Inchies

Inchies are back again. This week's theme is "stars". This is my take on it. Star glitter, a plastic faceted star and some printed out paper has been glued down with matte gel medium. I edged the square with a Kryon gold leafing pen. We'd love it if you'd join us over at Inchybyinch with your own version.

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.

September BJP08

I have my September BJP08 page done! I am so happy. I really hate getting behind as it seems you never catch up. (As in my last page from 2007 which still isn't done - but now I have the rest of this month to work on it).

My color is yellow. Yep that's pretty obvious. The gifted beads I used are:

1. The mexican tubular bead from my daughter Tena.
2. The three small cubes at the top are from my son James.
3. The dark, matte seed beads making up the circles are from Grace.
4. The 3 tiniest brass beads are from my niece Katie.

I don't think I will have so many gifted beads to use on most of my pages and none at all on some (where I will have to come up with something I make) but this made a very good start to the year.

This piece is measured 1 3/4 x 2 1/2 or one half of an ATC card before trimming and adding the edging. It's just a tiny bit bigger now.

I have two children and so I added the two hearts on this piece. I had no idea how this would turn out. In fact, I ended up turning it upside down at the end just before adding the hearts as it seemed to look better that way. That means the bird on the mexican bead is upside down now but I still like how it looks.

Now to start getting supplies out for the next page, draw a fairy my granddaughter challenged me to and finish my last 07 page.

Face Pin

I have been enjoying the face pins over at Grace's blog
and decided to try one of my own using the larger beads
around the face as she did. I got the UTEE face cab from Sammy last year in an ATC trade. The short bugle beads were a gift from my sister. The backing is ultrasuede and I stitched on Stiffstuff. The flower beads are much prettier and sparkly in person. I don't know if I can send it in time to join in the beaded face swap or not but I think she will make a nice gift if not.

Today I am hoping to finish my September bead journal page. Wish me luck as I keep saying things like this and then it doesn't happen!

Wedding Anniversary

September 16th was my 36th wedding anniversary. We celebrated by exchanging cards and going out for a chinese lunch. My husband also gave me a 2lb. box of See's chocolates he'd snuck into the car on our way home from California. He was a bit worried as he doesn't drive with the air conditioning on (just one of thousands of things we do opposite of each other) but it came through just fine and I am eating them up like I've been starving!

I used inchies to make him a banner and a card. I had to do it while he was busy and hoped he wouldn't catch me. It was simple stamping and stringing - hey these inchies fit the definition of beads too! Just thought I would share this idea as I think they turned out pretty neat. It's hard to shop when we go almost everywhere together and I almost always make my gifts anyhow.

Autumn Inchy

I am a little late with this inchy but here it is anyhow. (I took an impromtu trip to California which put a kink in my productivity rate - which is never that high to begin with).

The theme for this week is Autumn and what do I get every time this season rolls around? Candy corn! Doesn't everyone?

This is colored pencil on Strathmore art paper. I am quite pleased with this one. Whenever I draw something that comes pretty close to what I had in mind, I'm happy!

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.

Inchy

Fiona of Inchybyinch has been feeling a bit down like so many of us recently. I made this inchy thinking of her and gave it with the suggestion of using The Blahs as our weekly challenge. She took me up on it so for this week, I even got my inchy done quickly. We all have our down times, our just can't get up the energy for creating times. I love it that people have helped me through those times. Don't we have a great blogging community?

Have you got the blahs? Show us how you interpret it on an inchy and put the link to your picture over on the Inchybyinch blog. Come on and join us.

BJP 2008 Underway

Nothing too exciting so far. I have my Stiff Stuff ironed to my fabric and the outling basted. I've gathered up some yellow beads as I am starting with yellow for my color wheel. Why yellow? I don't know. I usually see red at the top of the wheel but I guess I'm feeling kind of rainbowish or something. The gifted bead I am going to use is the larger yellow mexican style bead on the left just to the right of the box of beads. The seed beads below them were a gift also. Now to get brave and pick up a bead and attach it to the fabric.....drum roll, please.

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.

Inchies Galore

I am visiting again in California with my grandchildren. They wanted to make something and they saw some of my inchies. They thought it would be fun to make some and so we pulled out all kinds of supplies my daughter keeps on hand and these inchies are what they came up with. They are still making more and now my daughter is playing too. These were made by kids from 7 years to almost (tomorrow) 14 years of age. I just wanted to share what they can do as you know the old saying "Give a kid an inch..."

Inchies

This week's Inchy theme was circles so I used circles and circles and came up with circle guy!

I just played with this one and had a bit of fun. Now I am off to post this over at Inchy by Inch.

Have a great day!

Handmade Book

I want to learn how to write poetry. I don't always understand a lot of poetry; I'm a pretty cut-to-the-chase kind of person. I have always liked Walt Whitman's poetry and I've just read a good book of poems by David Budbill called Moment to Moment. So, I decided I needed a book in which to practice. I didn't find what I wanted at the Office Depot here in town so I decided to make one of my own.

I have made a hard cover accordian book and a glued spine book but hadn't made one with stitched signatures (sets of folded pages stitched together). I wanted a hard cover but I wanted the book to open flat in case I wanted to work across two pages. I ended up with this. I used some white drawing paper by Dick Blick using the size of the sheets folded in half. I used some printed papers for the cover and end papers. The spine cover is some hand dyed fabric by K. Grace Howes of the blog Barnyard Chatter . I won a fat quarter of this green in a drawing on her blog. (I am using more of it in another project I'll post here when done). I ended up

varnishing the fabric spine to keep the edges from fraying. I think I need to figure out how to do a neater job if I want to use fabric again. The varnish made the colors darker on the fabric. It originally matched much more closely although I like this contrast too. The one orangy flower on the cover picks up the reddish orange color in the fabric nicely I thought.

Anyhow, I thought I would share this with all of you. Now to try some poems. Don't be looking too soon for me to be putting them out here. Maybe sometime, and maybe not. See how it goes.

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.