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

Butterflies Spring Up

Here it is April already and only this page and one more to do before this year of the Bead Journal project is over.

My April page is very similar in feel to my September page, this time it is Butterflies that are showing up as a symbol of transformation. The photos are from our trip to Montreal and the butterfly house at the Botanical Gardens there.

It was an amazing experience to be in and among all of the butterflies. One of those times when you step out of yourself and become one with nature. I have found that all of what I consider my most spiritual moments have come from being with nature. Swimming with dolphins (in the wild), Honu (green sea turtles) and other fish; watching lava flow yards away from me; and other experiences like that.

It is kind of funny that I find nature and the earth my greatest inspiration and yet if I mow the yard I itch from head to toe, I have a brown thumb, and bugs absolutely love me. Sometimes it is strange how life works out.

The red stylized butterfly was a piece that I started when I was teaching a class at Turquoise String Beads in Massachusetts. I had never gotten around to finishing it but as I started thinking about putting this page together I thought of it. I liked that the red of it picks up the red in the flower and the top-left butterfly.

One of the early decisions for this piece was to pick what I wanted to do for the border, after some discussions with Wayne and pulling out my bin of ribbons, I chose to make the border from some thin ribbons and threads couched onto the piece. I used a jade ribbon for the main edge and used a metallic variegated thread to attach it, outside of that is a heavy metallic thread that is couched on with a rayon thread. I have repeated this on the back. Once the whole piece is glued together I will put a thin red ribbon on along the outside edge attaching it to both the front and back edges.

This piece will have less thread work than any of my last few pieces. After attaching the borders and finishing the beading on my abstract butterfly I attached it to the piece, I had originally intended to bead the whole surface but I liked the way the red Ultrasuede looked so I left some of it showing. I used beading to edge some of the leaves and flower petals and extended the lines so that they brought the fabric more into the design.

Next came some dark green metallic thread to trace the edges of some of the leaves in the lower right photo. As of these photos, this is where we stand. For some reason this piece isn't coming as intuitively as the last couple did but I am very pleased with it's bright happy feeling.

I haven't mentioned it yet but there is good news on a couple of levels for the Bead Journal Project. First we will be doing it for another year (YEAH!!!) The 2008 BJP will start in September and if anyone is reading this who isn't already involved in the current BJP the registration is open until August 15th, 2008. You do not have to have any experience in bead embroidery, although the pieces do need to include some beading. We had some absolutely new beaders do it this year and they all learned a lot and got to try out new things. Probably just as exciting is the fact that Pink Moon Hallow has created an incredible website for the Bead Journal Project. Each of the participants from 2007 who finished 8 or more pages will even get their own page with photos of them and links to their blogs, websites etc. I just need to get my act together and get all of my photos the correct size etc.

Beach Combing

I continued to work on this piece layer by layer. Next I added more stone chips to the piece. Now it was time to add what Wayne calls my sea weed ( the fringing with seed beads and pearls that come out of the openings in 3 of the larger shells.

At this point it was time to add the KEY to the piece. If you read the posts for my July piece with it's gate with lock, I said that I expected that somewhere during the year a key to that gate would show up. The actual key came from Marti (my mother-in-law) when I visited in November. This page seemed to me to be the one calling for the key. Now I can open my gate and go on the journey. I have already grown so much in the last year with this project that I can't wait to see how it all ends up.

The piece was now ready for a sprinkling of sand. I used 15/0 seed beads in several shades of creams and topazes for the sand and also used some small MOP (mother of Pearl) heishi beads and some small pearls. The sand was almost as easy to add as if I had indeed just grabbed a handful and sprinkled it on, it felt right.

The last addition to the page was the border. I decided to go with a cord made with Kumihimo braiding. This is a Japanese braiding technique that I have played with but this is the first time it is actually being used on a piece. I used 12 cords of hemps and waxed cotton. The nice thing is with the new foam kumihimo "looms" you can do the braiding anywhere including on car trips up to DC to look at new seats for the car. After sewing the cord onto the front and back I added a band of peyote to cover up the ends and Viola! another page I am thrilled with. Very me.

At the Beach

This piece is actually finished and was my fastest finished (only 9 days). I started it on the last day of March after I had finished my Pond Necklace. I haven't taken photos of it finished yet, but thought I would share these and some of the process now. Last March when Wayne's folks came for their visit we explored some of St Mary's County and one of our stops took us to a beach were I collected a few treasures and took some photos. I love beach combing and Wayne knows that I will always be coming home with "treasures." I have even made small watercolor paintings of some of my treasures that became cards.
Once I knew that I was going to use this photo for March I kept an eye out for shell beads to include and found some interesting shells here and there. I started this piece by adding straight embroidery/stitching with threads to accentuate the pine cone, pine needles and other small bits. The next step was adding the cords for the sticks. At this point I decided that I needed to choose where I would place my "treasures" so that the rest of the piece could flow around them. I chose pieces that weren't too deep and that I could add with some invisible thread and glue since I didn't want them to be bezeled.
I laid out stone chips and some of the shell beads and started adding them to the piece. I chose the smaller chips to go further back (toward the top) and larger closer to the viewer. That takes us as far as the photos go so I will talk about the rest once I get my other photos taken.

