bjp 0412 - april in april and a bonus!!

Well, I've done it!!!  I completed my April BJP in April!!!! I actually finished it a week or so ago, but didn't like the photos from last week's session, so I had to wait until the time was right to take more.  The first time, the vintage button and the section beside it, seemed to suck up all the light and showed as a black hole.  As you can imagine, I wasn't all that pleased with the effect!  Alas, there's still a little of that showing, but I had to give up on perfection for the sake of posting April in the correct month.  Whew!

My inspiration for this piece was the wooden game piece (at least I think that's what it is) that arrived, out-of-the-blue, in my mailbox one day.  It was a RAK (random act of kindness) from my internet friend Meri, over at the Cloth Paper Studios Yahoo group.  Meri sent me a selection of numbers and characters + some other lovely stuff.  This is a result of her studio reorganization efforts and I thank her for thinking of me, the inspiration and her gifts! 

The remaining ingredients include a vintage glass button, a yellow button from the family button box, a rusty washer (dark section next to the buttons), aqua sequins, seed beads in various sizes, cubes, crystals, odd beads that I picked up here and there, a bit of coiled wire cut from the end of something and......

.......a small black and gold part from the inside of the cell phone I dismantled last month.  I just can't let that interesting stuff go to waste!!  I wonder what whispers of conversations, that little part holds in it's metal and plastic memories?  Do you feel that I should explore this idea further in future posts? 

Isn't that button fabulous???  What do you think of my colour scheme?  I decided to include the dull yellow to compliment the wooden number.  Did it work?

Stitches include stacked, fringe and boucle/bocce stitch. 

A more casual shot!  The colour is a little off, but some of the details are a little clearer.  BTW, there's no red in that cell phone part, it's gold.  I'll blame the angle of the sun!

I think that I spotted a few beaded pathways in this piece!  If we follow them, I wonder where they will lead?

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BONUS!!!!!

My friend Deb has a special birthday tomorrow, so I visited her yesterday to drop off this little brooch.  I call it a "Party In A Brooch".  Deb drives a lime green car and some of her favourite colours are lime green and orange.  Do you wonder why I picked this particular colour scheme?  The parrot is one of a pair of earrings that Deb gifted me with (from her stash) a year or so ago.  She doesn't remember the earrings, but I certainly do!  The other one is still sitting in my component box, patiently waiting to perch on the perfect project!!

Another piece that makes me smile!!!  Happy blankety, blank birthday, my friend!!!!!



Acrylic painted peltex base, with just the right colour of red/orange button from the family button box, seeds, bugles and bits and pieces.  This shape/size worked up fairly quickly so I'm sure that I'll make more of these in the future.  It seems that I'm on a beading roll right now.  I do hope that it lasts for a while!!!

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Now if only I could find the perfect number "5" for May.............................the search continues...............

the piece with no name

Should beads and fibre mingle?  I don't really know, but they're making a valiant attempt in this off-the-cuff landscape!! It was originally intended as a 100% fibre class sample, but cried out for a beaded focal point, so I had the bright idea to add the sun!  Do you think I'm still under the hypnotic powers of the bead journal project?

Torn &/or distressed fabric strips, stitched onto water soluble stabilizer, dissolved and then stitched onto artist canvas. Free motion machine embroidery, hand embroidery and machine couched threads.

Hand ruched silks and sheers + a little more hand embroidery.  Did you spot the little strip of paper?  It's gold and lacy and nice, so I thought that it needed to be included.  A little fragile, but okay for a small wall piece.

All fabrics in this piece, with the exception of the canvas base, were either gifted or re-cycled. 

A closer look at the beading.  Acrylic painted Peltex base, stitched with an eclectic mix of beads that includes three paper beads from a thrift shop necklace.  Add three buttons from the family button box and a spiral of silver wire and the sun is done!!  Back, stacked and bocce/boucle stitches.  Isn't all that red luscious?

