Honu in Beads

Each of my pieces will be backed with a piece of dark purple felt. It will act as a frame so that the pieces will stand out from the collage and also give me a more substantial surface to work with. I also found that the stitching gives it a quilted look which I like.

Since I started planning this project I started looking for beads that I thought could work. Mostly this had included looking for leaf and flower beads I knew that I was going to include a honu and when I saw these mother of pearl shell beads I knew they would be perfect for the shell of the honu. I bought them in both a green and a beige. They were the first thing I added to this piece. Sort of like a puzzle I had to figure out what pieces would fit where to stay on the shell of the turtle. I filled in the rest of the shell with 15/0 beads so that the shell read as a whole better.

The next thing I added was the gold 15/0 beads as ripples in the water. I used the gold ripples of paint as a guide. I added a crystal sequin for the eye of the turtle. At this point it was time to follow my instinct. I considered adding more beads to the turtle but felt that I would lose the painting and overwhelm the piece. Instead I chose to add stitching to accentuate the scale like surfaces. I quickly found that satin stitch with cotton embroidery floss was perfect for the look I was after. I added variegated rayon thread to edge all of the scales. The last step was more ripples with more variegated rayon thread. I really love my block.

Turtles are connected to the feminine and are a symbol of the primal mother. They are a symbol of heaven and earth and help you unite the two in your life. They remind you that Mother Earth provides you with all of your needs and to take time for yourself.

They are keepers of the doors to the Faerie Realm. They help you awaken the senses on a physical and spiritual level and tell you when to go with the flow. They help you connect with your most primal essence letting you know when you need to go within your shell and only come out when your ideas are ready to expressed.

For my Sacred Tree piece part of what they are symbolizing for me is mothers. All mothers from my mother and mother-in-law to all of the other woman who have adopted me into their lives and given me support and love as I have lived in different areas. Also the motherhood of birthing new ideas and letting that creativity out into the world.

My Web Gallery- Includes photos of both of my BJP pages
Artistic Kreations and Passions- my website

BJP Website (my 2007-8 pieces)

Honu Swimming

It has almost taken me longer to get this piece posted than it do to do the piece. I swear it seems like my brain has melted lately. After 2 1/5 months of constant headaches I guess it makes sense although doesn't make it any more fun. I have been doing Physical therapy which is helping some.

On to more pleasant thoughts, Since this is the first block of the year I got to see if I would enjoy painting my blocks and then see about how I wanted to bead them. Like the photos that I used last year part of the challenge for this year will be balancing out the painting and the beading. I will also be using embroidery for the finer details.

I am using a poplin weight fabric as my "canvas". My first step was to prime it with acrylic medium. I am using Fluid acrylics mostly for my painting along with some of the different Jacquard brand fabric paints. This one was particularly easy to do since I didn't have any background details (like branches or roots) to include. I just sat down and had fun making a watery world for my honu to swim in. I layered a couple of different layers of techniques. One of the things I really like about the fluid acrylics is that you can treat them almost like watercolors. I enjoy working with watercolors but knew doing handwork on watercolors wouldn't work well.



After painting my background I copied my honu onto medium weight interfacing and painted it. using a separate layer for my honu allowed me to not have to mask out the space for it on my painting and to work in a more fluid way on the background. After she was painted I cut out my honu and then collaged her onto the background and then covered the whole piece with a coat of a thinned Lumiere paint which gave the hole a glistening quality like water.

I have a lot of information on symbolism of honu/turtles and will split it between the two posts for this piece. Honu is what the Hawaiians call the green sea turtles. We lived in Hawaii for 2 years (there are some nice advantages to moving with the military.) We went snorkeling a fair amount and found my times swimming with the Honu amazingly spiritual. I always felt calmer when I was with them. If you were calm and just being they would let you swim along with you often within touching distance. Since many of them are 4-5 feet long it is inspiring. I have them swim right towards me like they were as curious about me as I was about them. We have several pieces of art that include honu and they still call to me.

Sea Turtles symbolize the bravery of the young. They have a connection to the moon. They represent the ability to travel long distances to reach home (seems pretty appropriate with all of the moving and traveling I have done as a military spouse). They remind you of your duty to the completion of your life path. They symbolize wisdom, longevity, patience, tenacity, self-reliance and carrying your home on your back.