I find it interesting how I work in a couple of different ways depending on the piece. Some of my pages I will work on one area and then another on the piece. Pages like this I work in layers adding one type of embellishment and then another working on the whole piece. In ways I find this more satisfying, I think because I see the whole page developing as I go and not one area at a time.

Final Polish

I actually finished this page about 2 weeks ago but getting the house cleaned up and a visit from Wayne's folks have keep me pretty busy and catching up on my Artistic Kreations and Passions website, my Web Gallery and working on my Pond Necklace has also taken a bit of time.

This page has the most embroidery without beads of any of my pages so far and it is one of my favorites. It could be partially the subject matter, the fact that I used some of my treasures on it or the very textural quality of it.

I used a couple of different stitches in 11/0 and 15/0 seed beads for the moss, some lone seed beads for a bit of rock gravel, and a bit of fringing for the lichen. I made a spiral herringbone vine for the border.

Treasures

I decided that for my February and upcoming March pages that I would include some of my "treasures" on the pages. While out and about hiking, walking along beaches etc I like to pick up interesting rocks, shells, glass and other little treasures. I have a table in our bedroom that is my "Sacred Space". I have my art doll Arabella who acts as my muse on it as well as other pieces that I have made and purchased that are beautiful, inspiring, or otherwise caught my eye. On this table I keep my treasures that I have found over the years.

The close up of the rocks and moss seemed like the perfect place to include some of the smaller rocks and bits of glass. All of them were glued on and then secured with some 15/0 seed beads. Finally some seed beads made it onto the page. The piece is actually almost finished I just need to work on the border and take some more photos. I have added many more beads but haven't lost the feel of the page. I think it may be one of my favorites so far. I should finish the piece today or tomorrow and then I will try to get my finished piece up here.

I finished my 3-D Iris for my Pond Necklace if you want to check it out.

Nary a Bead in Sight

The month of February is over half over and so far not a single bead has made it on to my page.

The top photo is the piece before any embellishments were added. One of my many pond photos this was a close up to capture the details that so fascinate me. I have added a lot of stitching to add texture to the piece. I am really enjoying how the piece is coming along.

My next step is to add the small rocks and bits of glass that are going on and then add the beaded embellishments. I am thinking of adding an Ndebele vine to the edge, sort of like the one I used for October.



A few cord twigs made their way onto this page as well as all of the stitching, the last few pieces definitely have things in common. It is very interesting to see how I approach each page because I picked out most of these images months ago. I picked pieces that I thought I could embellish with beads but didn't have specific plans for most of them.






















Besides this page I have also started a new piece so that I can enter it for Bead Dreams, If you wish to see the start of it visit my main blog. (Artistic Kreations and Passions Blog)

A Cold and Barren Place/ Winter's Details

January got an early start because I knew I would be flying back to Maryland on Jan 2nd and then Wayne would be coming back from Iraq on the 5th. With 6 weeks of mail, a husband home, and a vacation to spend time together I knew that I would have 2-3 weeks where I would have little or no time to work on my page. I got a decent start on it while I was still in Iowa and then didn't get back to it for at least a couple of weeks.

January started with 2 large stones to go with the picture of the pile of rocks. I put them in first because I wanted to know where I was putting them for the design but realized as I worked that maybe it would have been better to pencil them in and add them at the end. They are a bit heavy and made the page a bit awkward to work on.




I chose the background fabric because it looked like ice cracking on a pond to me, I chose to accentuate that by outlining the edges of the patterns with the Sulky Sliver thread that I used on December's page.

Like the previous months January has cord branches to be couched down. I like that in most of these pieces that the cord branches join the parts of the page together, they help move the eye around the piece.

I used very small star shaped sequins for my flowers and surprisingly enough Wayne was suggesting I use more of them. He liked the way they looked. Wayne is always reminding me that "More is not always Better." I used the wrap around beaded border that I had used for my July page picking up the gold/amber and blue colors of the page. Having a solidly beaded border works really well with a page that doesn't have a lot of other beads on it.

Cold and Snow/ And the World Glistens

December found me still on my journeys away from Maryland. I spent the the entire month with my folks and got to spend time seeing my family. I went shopping with my Mom, went to several musical productions, sang with the church choir, visited both Grandmas in their Nursing homes and had 4 Christmases (that doesn't include the one with Wayne when I got home).

I started my December once I got to Iowa. I manged to have really good timing weather wise. I got there 2 days after and ice storm and before more bad weather the next day. The photo I had chosen for the month seemed so appropriate with ice and snow all around. We had typical Midwest winter weather, snow, ice, and somewhat unusual lots of fog some of it lasting all day long. Although the weather is challenging to live in and travel in it is still pretty. The whole word glistens with ice and snow and hoar frost.