The piece has no name and is temporarily residing in a $9.99 black, Ikea shadowbox  I haven't quite decided on it's permanent home.  Any suggestions?

 



This is a good example of making something out of all the little nothings in your stash! I think that I should explore more fibre and beads in the future!  Do you agree?

bjp 0312 - march in april

March is a celebration of the early signs of spring. There's nothing deep or angst ridden in this BJP, just a love of the colour green. Of course, I mixed in a little purple and a touch of silver, but that was just an easy way to show off the greens. I think the acid green is my absolute favourite!

Hi-lights in this section are the vintage metal button, a green button from the family button box, one of my mother's old screw back earrings and a little bird charm. The teeny little number "3" is from one of my sister's old cell phones.

After the gruelling task of dismantling another cell phone (one of the screws was frozen in place), I discovered this little metal plate. I couldn't let it go to waste!  After all, it had just the right size holes for size 8 seed beads. I think the scratches give it character!

Peyote, back, stacked and boucle/bocce stitches.

Did you notice the hat pin in the lower right hand corner? Another fortunate discovery from my mother's old jewelry box!

Don't you think the earring is the perfect place for that little bird to perch?

Do you remember how uncomfortable those screw back earrings really were?

Now on to April? Do you think I'll get it finished by the end of the month?

Do you think I ask too many questions?  LOL!

bjp 0212 february in april

February is all about one of my favourite colours, red! I wear it, I decorate with it, I make art with it and if I bothered to wear lipstick, I'd still be applying it to my lips. I love red shoes and bags and red climbing roses....they're all absolutely yummy!!! I've even coloured my hair red. I'm fair of complexion and still blush at the drop of a pin, so is it any wonder that I'm so enamoured with the ruddy colour? Well, I should probably despise it for that reason, but I don't!! To me it's energetic and not angry, although there is that emotion tied up in it as well. Red is not a wimpy colour!

February is doing dual duty for the BJP and the Toronto Bead Society's annual "Bag of Bead" challenge. I was too late to actually enter the challenge, but I just couldn't ignore all of the sparkly bits! The bag included red, orange, pink, gold, amethyst and black beads and some rose netting. I used at least one of everything in the bag. In the case of the netting and the black beads, not a lot, but they were still present. The black beads were so small that I couldn't fit any of my needles through them. Yes, I know that I could have purchased smaller needles, but I didn't get aroundtuit!!! So, I rolled up a strip of the netting, wrapped it with nymo thread, dipped it in Aleene's Tacky Glue and then rolled it in the black beads. When it was dry, I thought that it looked hideous, so I partially hid it behind one of the large glass flower beads. I did use more of the netting in a small stack, anchored by a few beads. It's closer to the top of the BJP, but it's intentionally hard to see.



A gold button from the family button box, vintage jewelry parts, tightly rolled chocolate wrappers and a fabulous number "2". One of my sister & brother-in-law's old TV remotes had to give it's life for this new purpose. May it R.I.P.! Thanks to Suzie for mailing a bunch of different numbers down to me from Sault Ste Marie. Don't you love family!! Your friends think you're crazy and ignore you......your family thinks you're crazy as well, but still agree to donate to the cause. Perhaps it's just to shut you up!!



A better look at the rolled 'Quality Street' candy wrappers. Did you spot the tightly rolled/netting bundle? It's tucked behind the two large flowers and further disguised when I stitched it on with purple beads. Bwahaahaaa......



The large silver button is actually made of glass! It's one of the vintage ones I purchased in the 80's or 90's. Isn't it spectacular? I do so wish that I had kept the sales slips!

Couching, peyote, back, stacked, fringe and bocce/boucle stitches.




The piece in all it's rosie glory! It's a bit brazen, but I like it just the same....

Now, do you suppose the remote will channel the ghosts of Mork from Ork or Alf on my TV? They were amusing at the time, but I'm soooo past that now!! What do you think?

