Taking the First Step

It is the end of a month that has required that I look at my life and make some decisions about where I am going and how I can get there. Although I have good discipline when it comes to my art I have never shown that same will power and strength when it has come to taking care of myself physically. The truth is I know that it has an impact on other parts of my life including my creativity. I have decided to take the bull by the horns if you will and make my health and taking care of myself a larger priority. To this end I am planning on working on improving my diet and starting to add more physical activities to my life.

The world seems to be looking out for me in this goal because my landlady and friend Colleen has also decided to make this a larger priority in her life also and we are going to try being exercise buddies. I think that having someone else with similar goals and someone to be accountable to will help both of us. We start tomorrow morning.

I am sure with several more months to contemplate my life and goals and time to slowly implement new positive changes to my life that by the time my husband gets back that I will developed some new good habits and that by the end of the BJP journey that I will see several changes in how I look at things.

I have finished my July page as you can see from the photos above. If you go to my Artistic Kreations and Passions Blog you can see an idea of how they are going to be hung up.

I am still working on my journal for the month and mainly need to figure out what all I want to say on the tags. It is just narrowing it down and organizing the thoughts. It will be part how I did it and part what I was going through and thinking during the process. In the next few days I will probably finish it and get a post in here with the finished journal.

I have also started working on printing up the photos for August and once I get them finished I will post the page before beading as well.

On the Threshold

I am pretty sure I know what the key is, it is there on my lock, it says "Made With Love" The key is love, isn't it always? In this case I need to love myself enough to take better care of myself. Not drinking enough water, not eating a balanced diet, not working out; I am sabotaging my self both physically and creatively. How can I be a fully realized person if I am out of balanced. I hope that at least part of the solution is fully realizing this. I need to love myself enough to "want" to improve my life and find out the best way for me to incorporate good habits into my life to replace those that aren't as good for me. I have been dragging my feet as this realization has come to me but I think as this month ends I need to take the steps forward to help get myself healthier and with that I know that I will be able to take that next step that my art is ready for.

On a slightly less serious note I hope that I am not making anyone uncomfortable. I think that sharing this journey in this way is helpful in that I know there are others who understand and "get" it. I also think it is good because as others read this who maybe going through their own personal growth and struggles and it is always good to know that you are not alone.

My July page is mostly done. I have glued the back on and am adding the beaded edging onto currently. I also have work to do on the journal to go with it. If the key is going to show up in the piece it will either be in the journal or I have a feeling it will show up in one of my future pages, maybe once I am truly ready for it to show up. I am very thankful that I have this journey before me and maybe the fact that I have so much time to myself is a good thing. I have less outside distractions and more time for contemplation.

More Steps Forward

Friday, July 20, 2007




It has been a month of learning and growing and slowly figuring out where I am headed. I am still somewhat uncertain where this journey is headed and although I need to take better care of myself and focus on my growth as an Artist and a person I am still dragging my feet on stepping through the gate. (No Key yet Robin) I am not sure exactly what I need to make myself step through the gate. It is probably something like being willing to let go of something or just giving myself the permission.

My page has been coming along slowly, partially because I am planning on moving my website (so that it has my name instead of my husbands) and my main blog (now on Blogger) This has required me to learn how to do new things on the computer.

I have finished beading my flowers and am currently working on adding leaves in the background around the flowers. I have been very pleased with how the flowers came out and the leaves have a great grass like texture and I like touching them. The journal for this month is coming along as well although I am working on construction at this point and not what all it is going to say.





I knew that this project would be good for me and would allow me to learn new things and try different things together, but I hadn't expected it to unfold quite this way for me. I am very thankful that I joined in. I truly appreciate all of the friendship and support I am getting from all of the other participants and am so inspired by what others are learning and dealing with in their own journals.

Stepping Out Onto The Path Before Me.

Thursday, July 12, 2007




I have a feeling that the gate in this month's page is going to be more than a little symbolic to my life. In the last few weeks I have been feeling that I am on the edge of a change in my life. I am not exactly sure what kind of change it is but I find myself resisting it at times. I know deep down inside that it has been coming for a while and with everything going on with Wayne's trips to train and the move and now his deployment I have been too distracted to notice. Now as things are calming down and I settle into a routine and spend most of my time alone maybe I can focus and figure out what I need to to let go to take the first step in the journey to my future.

