Poll

I put something about continuing on in my latest post and then came over to this blog to see a poll. Now, I don't mind starting right away or waiting a while. Here's why:

1. If we wait, we have a chance to finish up any unfinished pages plus we can put them together which for me means making my pennycloth table topper and for some others, a book binding of some sort.
2. If we start right away, we will be in the groove with it. It's always harder to restart than to keep going even if it's something we all love doing.

I just wanted to share what I was thinking about continuing the project in case it makes any difference as I really am torn between waiting and not waiting.

Timaree

Request for Input

Hello Gang,

I would like some suggestions for a dilemma I've run into with my January BJP. You can see what I've done here and leave me your ideas in the comments. Thanks! (You can see the top without the beads here.)

Sue in western Washington

saluti a tutti

sono un po' latitante in questo periodo, ma siete sempre nei miei pensieri. sto lavorando al progetto, anche se lentamente...
volevo però segnalarvi una idea di un'amica italiana, Giovanna che ha pensato di scambiarci gli auguri in un modo un po' speciale. chi volesse può guardare qui e qui.

I am little a fugitive in this period, but you are always in my thoughts. I am working to the plan, even if slowly...
I wanted but to signal an idea of an Italian friend, Giovanna that has thought to exchange the auguries to us in a special way who wanted can watch here and here.
excuse for my ugly english...

ciao matilda

Journal Quilt

I have posted pictures of my Journal Quilt that is in the Houston IQA Special Exhibit on my blog if anyone would be interested in taking a look and making a comment.
Thanks,
SueU

I have a question...

Hello all you hard beading ladies out there!
The weather has turned cool here in MI,
and for once I am not stewing in a menopausal sauna.
Spring and fall are the two seasons I love the most.
I've put my bead embroidery down for a little while,
so I can catch up with things that I've left undone.
But enough of my ramblings...I have a question
for the quilters out there. If you have the time
could you please go to my blog and see
if you can offer me some suggestions on a quilt I have?
Any input would be so helpful to me. Thanks in advance...

Rosanne (FabFibers)

B-BHOP sub-group proposal

I'd like to propose a new subgroup - the B-BHOP's - Busy Beaders Honoring Our Process.

• We have no guilt that we are busy living our lives
• We bead when we can and when we have energy
• We remember that we joined this just for the fun and learning
• We contribute to the world of beading with our wonderful work, whenever it is completed
• We do not need to apologize for anything
• We honor our artistic self and process by accepting its pace
• We love and support ourselves and each other
• This is just for us. This is our place and our time to let it all hang out, to let ourselves be carried away in the moment, to let go of judgments and interpretation and planning, to go deeper than words! (from Robin A.)

Anyone care to join me? Any additions to my list of credos?

Camera Ideas Needed Please

First, thank you to everyone for sharing yourselves in so many ways with this project! I feel so blessed that I am part of this group! :o)

Colorful photos are so important for a blog (which I’m still in the process of starting with encouragement from many of you) Could you tell me which and what camera I would need to get the lovely colorful bead details I’m seeing in all your blogs? I’d appreciate any help you could give me :o)

Thanks again,

Lillian

Translations

I just put a translator link on my blog. I am wondering if it would be okay to put one on the BJP blog to make it simple for those who don't speak english. Robin? Anyone interested in this idea can see it at the top, right-hand side of my blog.

ATC's (Artist Trading Cards)

I made a refrence on my blog about using an ATC-type card for the back of my June page and had some questions about what was an "ATC". Here are some beaded cards that a group of beaders in Texas made and traded last fall.

Here are two refrences that will give you some background and ideas about ATC's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist_trading_cards

http://www.cedarseed.com/air/atc.html

Beads on Backing - finally

If you care to see where I'm going with my June's "Trip - Journey" beadwork, take a peek here. It felt so good to finally be sewing beads down that I had to force myself to go to bed last night. I might even get this one finished by the end of June.

As I'm doing a theme in graphical ATC-sized cards each month to use as backing for the beadwork, I'm wondering if I should print a limited number of card packs when I'm done. Interesting thought.

