Finding a Voice

Although she has been done for a while now I am a bit behind in blogging about my beautiful magpie friend. She is bright-eyed and happy to finally get to meet you all. Life seems to keep getting in the way of my blogging and I am sorry that I have been so preoccupied with life.

Seeing a magpie is good luck. This member of the crow family teaches communication and the use of your voice. Understanding the balance of light and darkness, they help one see in darkness. Magpies are highly adaptable and have strong social organization skills.

Curious and somewhat impudent those with the magpie as their animal have a will of their own. Magpies will steal anything they can carry off and teach us the skill of using what ever you can find. The use of what is on hand; may reflect in a ‘dabbling’ pattern in your life.

Magpies symbolize intelligence showing the proper use of knowledge and intelligence and how to use what you have. They help you advance your knowledge although the knowledge is often incomplete. You may gain what you desire from the use of knowledge, but it may come in an obtuse or unusual way.

Magpies show us how to use ritual in everyday life. They help us to understand messages from spirit and the proper use of animals as familiars and occult knowledge. If the magpie is your animal you can use whatever metaphysical knowledge that you have and are able to open up as a person to new realms as simply and quickly as possible. You should not look for quick easy methods of attainment through occult knowledge. Seeing or dreaming of magpies usually indicates that you are going to encounter the spirit realm and metaphysical world in a different manner.

The flowers in this block were to represent my love of lilacs, my favorite flowering tree. In my mind they will always be tied to my Grandmother who had beautiful full lilacs in her front yard. The smell of them when they bloomed was amazing. As I write this she has just recently passed. I am so glad that I included a memory of her in BJP while she was still alive, her love of plants and knowledge were always inspiring. Once we start landscaping for our new house I will try to include lilacs because they always remind me of her.

June Magpie takes flight

June goes to the birds or in this case to one bird. The magpie is one of my spirit animals and she has decided to visit us on my sacred tree.

I started working on her on our way back from Boston in the end of July. She wanted nice feathers so using feathers I had purchased years ago at Michaels I couched her feathers down. I am sure there were people in the airport and plane wondering what in the world I was up to.

Although a magpie's tail is not so fluffy and fanned out she liked hers that way so they will stay a burst of blue to help us steer and balance we go through life.

I used a crystal sequin for her eye and then beaded her head in blue to black size 15 seed beads.

The Journal.

Friday, June 29, 2007




Not only have I had fun creating my June page, I enjoyed making the journal to go with it. I have pretty much finished it. I still need to do an "About the Artist" bit and I have 2 tags that I can add to if I want.

I think each of the journals will end up as unique as each page will. Although my original idea of putting them into a pocket on the back won't work I am going to continue working on them. I will probably make a box for them to go into once they are finished. I have started the card to go into the back pocket, just need to figure out what I want to say on the card. Probably a synopsis of what I have on the tags.



I am thrilled with how the tags turned out. I used purchased tags and then used water soluble oil pastels to sketch on them. I printed out what I wanted to say on to a vellum with a leaf pattern on it and then attached it to the tag with vellum tape. You can still see the sketching through the vellum and I couldn't have asked for it to turn out better. I attached a green printed paper to the back and then added small prints of my piece in progress or the details of it. Looking at it you can't even tell the original booklet was light blue.

The Last Stitch

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Yesterday I finished the last stitches on my June Page and am thrilled with how it turned out. I have learned so much on this month and have expanded my available methods of expression. I have never used my photography with my beading and it included challenges of figuring out how to add the beading with out loosing the essence of the photograph.





















I also spent a majority of my time yesterday working on the journal that will go with my page. I learned something, you should make sure that your pocket is big enough for your journal, that said; since my journal seems to have gotten a bit bigger than originally anticipated it won't really do well in the pocket when the piece is hanging on the wall. My solution to this is that I will do a journal for the month but for the pocket I will make a card with some of the information on it. The journals will be separate from the BJP pages.





I played with different techniques for the journals so far. The most fun was trying out the water soluble oil pastels that I bought while shopping for things Wayne needed for deployment. I used my inspiration photos as guides and did some loose sketches onto tags that will be covered with a patterned vellum that I have printed my journal entries on. Mostly this months tells about the project, my goals and some of the techniques I used. I will add photos of the journal when it is finished in the next day or two. July's idea has hatched and I am starting it's journalso that you can follow the path with me if you want.

Almost Finished

Tuesday, June 19, 2007



I think that I am almost finished with the top for the June page of my BJP. I just have to decide if I want to add more rayon backstitching. My first instinct is to leave it (my husband would be amazed, my tendency is more is better) but I will let it go a few days and live with it and see what I think then.

In the meantime I am going to sew the sleeve for hanging it up and the pocket for the journal booklet started. I have also been playing with some ideas for July's page and will probably start my photo album and journal for that soon.