I spent all of Saturday beading on my July page and have a very good start on my flowers. Since they are closer to the viewer I want them to have more detail and dimension. I have been using layered backstitch, peyote, picots and netting to ruffle the edges of the petals and add depth to the piece. I haven't spent any time beading on the piece since Saturday although I did take time to start working on the journal to go with it. I will try to get some photos of where I have them so I can add that.

I would like to thank all of the people who have given their thoughts and prayers to Wayne and me and to all of the wonderful people who have left comments about my work. I have truly enjoyed looking at all of the work that everyone else is doing and if you haven't checked out the BJP blog has links to a large group of very talented and varied group of beaders, from beginners to those who have been beading for many years.

The Journey through the Gate Continues:

Friday, July 6, 2007




My journey through the gate continues: part of me is definitely looking at this months page as a journey. In truth I am looking at this whole BJP as a journey; to discover new techniques, combine different things, of memories of where I took different photos, and the process of being alone. It is all part of the journey.

I decided that the rectangular gray/black beads I used last month would also work well in the stone gate for this piece. I also found some squarish shell beads that I thought would give the feel of the construction of the gate. I haven't decided on whether I want beads on the steps on the bottom of the piece. I think once I bead the flowers I will get a better feel for that. I have just started the flower and will work on that more tonight as I watch the beginning to the 3rd season to Dr Who on the SciFi network. I will probably try to take some photos of my progress on my flowers tomorrow.

The Gate into My World

Sunday, July 1, 2007




Ever since we visited the Chateau-Sur-Mer a "summer cottage" ( or mansion to the rest of us mere mortals) in Newport Rhode Island and taken photos of the gate, the image has captured my imagination. I have always liked images of doorways, gates and looking through windows. They give themselves over to the story of what is out there and allow viewers to embark on their own journey. The background in the original photo wasn't that interesting but once you combine it with the drama of the sun setting in Hawaii it became much more interesting.



I cut the stone part of the gate out and needed to replace the metal gate with one of my own. After some consideration I decided that I would make the gate sections out of wire covered with seed beads. I used the original gate from the photos as a pattern. You will notice that my gate isn't perfect and although I considered re-doing it I really like the almost dilapidated feel of the gate. It was sort of like the gate has been there for a very long time. I found a heart charm at the local Michaels that said "Made With Love" and had a lock like center, it was a pretty good size to go with my gate. I made the 3 gate pieces separately and then added them to the piece.




Part of the reason I had chosen to make the gate with wire is that I wanted my gate to open. I attached the 2 side sections to the page and then made wire staples that I pushed through the background where I wanted the hinges for the gate and Viola! I ahd a gate that could open and you could walk into my world.

An Early Start

Sunday, July 1, 2007




Although today is the official first day of the month I got a bit of a head start on my July page. This month's page has already taught me a few lessons as I try out new surfaces for printing out my photos.

After I had chosen my photos and layout for the month I thought about what feel I wanted them to have. The large round stone gate led me to feel that I wanted to try using a more textured surface to print on.

In my collage work I have used white tissue paper to add texture to pieces. I decided to take some light weight inexpensive cotton fabric and apply white tissue paper to it with a 50/50 mix of white glue and water. I tore the tissue up into smaller pieces and crinkled them up and then opened them up and glued them down, overlapping the pieces and making sure that some of the wrinkles stayed in. The biggest challenge is not to play with it too much, the tissue paper is fragile when wet. Once this was dry I ironed it to make sure it was fairly flat to go easily though the printer. I then cut the tissue fabric into 8 1/2" x 11" pieces.

The printing taught me some lessons as well. Using higher quality printing isn't always the best option when printing onto unusual surfaces. I had to do a second printing on the background photos, although it was dramatic with the higher quality printing it was also a bit over saturated and I lost some of the details.

I printed all of the layers onto the tissue fabric and then adhered the background and gate images to EZ-Felt. I wanted the stability for the background and I wanted the added bit of dimension for the gate. I cut out around the gate so that I could layer it over the background image. The ink from the printer is not water proof so I did spray a light coat of poly-acrylic to it so that I wouldn't get ink on my fingers when I worked on it.



Although I had printed the flowers onto the tissue fabric as well, I didn't get the feel I wanted from them. They are closer to the viewer and the tissue fabric lends itself better to softer focus and softer whiter. I didn't like this and decided to print them out on the June Tailor Quick Fuse that I used for my June page. The difference was marked and I was quite happy with the new results. I cut them out and fused them onto the page. Oh, now to start the beading...