A Place of Calm and a Bit of Blitz

I can't seem to escape my love of a bit of blitz and bling. Even though this is a place for a bit of calm and contemplation I wouldn't want it to be boring.

I have been having fun watching this piece evolve. Although I got a bit of a slow start this month it is really keeping pace with the changes that I am making to my life. Slow gradual changes to my life. I have been exercising 4-5 days each week and have made some improvements to my diet. I have still got improvements to make but have felt very positive with this process so far. It looks like I may have even lost my first few pounds.

There Be Dragons Here

I meant to take photos and post them a couple of days ago but haven't gotten a lot of beading done in the last few days. Part of that is instructions for a class I was supposed to teach at Bead Boutique ( class canceled but instructions now complete) and part was that I have added physical activities and writing in my morning pages to my day. I haven't quite found the proper balance for all things in my life yet. It will come I am sure. I am trying to keep the changes slow so that I don't push myself into frustration or hurt anything. Unlike a car I can't go from 0-60 in seconds. Ooh, did I just say that? Too many years living with a man who loves his cars.

I have my small dragon beaded and will just need to sew it on. I have a start on the larger dragon. Beading through the main support and fabric and 1 layer of the canvas paper is not hard. It is a bit more challenging to go through 2 layers of canvas paper along with the main support. A thimble is a good thing. I use one a lot with my bead embroidery anyway, otherwise I end up with the needle going into my finger eye first just a little bit too often and my finger tip gets sore. I stab myself with needles often enough as it is.

I liked the fact that the dragons in the photos looked like the edges of their scales and other bits were gilded so I took some silver sequins and used a permanent metallic gold marker and colored half of the edge with it. I really like how it looks. With my silver 15s and my gold charlottes they look sort of regal and blingy. I am definitely a glitter girl I love crystals and AB and metallic finishes. I have worked with crystal sequins before but this is my first time with regular sequins. You can't overlap the crystal ones and need doubled Fireline.

I am working on my columns at the moment because the adhesive I used is not holding them down real well and I don't want to risk them tearing. After that I will work on attaching the border ribbon to the front. It will be easier to know where some of the beading goes after I get that on.

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A Place of Calm and Contemplation

I am sort of looking at my August page a place for calm and contemplation. While in Japan I fell in love with the idea of a covered porch where you could sit and enjoy nature.

I didn't have any digital photos of the wonderful wood porches we sat on in Japan looking at gardens or relaxing as we waited for the rain to stop. The sense of peace and rightness of those settings still offers it's calmness through my memories.

The porch I chose as my calm spot for this piece was from one of the smaller mansions in Newport. The Dragon roof supports are from the front porch of the same house. The pond with it's rainbow are from Sisson Pond that I visited almost weekly for the entire year of 2005 documenting the changes as the seasons changed.

I combined them to make a dream porch where I could go mentally to find calm and contemplate the transformation that I am embarking on. As I add more physical activity and other changes in my life I have a feeling that a place that I can mentally go to just "be" will hold a certain appeal. I am not sure what else this piece will mean to me as I begin working on it but am looking forward to finding out.

Now to the how's and what's of the piece. The pond is printed onto Cre8 fabric "paper" The porch and the dragon supports are printed onto an paper by Canson that is designed for acrylic painting that I got from Michaels. It came as 9" x 12" and I cut it down to fit the printer. It looks a little like canvas but is cheaper than "canvas paper". It was easy to print on and I don't think it will be hard to bead through. I sprayed the printed pages of "canvas" with poly-acrylic to protect the surface. I cut away the sections I didn't want (the background on the porch etc) and glued the layers together. I made the second dragon support a separate piece that I will bead and then add so that it will add a little more dimension to the piece. You can see the piece with and with out the 2nd dragon in the photos. I added a bit of added color with markers although most of it will be covered up with beads and/or sequins.

Did I mention that I am going to try using sequins for the first time? I have seen some really neat pages that people are doing using sequins and thought that they would make really great scales for my dragon.

I changed the photos out for the end of July so that you can see them better and that they will actually enlarge so that you can see the details better. I am still working out how big the photos files should be. Hope that they work better now.

As for the first day of the new plan, life or however you want to look at it; the day went well, the gym went well and my mental outlook is very positive. To read more check out my Artistic Kreations and Passions Blog For everyone who is cheering me on Thanks and for those of you who are joining from afar good luck as we set out to transform our lives.

Love and Blessings to you all, Angie

July Journal

I finished the journal that gos with my July bead journal project page. Learning things doing the journals as well. I think it will be interesting at the end of the year to go back and look at these. It is the same information that is in my blog although arranged differently and my blog has more information but is a much different experience to reading the information on the tags, pulling them out of their pockets etc.