill him no matter that the mom was calling all day every day for them to do that). The reason this was a really big deal is the dog belongs to my grandson who has anxiety problems and ADHD and more and the girl's mom knew all this. She turned on my daughter's family as even now she is trying to sue them and this after they sponsored her husband to become an American, helped them buy a car, and so much more.

Well, I decided to make a page depicting the two women who caused so much heartache. January's page was to be red so I skipped December for the time being and went for January. I was certainly "seeing red"! My granddaughter had the molds and polyclay for the faces so we made them when I was visiting. The red beads for the hair were a gift from my oldest sister as were the short bugle beads. The 18 ought beads I got with a gift certificate my daughter gave me a couple of years ago so I was able to keep up my use of gifted beads. For once I didn't cover the fabric completely. It just didn't seem to need it. I felt like it was the right color and had the right design to go with the mood of the piece. I'd told my sister I felt like making them like voodoo dolls but she said to just blow them to the wind rather than hold onto them and their hurt so I added all the little swirls for that.

This is probably the most direct journaling I've done so far in the project. It just made sense to do it. Now what to do for December in red-orange? Hmm...

New Post!

Hi everyone. I am finally back to beading. I don't have a lot done but I have started. This is January's page and I won't tell you what it means to me until it's done. Just wanted to let you know I am back at it and will try to make my way around to see what everyone else is doing now too.

Beading

I haven't done anything with my BJP pages since seeing tiny beads has been too difficult but I have been helping my grandkids work on a project I bought for them from Herrschner's (and I do not recommend their products anymore as I would have 30 years ago - they've gone too cheap) a year or so ago. Even with large pony beads the project was bigger for them than I expected so during visits with them I have pulled it out and we've worked together on it. With Easter coming up, I am really trying to get them to finish them this year so they can hang on the wall.

Out of three granddaughters one may actually develop a love for beading over time. I don't think the other two will but who knows so I'll keep introducing beads in some form over their growing up years and see where we end up.

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.

Snowflakes

This week's inchy theme is winter. The blog's author lives in Great Britain and got her share of the white stuff this weekend so she thought it would make a good theme.

I made a beaded snowflake with directions I found at Bead Gypsy . I used a square cut from a box of facial tissues (recycling where I can!) and edged it with a silver Krylon pen. I used a white gel pen to make the small snowflakes after gluing the beaded snowflake to the surface.

If you'd like to try your hand at making an inchy stop by Inchy by Inch blog and see what's up.

Boy, I think I am on a roll this week! It feels good to be back creating this or that again.

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.

Face Pin Swap

I received the pin that mine was swapped for. This pin was made by Arline Lewis. Doesn't it have the perfect fall look? I think she'll look really nice on a black turtleneck for Thanksgiving. You can see all the pins that were in the swap at Sassy Art Goddess. They are really wonderful. I think I'm going to sign up for her Yahoo Group so I can do this again next year. Perhaps you'll join me!

Decision Time

Well I have looked at and considered all the suggestions so many of you offered. Mariasangel, I'm sorry but you can't have the large size piece! I really thought about sending it to you but there are too many options still open to me. I liked the idea of keeping the larger one going instead of ripping it out. I really don't like to rip but more than that, I rather liked what I had going!

Alternating the sizes every other month has some merit too with the other idea of adding a background to the smaller ones so they seem as large as the larger ones. That is still an option I will keep in mind. This month my focal bead had been the frog bead I made as a real quickie project due to a question on either Bead and Button or Beading Daily (I can't remember which) where the question was asked about the kind of resin you use. I have on hand some Delta Air-Dry PermEnamel Clear Gloss Glaze which I love and so tried it out on a smashed bottle cap. I did both sides but the side with the frog had yellow orange in it so I thought I would use it. But, it is too big even if I wanted to rip it out to use on the smaller piece and now I wonder if I might run into the "too big" bead again so that's why the alternating sizes is still under consideration.

I like the idea Vivage of using it for October and the other one for November but MY rule is to use the color wheel so that doesn't work. Darn it! But that idea may come in handy for others out there.

Coral seas likes the idea of sticking with the small size as I did well on Septembers in fitting a lot in a small space which is kind of what I was after but then Helene shared that small can sometimes be too small which is what the bead I used this month also says.

I liked Julie's idea of using the small September as a cover page which is a super idea for those who are putting them together in a bookish type of finish but mine are going in a frame (hopefully a polymer clay tile mosaic frame) so that won't work for me. I sure stopped to think about changing my finish though with that suggestion!

So in the end here is what I am going to do. I cut out a smaller version and started working on it to see if I could use beads other than the ones on the larger version and it looks like I can. That means I will be doing both sizes this month. Next month I will start with the small (I think I've learned to measure twice, cut once by now!) and if I have a large bead again, go ahead and make the large version also. Who knows, I may end up with two whole sets at the end of the year! Actually, I think one of the two sizes will eventually win out but if I stitch one of each till then I won't have a lot of catch-up to do and the ones I don't eventually use can become gifts or a part of a new project. I am really glad you didn't all suggest ripping it out since it couldn't be reproduced on the smaller version anyhow.

Thankyou all so much. I hope this problem has given you ideas too for when you make a mistake. In the view of this beading as being journaling, I think keepin' on goin' is really better than a restart. And for those of you new to the BJP you can now see some of the value of being part of the group. Without you I was left with my husband's opinion, one of which he really didn't have! With all of you, I got opinions from people who know beads and know the time involved and feelings tucked into each piece. So again, thank you all so much. I really, truly appreciate all the suggestions and they really did get me moving forward again.

Uh oh!

Well I certainly have put myself into a pickle of a problem. I am hoping someone has a suggestion for me. My September page was 1/2 the size of an ATC. I like how it turned out. So, I got ready for my October page. Traced my template, picked out some beads and I began stitching. I like how this page is coming along but today I discovered something.

This page is full ATC sized!! Uh oh, now what do I do? Do I start this over and use a lot less beads? It will really change. Can I alter September's page? I have it sewn (and glued) to ultra-suede so there is a lot of thickness involved here with beads, fabric, Stiff Stuff and Ultra Suede so I wonder about sewing it to something bigger. Could I do some peyote or brick stitch around the edges? Or should I just go and start October over? Help! All suggestions are welcome.

I can't believe I did this. Okay, yes I can. I do silly things like this all the time. I get going and somehow manage to turn my brain off until halfway through and sometimes even till a project is done. I was trying so hard to be organized. Phooey.

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.