Evolution

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Considering Wayne has only been gone a couple of days I have gotten a fair amount accomplished on my page. I found the rectangle beads in shades of gray/black at the local Michaels and thought they would be fun way to play with the gray lines on the fabric. I also added some embroidery work with Rayon threads for some of the photos where the details were too small even for 15/0 beads. Since I used the fleece and EZ-felt behind the piece is starting to have a quilted look which gives it even more dimension. I have more work to do with Rayon and need to figure out what I am going to do with the one photo I haven't embellished yet. More Experimenting! I need to put in a little time getting the back made and work on the journal for it. The page will definitely be done by the end of the month but I am not quite so sure about the journal for this month. I guess no one said that had to be done by the end of the month.

Back to Work

Saturday, June 16, 2007



Well Wayne is gone now (for 6-7 months) and yesterday and today I am pretty much doing whatever I feel like doing which means that I have been spending part of my time working on my June page. It has come along further since I took the photos this afternoon but will continue to put on newer photos as I go.

I have found it interesting figuring out how I want to add the beads and still keep the photos as an integral part of the design. I am having a lot of fun and the beading is developing as I go.


After dropping Wayne off yesterday I stopped at Big Lots and found some 4 x 6 inch accordion fold books that I am going to use to make a little journal that will go on the back of my page. I bought 13 of them (1 extra) since they were only $2 each. I am sure they will look very different once I get each one finished. I can't remember who mentioned the idea of putting a journal page in a pocket on the back. I think it would be great to mention inspirations, new techniques and other things. The back of my quilt will have a sleeve for hanging and a pocket for the journal.

I have started going through my digital photos and started to get them organized and start narrowing down the field for the photos(s) that I will use for July.

A Pause

Friday, June 8, 2007



I don't expect to get much beading done in the next week or so. I won't have Wayne home for much longer and this is our last weekend (as far as I know). We have to get all of his stuff organized and packed and all of the last minute things around the house done that I need his help for.

I need to put a little time into my Swarovski Flower project for this years contest. It is coming along nicely but the entry is in a little over a month and I need to keep spending time on it at least here and there. I also have class instructions to write for my first 2 beading classes at the bead store that is closest to us (50 min away).

I think I will hang my piece up on my beading wall and when I have time I will add a bit here and there. I can add to it as I see what it asks for. The really nice thing is that I can put in a short amount of time once in a while and it keeps progressing.

I have been checking out some of the blogs of the other 240+ beaders in the project and it is really neat to see what people are coming up with and some of the really great ideas that people have.

As it Evolves

Wednesday, June 6, 2007



It is really neat to watch my piece as it evolves. I really don't have much of a plan for the bead work on the piece. I am deciding as I go along. I planned out the layout of the background and photos but am letting the photos and such dictate where to put the beads. As I finish working on one idea I look for the next. I have no idea how much beading will end up on my piece. I want it to enhance the photos. I took some more photos of the piece but am having troubles getting the colors to turn out true. It is too windy today to try taking photos outside. I am spending time here and there working on the beading but with Wayne leaving in about a week I may not get as much time to work on it. I also need to write a set of class instructions for the class I am supposed to teach on the 19th and work some more on my entry for the Swarovski contest.

Let the Beading Begin

Monday, June 4, 2007

On Saturday I went through lots of fabrics and trims and chose ones that I thought would be good for this month's piece and possibly future pieces. After going through my selections a couple of times I found the fabric that I wanted. I then decided to add fusible fleece to the back of the fabric and made a sub-straight out of EZ-Felt. I wrapped the fabric around that and whip stitched them together. I chose a woven ribbon to border the piece and hand stitched that on. I printed my photos onto a piece of June Tailor Quick Fuse after arranging them and sizing them on the computer. (I love my i-Mac) Sunday I cut them out and trimmed a few of them and then ironed them onto the piece. Then it was time to start the fun stuff, picking out beads and start beading. I started with my largest photo because I had an idea of what I wanted to do with them. I am just working as I decide what I want in an area and will add as I figure this out. I am thrilled with how things are going and although this months will be a little less mixed media than I am hoping some of my later months will be. I am trying new things and hope they will lead me in new directions.

June BJP Start

Well here goes, we are working on the web-page, the journal page and everything all at once and hopefully even though Wayne will be leaving within the next 2 weeks I will get a good start on all of this. Yesterday I spent time working on my BJP pages for the website but I also started working on the ideas for the piece. I had already started to narrow down the photos that I wanted to use for the page and yesterday I decided to go with 7 images and played with how I wanted to lay them out. I love playing with ideas and had fun playing with where I want this piece to go. There are still plenty of decisions to make and lots of things I will let happen as I go along. After I finish this and writing in my main blog I will go to my craft room and start looking through fabrics and trims to figure out where I want to go with my images this month.