Snowflakes at BJP

Snowflake Ok, so it's only one snowflake, but it's a big 'un! For this month's page I had a hard time thinking up a theme. Then is snowed again. Well, duh! What else. Snow in winter, what a novel idea!

I had started a beaded bead earlier in the week and wasn't quite happy with it, so I took my little piece of flat, round peyote stitch and used it as a centerpiece for my page. I didn't have a plan and scrounged around for beads for each round. I left quite a bit of the background unbeaded to give it an airy feel. Then finished it off with a 3-bead edge and the peyote stitch hanger.

It was my first time at the "Hunt and Bead" method of working a piece. I had fun and got exercise at the same time. Usually, I have an idea of what I'm going to do in my head and I try to gather up my materials for the project I'll be working on. (see post below) This time both the page and my brain were blank. Hey....be nice. ;) I think it worked well.

How a necklace begins

This necklace started out in my head as a very simple design that used black velveteen beads and the leopard pendant. I decided to take a few steps out of the simple box and make a fringed necklace out of them. I had purchased these pieces in early December and decided recently to work with them.
Copper is one of my favorite colors for beading and this copper colored leopard was there just asking me to buy him. How could I say no? The large black beads were hanging close by and I HAD to have these soft and fuzzy beads to go with my leopard.

After setting these two elements out, I searched through my bead desk and my studio for just the right combinations of beads. I still need some 12mm or 10mm black glass beads for the necklace part of this fringed necklace.

This is also serendipity. My guild's Spring Theme Show this year is "Story Time". We will have a short paragraph from the story depicted by our art. "How the leopard got his spots" by Rudyard Kipling, is the story that will accompany this necklace. I didn't know about the theme until last week. I love it when things like that happen.

Can you see the necklace in the various elements of this design?

December BJP

I was just over at the Bead Journal Project to tell everyone I had my page done. But, I forgot to get it up here! So now it is.

I call this page "Silent Night, White Night". We had very powerful snowstorms, for this area, and the worst weather in about 40 years. Up here, we had 22" of snow with a light glazing of freezing rain and another layer of snow on top. It was white. Very white. One night I took the cat out and the moon was peaking through the clouds. It was beautiful and extremely bright. That gave me the idea for my page. The trees are brickstitch with straight stitch trunks and the moon is a flat wooden bead that I "encased" in silver-lined seed beads.

I wanted to add one of my wisdom teeth to it, but can't seem to find my stash of body parts. As it is, the page tells the story of the end of December for me. But, when I do find those teeth, I will sew one on.

Catching Up

My last post was Friday night, December 19th. It was snowing and beginning to pile up. We were well provisioned for the coming storms and I had my projects ready to work on while we were snowed in. I even had projects ready when the power went out! Saturday came the twinge, then Sunday, Solstice, came the pain. One of my molars was becoming abscessed. There was no way to get out and even if I could, it was Christmas week AND all the dentists were snowed in, too. I ended up sleeping through most of the week and taking aspirin for the pain. Christmas morning was a relief. I got one of the best gifts ever, the major pain stopped, just the annoying background pain hung on. That was bearable under the circumstances. I called my doctor on Friday to have him call in a prescription at my local drug store, but I couldn't get out. We tried and got stuck half way up our road. After digging out and working the truck back and forth for about 20 minutes we finally got up to the main road and found it hadn't been plowed. So, we turned around and went home.

We finally got out on Sunday. I was able to get my antibotics and some food for the coming floods. (We certainly had a "fun" Christmas/New Years holiday.) Tuesday was the dentist appointment where I learned that one of my root canals went bad and I needed to have it re-rooted. WHAT? I've never heard of that before! Off to the specialist and more appointments. This actually happens more than we would like to know. This Friday, I get back to my regular dentist and have the temporary filling drilled out and a new cap on my gold crown. It's nice to be without pain in my face. I certainly don't want that again!

What a way to start the new year. Hopefully this is all the major doctor/dentist things I have to put up with this year.

So.....did I get all those projects done or even started? Not a chance. I worked sporadically on my December Nature Gathered piece. I didn't even start my December Bead Journal Project until after New Year's. I'm running about a month behind on that one, but am up to date on the Nature Gathered work.