"sweets" for candy

I'm terribly late, but this is the last of the original Receiver's Choice blocks I designed and made for an exchange with the Sparkly Chickens Yahoo Group. This one is for Candy T., who decided to choose a theme as sweet as her nature and her first name ("Sweets"). Her favourite colours are pink & orange, so is it any wonder I included them in the piece?




Fused applique, bead embroidery, a few daubs/splashes of acrylic paint, hand embroidery and angelina fibres. The fabrics are a combination of batiks, hand dyes and a small pack of fossil ferns that had been gathering dust for years. The sky was made by dabbing on white perle acrylic paint and then letting it dry. The white sky looked a little too stark, so I added a layer of misty fuse, some pink angelina, covered it all with parchment paper and added heat with the iron to fuse it all together. Fast, easy and very effective!




Ice cream sunday mountain, sherbert hills, lollipop trees, a candyfloss sky and a cherry on top.... How perfect for my sweet little friend!



This block makes me smile!!! How about you?


The project is going on hold for a while! I'm still missing a couple of blocks in my own theme (botanical), so I think I'll wait for them to arrive before working on my own block. Stay tuned!!!

rock on!

My contribution to the Embellished Rock Swap over at the wildly creative Cloth Paper Studio, Yahoo Group. The swap requirements were simple. Take a 7" square of fabric, use some type of dimensional embellishment and design the piece in such a way that it could eventually be wrapped a rock. I went a little overboard, so the recipient might need to find a small boulder to wrap it around!!!! LOL!

I ruched some yo-yo's (suffolk puffs to our friends across the pond) and added both traditional and slightly distorted embroidery stitches. Included in the mix are feather, french knots, straight, whipped running stitch, detached chain, cretan and whipped wheels (at least that's what I think they're called). A few beads were couched and stitched on, some freeform pin tucks, free motion machine embroidery, a few splashes of paint and I call the piece done. Well not quite finished, because that won't happen until someone finds just the right rock!!!

As usual, this was all done totally intuitively. I started with the silk dupioni background fabric, added the large ruched yo-yo and then just played around with fabric, floss, thread and beads until I was satisfied.









The full piece! I'm hoping the pin tucks will make it easier to wrap around a rock.



Doesn't this tempt you to make one for yourself? The piece isn't actually due until April 30th, but for a change, I've finished something early. It feels good, but doesn't help me with the other piece I need completed by the beginning of April. The muse goes, where the muse wants to go!!!

bjp 0112 - at last

I'm back and so the journey begins! After several false starts, I'm happy to say that I'm now committed to a simple shape for my 2012 bead journal project. It's smaller than 2010, but far more practical. My problem is that I want to do it all, so need to leave some time to swap and play with other techniques.

I started the shape and then decided on the colour. Blue always reminds me of winter, so what better colour to use for this first piece.



Add a dash of purple, white and metallic for contrast, then slip in a few buttons from the family jar.





One is for the month of January!!! And the result is.........



A house, of course!!

The number "1" and the tiny screws are from a circa, who know when, touch tone phone (I knew that I was keeping it for some reason). The tiny key was found in the bottom of my mother's old jewelry box. It's stitched, not glued, just in case I ever find what it belongs to! The dark metallic button is part of a collection I started in the 80's (that button store is long gone!). I thought that it was about time I started using them!!

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The base is 4" tall x 2" wide and made on a base of acrylic painted peltex. As usual, I've used an eclectic collection of beads, included three vintage flower sequins and then beaded them with a combination of peyote, back, stacked and bocce/boucle stiches.

My focus this year will be on the home......recycling, repurposing, making do and begging, borrowing and stealing numbers from my friends and relatives. The series of twelve will be tied together with a common thread of a unique number, combined with a vintage button. After that, who knows what I might get up to..........I don't guarantee that they'll all be bead encrusted..... and the size will restrict me somewhat......but that will just make it more challenging!

