Newest Inchy

My newest inchy is for the theme "faces". I really
need to work these under my magnifying lamp sometimes. I might have seen the sand paper scratching to far into the face. Ah, well. Life goes on! Kids are so full of life we'd do well to have some around or go to a place where you can see them play and wonder. Then we can reabsorb some of that energy that we lose as we get older.

Please try an inchy or two yourself. You can join in at Inchybyinch for one inchy or lots of them. They are a tiny bit of fun between bigger projects.

Seen on Another Blog

I saw this link on another blog and liked it. It's a good reminder of the important things in life. I thought you all might like it too: http://lshs64.com/enjoytheride.html .

The picture has nothing to do with the link. I just thought you might enjoy what I saw way out in our rural area the other day.

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!

Inchy Blogiversary

Sorry this post looks so bad. It's all Blogger's fault!
Well, mine partly since I don't know HTML and
have to depend on Blogger to get it right for me.

The Inchybyinch blog has been going for one year as I mentioned in my last inchy post. This week we are celebrating it. Fiona has offered some blog candy to those who post an inchy on their blog and on the Inchybyinch blog under this week's post. Another entry can be made by becoming a follower of the blog. That's a very nice way to celebrate your blog and all the inchers who try to keep up with the challenges.

This week's inchy theme is Bling! I did my best to come up with what I think of as bling. I figure it means sparkle and plenty of it. My husband
figures it means gaudiness which just goes to show you what he knows, lol! I used a sparkly amber looking button with little plastic rhinestones on top of a background I made for an inchy tutorial in my journal (more about that in a minute). I added glitter around the edges to give it more sparkle.


I used a new glue I found at Beverly's craft store when I visited California. I like it that it has a good, immediate grab and that it is clear. I don't like how it leaves little strings. I first noticed



them when I took a photo of the inchy and saw it

in my windows photo gallery. I tried to get most of it off and retook the picture

. Much better but something to be careful about. If anyone has any ideas on how to reduce stringing please let me



(and everyone else) know by leaving a comment
.
The glue is called 3-in-1 Advanced Craft Glue by Beacon .

Now on to answering Carol's question of what I do with the inchies.


1.Nothing! Sometimes I just let them pile up in a drawer in my craft room. (Bet you didn't expect that answer)!

1. I have been in a swap with them. It was a Christmas theme and hosted by Fiona.



2. I put them in my journal as you can see here. One page is made of the inchies I got from that Christmas swap I was in. The other was just a way to show off some of my inchies and I plan to do more pages of them. That way I can see them more often and easier.




3. I have put them on cards such as this one I made for my husband on our anniversary.


4. I made a banner out of inchies for the same anniversary but think how you could make one for a birthday or a baby's homecoming. Yes, they do make small swags but they fit on a door or cupboard or across a computer screen.
   
5. I make magnets out of them. The current week's inchy plus the group of four to the right were made by putting a picture through my Xyron machine with the magnet backing in it. Then I cut it up into one inch squares and use it as background. I made the beaded face as a magnet by just gluing a magnetic disc (found in Walmart and all craft stores) to the back of a paper inchy.
6. I made a tutorial in my journal as mentioned at the top of this page. I wanted to let my grandkids when they read my journals later, to have an idea of how to make some. I only showed one way so this is an idea I can revisit later if I want.

And that Carol and any other wondering person, is what I do with my inchies. What do you do with yours? Or your twinchies, ATC's or moo cards - whatever little things you just make for fun?

Belated Easter Posting

I received a wonderful card for Easter from a blogging friend in Great Britain. Helena makes her cards and sells them so I was fortunate to get one of them. She made a very nice bookmark to go with the card. It looks a little smeary here but thats only because there is some pretty irridescent glitter on it. It was a very welcome surprise. Thankyou Helena and I am sorry it took me so long to acknowledge you.

You'll enjoy Helena's blog and she always welcomes new visitors. She is the sponsor of a card exchange I was in at Christmas time which I talk about here. You can see Helena's blog Creating a Likeness here.

Current Inchy

The theme for this week's inchy on Inchybyinch is butterflies.
I put a stamped image of a large butterfly for my background and added the three little ones, the more the merrier right?

As it turns out, this week is the blogiversary for Inchybyinch blog. Fiona has been hosting us for an entire year now. Thankyou Fiona.

Now, Carol has asked what I do with all my inchies. Well Carol, I'll soon be making a post which will show you. Stay tuned....

Knitting

It's not beading and it's not an inchy. This is the start of a new pair of socks I am knitting. I found the yarn on Ravelry. It's called You Ugly and was on sale because the maker, Perfect Day Yarns didn't like how the dye job went on this yarn. I liked the colors and figured I'd make a pair of socks. Well months later (I'm as slow at getting my knitting done as I am at beading and inchies) I am finally making them. These are my own design. I altered a stitch pattern from an old book and started with what I hoped was a good number of stitches. As you can see, I guessed well or was lucky as they are going to fit fine. I just thought I'd share what I am up to. Hopefully I'll have another BJP page to show in just a few days! And another inchy! Stay tuned.

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.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone. I am visiting at my daughter's house with her family. Our son will be coming up for the holiday too.

Tonight we'll be decorating at least 9 dozen hard-boiled eggs!

Hope you all have a great holiday.

Back to Inchies

I am back to getting some inchies done. This week we had a guest designer over at Inchybyinch blog . Jeanette Waters of H20 Creations suggested we do inchies in black and white reversal. Well, two of mine are real reversals - the roses. The other two are from our big snowstorm this winter (about 4-6 inches of snow - a lot for us!). One is my black dog Sambo against the white snow and the other is a snow-covered tree against the night sky. One way or another, I think I fit the theme.

I used photos for these inchies, played with them in PhotoShop Elements and shrunk them down before printing them out. They just seemed like postage stamps to me today (maybe because they were photos) so I cut them out with wavy scissors and edged them with black marker.

Come on, give it a try. These can be made in your favorite medium whether it's beads, drawing, embroidery, stamping, quilting or whatever. Just one teeny little inch and you are done. And you feel good for doing it too.

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...

Roses

I thought I'd share the first rose of the season from my garden with all of you. My daughter and her family gave me this rose bush about four years ago. I struggle with the rabbits, grasshoppers, aphids, crickets, alkaline dirt, wind and a too hot sun to keep this bush going. I am always thrilled to see it bloom.

Getting Busy

I'm getting back to trying to do a little of
everything.

I am still working on my BJP page. Nothing like being so far behind and then deciding to add size 18 beads to the piece! I love those teensy tiny little things though and love it when I can add them to something.

I tried to do the inchies for the week. The theme this week at Inchy by Inch was to use triple embossing as the technique for the squares. First, I didn't know what triple embossing was so I googled it and found the explanation here . I ran into a small problem when I tried to make my inchies though as my heat gun quit on me while I was just partway through the process. Living outside of town, I won't be replacing it in the immediate future so this week's inchies just went out the window. Sorry everyone. To see some pretty ones go to the link above.

I am also working on my kitchen still. I started by painting it yellow as you can see here in this post. I have since finished the painting. I've bought new rugs I'll put down when everything is done. I am now painting my utensil rack for the wall. I painted it for my dad over 15 years ago and so am now making it match my canisters. I've got it sanded and base-coated with white. The canisters have a transparent glaze on them so I will do the same with my rack. I want it to really match so I am doing my best to use the same techniques even if my piece is wood rather than ceramic. I'll be sure to post the finished picture with the canisters so you can all see how I do.

Besides working on a pair of socks, that's about
where I stand at present. I wonder if I'm forgetting to do something....

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.