I Blossom As I Fly Free

It has taken me longer to get the second post up for this page than it did to do it. I can't believe how it time just flew by. Four days, start to finish. OK the cord for the border was already made and it was printed out and everything was ready to start but it still went really quick. I think the big things were that it didn't have much thread work (just the couching of cords on) and I didn't use many seed beads. As the year went by when I saw leaf beads especially on sale I bought them and I used a lot of them up on this. This page has been a really pleasure to work on and it looks so much like spring to me, life in bloom. Blooming flowers to begin and end my BJP year. The blossoming of friendships and artistic talents that so many of us have experienced in this last year together.


I still have work to do since I need to put the information (title, name etc) on the backs of the pieces. I also need to make the cards and journals for the November to May pieces which will take me awhile. I have things I need to do before I start on those but I expect that after Wayne and I get back from our trip (to Bead International and a few other places) that I will get to work on that. Luckily I have until September to get them finished and get ready to start a new year.

I need to get photos ready to send in for our website and Flickr and a few other things. If you want to see more photos I have updated my Artistic Kreations and Passions website, my Web Gallery, and the BJP section of my website.

I will try to spend some time on fleshing out my ideas and see about posting some of it here. Just a teaser to make you want to check back before next years BJP starts, in case the cards and journals are not temptation enough.

Last Month

I can't believe this is my last piece for the 2007-2008 Bead Journal Project. I would have thought I would be dragging my heals on this piece not wanting it to be over. I guess in a way it isn't going to be since starting in September we will be doing it again. If you are interested in joining us for the 2008-9 BJP please go to the website and register. I know I have grown tremendously as an artist this last year, thanks again to Robin Atkins who had this wonderful idea and is a great friend and inspiration to all of us.

The first photo is where I started, it is two photos taken a few years apart but they go together perfectly. Wayne suggested I not use a border on this page but I ignored him and used a piece of Kumihimo braiding for the border. I happened to have a piece already made that was perfect so it was just a matter of sewing it on.
Like several of my other pieces this year I used leather cords to represent the branches. They add a nice dimension to the pieces and look more realistic than beads would for the branches. On my first day of working I got the border on and almost all of the cording added. On day two I finished the cording before taking the second photo.

The second day saw me spending most of my beading time working on the flowers for the page. I used faceted glass beads, flower pressed glass beads, a handful of oval beads and some seed beads to make the flowers. By the end of day 2 I had all of the flowers added.
The title of this piece is going to be "I Blossom As I Fly Free" The imagery for this page is perfect for where I am creatively at this moment. I find it really amazing that I picked out the photos for most of my pages in July and yet they are perfect for where I am at the present time. If the last few had been in a different order they wouldn't have been correct for where I was at the time. Either I subconsciously knew where I was going to be when or someone was guiding my hand on my choices. Both blossoming flowers and flying free represent where I am as I start the next phase of my creative life. At the current rate I should finish this page in a record for me of 4 days. I have spent quite a few hours each of the days so far but the page is so full of joy and freedom that it hasn't been hard at all.

Transformation Intensified

Although this piece is like September's piece a lot in it's feel and focus it was interesting in that I had a harder time deciding what I wanted to do. The butterflies were the most challenging since I had a hard time deciding how much beading I wanted to do to them.

Before I did the butterflies I worked on the flowers. I used cream and yellow seed beads for the small flowers in the lower right. For the top flowers I edged the flowers with iridescent thread and then chose to add beads to those that which would be closer to the viewer and beaded the centers of the petals. For the large center flower I combined my original idea for beading (beading individual petals) with Wayne's idea (beading bands of colors across multiple petals) and ended up beading sections of each petal but varying where on the petal I was beading moving in and out. I ended up liking how that turned out better than I think I would have either of the original ideas.

Next came the butterflies and it took a bit of thought to figure out what I wanted to do for each. I wanted to accentuate each butterfly without burying them. They didn't seem to want too many beads so they got their accents pretty quickly. After beading on the pocket and sleeve to the back I glued the two sides together and then added the red ribbon to the side and the butterflies are happily hanging on the wall with the other pages.


Here you go Robin hope this shows what I did better, Angie