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.

Free to Fly

'So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land! - Peter Pan


Finished on time, my September page fills me full of happiness and sets my heart to flying. Full of light and love my Spirit Guides are helping me with my transformation and giving me wings to soar.


If you want to see the photo albums for my finished pages and inspiration photos for my upcoming months visit my Bead Journal Project section of my new website Artistic Kreations and Passions.

The 13th Dragonfly

In she flies, full of fun and excitement ready to lead me on the path my life is following. She encourages my transformations reminding me how beautiful I am inside and out and that I can do and be anything I want to. I am not surprised by her wonderful crystal wings glittering in purples. The color of creativity and royalty (and my favorite) she is the queen dragonfly. She stands out from the rest of the crowd ready to share her wisdom and love with those who need her.
Our 13th beauty has wings made with right angle weave in 3 mm Swarovski Crystals. I love the bling and sparkle of crystals. She has wire through the edges of her wings and joining her body sections together. After all of the pieces were together I made small slits in my page and fed her legs to the back so they could be tacked down. For once I remembered to photograph the back of my piece before putting it together so you can see what one looks like.

Spiral Vines

For those of you who have been reading my previous posts you may look at the photos and say 'Hey weren't there going to be herringbone vines on this page?' Yes there were but when I laid one of my vines on the page the dragonflies rebelled and threatened to fly off the page. The herringbone vining was to heavy for the page and visually weighed it down and changed the mood.


The day before my Inner Child had been doodling and made one of our favorite doodles curly cue vines with leaves and flowers and the dragonflies decided that those where a much better choice fun and fanciful without weighing down the mood of the page. So sharpie in hand we added spiraling vines and then beaded them . The herringbone stitch made it onto the page in a different way. I added a backstitched border to the page and off of that I added herringbone strips that will be wrapped around the edges to the back.

Creating on the Fly

They seem to like the attention and more progress is made. I guess we will have to play to figure out the next step. mmmm.....

Flitting, flighty and Fun.

This page is moving right along for me. The dragonflies know what they want and tell me. They are happy that I am including them in the journey. The mood of this piece is more carefree than any of my previous pages. I have beaded bezels for each of my dragonfly "cabochons." The next step will be to edge come of the yellow flower petals from the large photo. I am working on making some herringbone vines that I will add on to the page. I love texture and dimension and it is showing some in all of my pages. You can see why my original theme was "Details" I have always loved taking photos and sketching the details around me. I adore detail work which is probably why beading is such a good fit, and why I love 15/0 seed beads.

Birthing a Dragonfly

My pages until this point have only included photos taken during the month they represent, they could be from any year. September started out this way but from the start I had bugs on the brain. As the Dragonflies flew into my consciousness they also decided that they were claim this page as there own and thus they appear to one and all ready to guide us through our transformations.

I chose one photo to be my 4"x6" photo and while I was figuring out how I wanted to do the others and how many others where going to visit I remembered the 2" x 2" glass slides I had bought for this as well as the clear round slightly domed stickers that I had gotten at Jo-Ann's Fabrics and Crafts. I had printed out all of my choices in 2" x 3" size so that I could think about them and realized that they were already the correct size for what I wanted to do. I ended up with more dragonflies than I might have originally chosen but they all clamored to be on the page.

For the moment there are 12 dragonflies but I have a feeling a 13th one will show up before the page is through. When you are born on Friday the 13th in October it is hard to feel that 13 is an unlucky number. Since my 40th is just over a month away maybe this page has significance. Maybe this transformation is my form of midlife crisis, not so much a crisis as a taking stock of where I am at and finding my way into my future.

As for the title of this post it comes from the photo of the dragonfly in the upper right hand corner. When we were in New England camping one time, we were taking down our tent where we had been near a lake and right next to the tent was a brand new dragonfly. They live for 2 years in the water before becoming the winged wonders we so enjoy. On a weed was this dragonfly just free from it's casing with new untried wings waiting to dry in the sunlight. I think that in many ways I am at that point in my life brand new wings that I am getting ready to try out.

Blessings to you all and remember to fly high and reach for your dreams. Love Angie