500 years of women in art

I just received an email with a link to this video on Youtube. I apologize if I'm the last person in the Universe to see this and you've all seen it before. If you haven't, it's really amazingly done and I hope you enjoy it. Someone has compiled 500 years of women's portraits in art and blended them together with music into an interesting sort of "journal." Click here to view. Enjoy!

Winter Finally Arrived

G'day Everyone,
Have been enjoying our 'Indian Summer' up until Thursday when winter arrived with avengeance.
We have had severe storms and the rain hasn't let up for more than an hour. Hopefully the country areas that need the rain are getting it and the drought has finally broken. So what has this to do with beading you may well ask? For me it means everything comes to a stop as I can't see properly to do it under lighting I need the daylight, but overcast and rain mean no beading for me. I am enjoying it so much and have been powering throught my first project page. Oh well I did manage to write some ideas on paper but my mood is as gloomy as the weather. Will feel a bit better soon as I have my 3 day weekend this week starting on Monday. Hopefully the weather will improve too.
Cheers
Dinahj - Nospoj

Hello from Andrea B

Also checking in! I am a beginner, and I thought it would be easier to have a sort of theme for my journal as a starting point. Nothing too specific, just something I liked as a way to jump-start my entries. So, I decided each month I will choose a favorite button from my collection and sew it down on the piece and just start beading around it. Robin recommended putting a favorite bead down and working from there in her book, and it always works for me! So, I started the Buttons and Beads 2007 journal today.

I have a little extra incentive for trying to stay on track: I have signed up for Robin's class at Valley Ridge Art Studio in September, and I am determined to bring four pages to show her at the class, to get her feedback if possible! I am so excited about this project and that class! Anyway, that's where I am at today.

Andrea B in Minnesota

Aloha from Makaha!

I am so happy I found out about this project at about.com before the deadline passed! It is such a thrill to participate with all of you and under the guidance of one of my most admired beading goddesses, Robin. I purchased "One Bead at a Time" back in 2000 and am still completely awestruck! I have been wanting to learn more about bead embroidery and try my hand at art journaling - this is the perfect opportunity. I recently decided to go back to college and the current whim is a degree in Art History. So I thought I'd try to incorporate that into the journal as well. Once a month I will visit one of the local galleries or museums here on Oahu to find my inspiration for the month's project. The Honolulu Academy of Arts currently has an exhibit on Indian Textiles and Beadwork - that sounds like a great place to start! My next piece just might be inspired by a three dimensional artwork by David Hockney that's at the Contemporary Museum of Art. I think I could very well end up with 12 different journals rather than just 12 pieces of beadwork! Warmest wishes to all and a big thank you to Robin!
Nancy

Buy nothing new

Just another idea I had for my bead journal - buy nothing new for these monthly projects. This will be a challenge for me, but I have a little bit of everything, and a gracious plenty of some of it! Since we are moving (this weekend!!) I have been unable to do creative work for these last several months of transition, but I have been collecting lots of bits and pieces. So.... this is my long-winded way of saying, it's time to use what I have, appreciate all that I have without seeking more, more, more. If I need a different color of fabric, for example, I have several fabric paints and dyes I haven't tried - I'll make do with the abundance I already have. Anyone else want to join me in this challenge within a challenge?

To Post Pictures of Work or Not? That is the question...

to badly misquote Shakespeare.

This is a theme that seems to be popping up all over the place for me lately. I understand both sides - the desire to be inspired and the desire to be original. I find myself remembering things I was told in college - "it's all been done before, in one shape or another."

How many times have you created what you thought was a completely original piece, only to see it done independently on a website, or in a magazine, or in a book? It happens to my sister all the time.

I think that getting feedback and encouragement is also a big part of the process for me and that I will post.

If I have an inspiration for the page and I can get a picture of it, I will probably post both. Oftentimes, though, my inspirations are memories and those are difficult to photograph!

So Many Options, Only 12 Months?

Hi, I'm Andi and the piece here is Cactus Moon, a fusion of machine embroidery and bead embroidery. It's one of a series based on a hand embroidered piece called Desert Moon. I vary between expressions, depending on what motion I need to feel or what colors I want to use. I used to say I made quilts when beadwork was too slow. I was able to take a workshop with Joyce Scott at the Quilt/Surface Design Symposium ten years ago, and what I didn't learn there, I got from Robin's wonderful One Bead at a Time. (Robin, you may remember me from ArtFest in 2002, I met you in the bathroom after my part of the teacher slide show where I mentioned you and your book).

