Inchies

After being gone for the Mother's Day weekend (which meant a week really), I didn't think I'd be able to do this week's inchie for InchybyInch but I made it after all.

This week's theme was faces so I took a button blank from which I had previously removed the shank and covered with a hand painted face and glued it to my inch. Then I peyote stitched around it first with size 6 seed beads, then 2-drop number 8's and finally a round of number 11's. I added the touch of 11's to the corners to carry the brightness out to the edge.

The inchie is sooo textural and has my favorite medium (beads) on it so I couldn't be more happy with it. Maybe I'll glue a magnet to the back of this one and put it on my fridge.

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.

Island Bedroom

My daughter painted this island room for her oldest daughter. It was a birthday gift last year and though it took quite a while to plan and execute I think it was well worth the wait.

The bed area is painted beige and has bamboo roll-up shades so that it can be closed off. This is the bamboo shack.

Outside of the shack the walls were painted to look like an island with the ocean as background. The cat tree was even decorated to look like a palm and a beach chair was added to complete the idea. Even the ceiling was painted.

I think my daughter did a fantastic job. Her husband has come a long way from fretting over her painting walls (not ceiling or closet doors even) a pale pink in anticipation of a baby girl, to pretty much an anything goes attitude - as long as he doesn't have to see it in the process. That would be too stressful! And that is okay with my daughter who
is ready to take on the living room stairwell.

Hope you enjoyed the tour.

Inchie

The theme for this weeks inchie for the Inchybyinch group is to use the first letter of your name and see what you can fit on the inch.

I have the letter T to use so I went for a desert Tortoise walking in a tan desert with thorny cactus under a turquoise sky with thunder clouds rolling in. How's that for the letter T? Oh, I forgot. I edged it with turquoise trim too.

This was fun as the idea came quickly and worked up just as fast.

The Snail

I thought I would point out the "snail" in my picture I posted earlier (my printer is not doing color well at the moment). Some of you couldn't find him - I think you might have been looking for a real snail which we don't have here since it is so dry. (We have lots and lots of other bugs though - crickets, grasshoppers, scorpions...)

Now go back to the other post and you will see him for sure. I always find things when looking at the clouds (which are really strange here at times. You can watch a cloud form in the clear sky and then watch it fade away in minutes while another one forms- must be the lack of humidity) and now I find things looking at the landscape. I might be the tiniest bit wacky but I do find life exciting in the details (even though most details like time, what people wear - unless it has lots of color - buzzes right on by me).

Walking in the Desert

My husband and I took a walk around the "block" last weekend. It's 2 1/2 miles around so it's a good sized walk. We have to go more slowly when he goes than I normally would because of his heart problems but it was good for him to get out. He hadn't shut the gate on the goat pen (his memory isn't so good either-- just joking) so the goats joined us as well as our german short-haired pointer. You won't see her because she runs all over chasing rabbits the whole way around. I bet she goes 10 miles to our 2 1/2!

The goats have never taken such a long walk but they really enjoyed it. This is the good part about living in such a rural part of the desert. We can
take our animals with us and not worry about traffic. Do you see the flowers in the road? This one gets only 1 car every few days! The other side of our house has a road much more
frequently traveled. Yesterday we passed a car as we left for town and one as we returned. I don't think that's ever happened before but really, cars do come in and out some.


How do you like the last picture? Everytime I pass these two cacti I see a snail. Do you see it? It's the largest and prettiest one I've seen. Hope you've enjoyed your little bit of desert for today.

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.

Can't Help Doing These

These things just cry out to me, " Do this one, do this one". So I do!

You Were a Whale

You see the unseen and connect on the deepest level. You help others find their soul's song.

What Animal Were You In a Past Life?

Blog Thingy

I saw another blog thing on The Lavender Loft blog. Seeing how creative I am supposed to be sounded like fun so here is how I turned out:

Now how do you come out on this?

You Are 82% Creative

You are an incredibly creative person. For you, there are no bounds or limits to your creativity. Your next creation could be something very great... Or at least very cool!

How Creative Are You?

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!

Inchies

This is my inchie for this week. The theme was "incorporate a word" into your inchie. The old inchie group site is gone but Fionna of Magick Diva has started up a new inchie blog called InchiebyInch so inchies can keep marching along. Thank you Fionna!

There isn't anything to explain on this one. It's simple but I like it. I try to sing through my art since I can't through my voice!

Why don't you join us? Have a "little" bit of fun!

Inchies

The theme for this week's inchie is Dots. What better way to express that than using a dotee doll! This is the smallest one I have made so far.

I glued a batik fabric with dots on it to a piece of card instead of making a stuffed body for the doll. Otherwise I feel like I've stuck pretty closely to the heart of these dolls. This was fun to make and now I am off to post it on The Inching Artists.

I am still working on catching up on my bead journal pages. I finally gave up on the TIF challenge. I just can't keep up with everything I want to. It was stressing me out till I wasn't able to work on anything. Someday I hope to try that one again.

Coming Up Roses

The theme for this week's inchies was lace. It sounded easy enough. And when I checked on the blog for the group I checked the comments to see if anyone had theirs done. Two people did and when I went to see their pictures here and here I found some great inchies. But they didn't help me with what I had on hand to create with so...

I used some gift wrap and a piece of a shopping bag from Italy to make my backgrounds. I had a piece of tatted lace I'd made years ago so that was put on one and a piece of paper doily on the other. Then I added a ribbon rose to each and some gold krylon ink to the edges. I am happy enough with these.

I guess I should get some rubber stamps that would work with such a small sized surface. It would give me more to choose from for making them into little pieces of art. Right now I just feel like I am decorating a square tile!

Actually I started with four bases: one of the others had pink giftwrap and the first piece of honiton lace I made added to it but then I got stuck as to where to go so it sits while I ponder it. The other had the same striped giftwrap as the top picture but red paper doily attached before I once again, got stuck. If anyone has any ideas I sure wouldn't mind hearing them! Do you make some and get stuck halfway through? Do you end up just tossing some? Or do you make them work for you?

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!

Pink Artist Doll Is Done

The Pink Artist doll is done. Her name is Love Squared. I have a few pictures but there are many more on Girl Gone Thread Wild's blog . Be sure you go check her out. So many people contributed squares.

It's amazing how many want to help others. Some do it by joining in on walks or runs for cancer cures. Some help by making money to contribute through bake sales. There are just so many ways but this call for two inch artist squares was right up my alley. Obviously is was a call many answered.

But the one who started the whole thing off and actually made the doll is Monica Magness of the above mentioned blog. She did such a super job. Her ears must be hurting from all the applause she is getting. I don't think anyone could guess how the doll would come out but she is so perfect. Monica used needle felting for the hair and face. Oh, I can't beging to describe how she did it. Just go over to her blog where she tells all.

The crown for the doll was made be another artist Grace Beading who is also a member of the Bead Journal Project. She did a wonderful job as did the artist who made the box and well, like I said, just go on over and see it all.

The first picture shows one of the squares I made for the doll. It's the second from the right on the top row. Monica (actually her husband Jeff) took lots of pictures so everyone could find their square on the doll. The other pictures show front and back but they don't show her base which is beautiful too. Go and see.