I wanted to use lots of stitching to portray the texture and accentuate the branches. I used Sulky sliver thread in a translucent white the capture the glistening of the light on the ice and snow on the pond. I thought it would be challenging to do hand stitching with this thread but it actually was great. The only slight catch was that if you pulled to tight the thread would break. In the right light the effect is perfect. The snowflakes I found as accents at Michaels. They are just plastic and not a button or bead but with some sliver thread they are invisibly attached.

The photo was so striking that I didn't want to distract from it too much so I kept the beading and accents somewhat minimalistic for me (I tend to be a more is better kind of girl).
The foot prints along the bottom right of the photo where mine as I was the first person who had walked here after the snow. I tried beading them but I lost the fact that they were foot prints and I undid them.

The border I kept fairly simple as well and just used a cord/branch to surround the page. The page has the least amount of beading of any of my pages thus far but the effect was really good for winter when the whole world feels much more stark and bare and yet has a beauty all its own.

Connecting To The Earth

November got printed up and the front and back ready to be worked on as were all of the rest of my upcoming pages but after that it sat for a few weeks. Early November found me working on getting my Christmas cards far enough along that I could send them to my parents where I would finish them. I also had to get ready to leave for the holidays. I decided that since Wayne would be gone for the holidays and I have no family in the area that I would go spend the holidays with family. I spent 2 weeks with Wayne's folks and then a month with mine.

Being gone from home that long meant that I had to figure out what all I was going to want to use on my pages for November through Jan. That was very challenging.






I flew to Kentucky the 19th of November and after getting in safe and sound started on my November page. I worked on it around a trip to Chicago and all of the other activities that I did with Wayne's folks. I had a great time with them and since Wayne's Mom Marti is a Quilt Artist she was very helpful with advice and lots of encouragement. She also gave me some supplies that I could use including the metallic ribbons that make up the border of this page.



November I continued using leather and cotton cords couched down for branches, it is actually a trend you will see in the next months as well. November also sees the start of another trend that will continue into the next months and I think into some of my future work and that is including more hand stitching to add texture and details to my pages. It is harder to see from a distance but up close I think it really does add to the piece(s).

When I first start picking out photos for Novembers pages I realized that I had several interesting photos of milk weed pods opening up to disperse their seeds. Immediately the idea of using feathers to portray the fluffy part of the seed came to mind. This provided a challenge in how to do it but I love the way it looks. The seeds had a bit of a do-over because I tried something I ended up not liking so that came out and seed beads, French knots and a bit of other stitches went in.

Even though I didn't start my November page until the 20th I still managed to get it finished before I headed to Iowa on the 3rd of December.

Where It's At

Although most of my life is behind and I have a long list of things I really need to catch up on I have been keeping on track with my BJP pages. The picture is how they look up through January. February is right on track for the time being. Currently I have them hanging chronologically Left-Right but may change that to Top-Bottom, we will see which I like better when they are all done. I am still loving the process and think that you can see changes to how I am approaching the pages and my art as you look through the pages.

November Preview

It has been kind of an insane month so far and I have done no beading except while I taught 2 classes at Bead Boutique my LBS. I have not been good about my exercise program in the last 2 weeks although I have done some pilates. I will have to see if I can't get better once I get on the road.

Here is the start of my page but nary a bead in sight, actually some of them have been shipped off to my first stop on my trip. It is interesting trying to pick out all of the beads I think I may want for the next couple of months before I have added one bead to the piece. I think it would be even harder if I was doing the intuitive pieces where I just put down one bead and go with the flow. At least I can look at the photos and decide I need this color or might want this bead etc.

I have all of the pages for the rest of the months at this point so if you would like to see them go to the Bead Journal part of my website and check out the photo albums for the upcoming months. It will give you an idea of where my journey is headed. I have updated a few other things on my website as well including adding a section for the collages that I have been making to turn in to greeting cards.

I will try to post updates as I go and will try to include photos if I can. The really good news is that Wayne should be home very soon after I get back from my trip. I expect January to be a wonderful month.

Journals, Keeping Track of the Journey

Here there are 3 months of journals all worked on at the same time. I also made the cards for these months at the same time. Since I will be traveling for 1/2 of Nov and all of Dec and hopefully getting a husband back sometime in January I have a feeling that my next 3 journals may likewise get worked on as a group. I will take my camera along so I will have during photos although it will be interesting to see how easy or hard it is to keep up on the blogs while I am traveling. The writing shouldn't be hard I am just not sure about the photos. will see how it works out when the time goes. I am learning new tricks on the Mac and with it my tags are a good place to try new things.

August Finished

It had it's own pace to get finished and has provided me with many hours of enjoyment and contemplation. It is my perfect place to sit and be quiet.

This page is my most dimensional month and is fun to touch and you can move the plant around a little bit. Maybe someday I will be lucky enough to have a porch something like this one where I can sit out and just be.