Anyway. I am not exactly sure which format I'm going to take yet. So many possibilities. I like these so far:
Chinese Zodiac
Western Zodiac
Moon of the Month (for instance, June is the Strawberry moon)
Month of the month (just do a piece based on that month, to put together in a calendar format at some point)
Roy G Biv with a bit extra :)
Twelve Tribes of Israel
Twelve Dancing Princesses
Twelve Days of Christmas

Oh dear, I went and woke my brain up.

I am very excited to be here and very excited to meet you all.

Hello from Massachusetts

I'm Alicia and I love all kinds of handwork including beading. I have a wonderful stash which could use a good workout so this project seems rather perfect. Haven't quite decided if I want to create a book or if I'd rather connect the separate pieces as a single wall hanging. I really do love journaling of various types and in the past year I've especially enjoyed working on fabric art journals. Maybe, for that reason alone, it would be more of a creative stretch for me to join the pieces as a single unit for wall display. I'm leaning towards working with 7 inch squares as that will give me a chance to include other kinds of surface design in addition to beading. To me it makes a lot of sense to get a personal rhythm going for a few months before we start sharing our pages as a group but I'm sure I will post about my efforts on my personal blog well before that time. My theme will be an ongoing "capture" of events that are especially meaningful to me as the year unfolds. For instance, the last day of June is my birthday and it's the big 5-0 so it seems like a bit of no-brainer to start with that for my first journal entry. It's great fun to be part of a blog with so many contributors. The energy's already quite catalytic and we haven't even officially begun!

Raring to go

G'Day Everyone,
Don't know how often I'll be moved to write here but as I spent the weekend thinking of how I'd go about my Journal pages and sketching some ideas, thought it was high time I said G'day to all of you.
I've never done any bead embroidery so am a real newbie. As a Beader who makes jewelery I have heaps and heaps of beads, so when I read about this project I realised that this is what I must have been saving them for.
Oh yes a little about me :- I'm an Australian, live in Sydney and work the night shift - full time - I'm a Bar Tender at a large Sports Club. I've been working here for 3 and a half years and it was during this time I took up beading. Lots of the ladies, both staff and customers buy my jewelery, so have a little customer base there. Did I mention I love my job?!
I think that I'll go Postcard size, don't want to scare myself too much!
Going out this afternoon to get some material for June and also some for a bit of a practise.
So I'm raring to go on this journey with you all, my bags are packed and I have my ticket to ride!

Inspirations and Pictures!

The picture above is an improvisational bead embroidery piece by a good friend, Christy Hinkle. (Be sure to click to enlarge!) This is her first completed piece since taking my bead embroidery class. I'm so very proud of her! It's framed in a shadow box and graces her living room. I wanted you to see it, because it feels like it could be a journal page. I don't know if Christy is going to join us or not... she's thinking about it.

Sharing our ideas, inspirations and pictures is part of the BJP for all of us... that's why I started this blog. However, participation in the blog is definitely not mandatory. I know wonderful artists who just are not into anything about the computer. I'm sure there are some in the project who will never even check this blog. But for those who love it, as I do, we'll have fun with sharing.

Would someone like to write a "how-to post" about how to post pictures, including how to size the images for posting? I could do it, but I'm swamped at the moment and don't have time.

Aurora's photograph of the vintage fabric sample book in the post below was just wonderful, wasn't it?!!! I love reading what everybody writes, but when there's a photo, every part of me is happy.

I'm thinking (just one member's opinion) that I'd like to see photos of inspirations and member's other bead embroidery (or related) photos here any time, but not finished BJP pages until after the third month. I feel that for some of us, we might start something, then see another person's work, and abandon what we started in favor of something inspired by what the other person did. For this project, I think it would be really good if we don't abandon our early efforts, no matter what. But, after 3 months, we will have a sense of where we are going and what our pages intend for us, and it will be easier to stick with them.

This dialog about sharing pictures of our BJP pages needs to continue a bit longer, as there are still many new participants coming on board. Feel free to post your opinions and/or put them in the comments to this post.

Posted by Robin