This year promises to be a mixed media exploration of the houses of the rich, eccentric and technique obsessed! Now, don't you want to pick up your beads and play?

Now on to February.......so does anyone have a cell phone or hand held calculator that they're not using? Giggle!!

melange of swaps

An early selection of swaps and gifted items from some of my internet friends, previously unknown swap partners and a couple of local fibre artist buddies. Included are Candy T., Teri W., Rachel M., Susan L., Kaite M., Donna F., Aynsley M., Janet R., Nellie D., Marcia G., & ibby245. Don't start counting, because the names won't add up to the number of swap items, as some of my friends are represented multiple times.

This piece represents a very small selection of my treasured swaps and a wonderful collection of techniques. I butted the edges together and zipped them together with an overcast stitch, using size 15 japanese seed beads. Yes, I am crazy!! It's great TV work though!

Fibre and mixed media postcards (4" X 6"), twinchies (2" X 2") and 4" X 4"'s.













I've made boxes out of twinchies (2" square) and plus sized inchies (1 1/2" square) and have also beaded together three house fronts, for a standing display. Other than that, I haven't done much else except fondle my swap collection every so often and then protect them from dust.

Bookmaking has been pulling at my brain for the last little while, so I'd like to make some type of book, with pockets, to display the ATC's (artist trading cards - 2 1/2" X 3 1/2") and some of the arches (sorry, I can't remember the measurements). I'm not sure when this is going to happen, but I assure you that it will!

Come on, show me your swaps!!! Especially if you've come up with a unique display idea that I could steal!!! LOL!

hot & cold - made by moi

Tada!

Two more original blocks to show for my Receiver's Choice swap over at the Sparkly Chickens Yahoo Group. They're very, very late, but certainly not forgotten! The first is for Liz who's chosen theme was "Fiesta". What the heck did I know about fiestas? I got the colourful part, but some of the well known images had already been used by other participants. I toyed with the idea of the image of a crisp white cotton skirt, complete with colourful embroidery and rickrack. Then I thought of those crepe paper flowers we used to make in high school. Rejected both ideas when I couldn't get my head around them laying flat on a 9 1/2" unfinished block (in my head, the skirt required movement and the flowers needed to be 3-D). I agonized and procrastinated until that brilliant light bulb moment when I realized that the sun was an integral part of the whole fiesta experience. How could I resist? After that the block worked up quite quickly. Fused applique, combined with free motion machine stitching and hand embroidery.





Working with Cheryl's "Winter" theme was a much cooler experience (if you pardon the pun). No angst, just pure pleasure!! I live in Canada and although this winter has been unusually gentle, it's quite easy to remember the effects of the cold. Naked trees are a favourite image of mine (to stitch, draw or photograph), so if one is good, then seven of them are even better! The technique I used for the trees involved free motion embroidery, using two colours of rayon thread (royal blue and purple) in the same needle. Yes, you CAN do this! The bonus is that you get a lovely blended stitch look, with only half the time and effort. To add to the icy image, I added fused spiky triangles of purple to the top and bottom of the block. A little more free motion stitching, some hand embroidery and the block was fini!




Only one block left to go!!! I've been mulling over Candy's "Sweets" concept and I think that I'm ready to take the first stitch!! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

crazy for paper

The Paper Place sent me an email advising of their Scrap Bag sale for off-cuts of Japanese papers. Two sizes of bags and you could stuff whatever you wanted in the bag for a set price. How could I resist? So, I made the trek downtown, in the rain, last weekend. Only problem, the sale wasn't until this weekend. LOL at me!!! So, I spent some time and money in the store. Heh, heh....enough $$'s were spent, that I wondered if I would even bother to return the following weekend.

Photos of an older area of downtown Toronto, with some larger, newer buildings in the background. I like the gritty texture of these photos taken out of my rain spotted, car window. I was stopped at a light, honest I was!! I'm sure the other motorists thought I was crazy!



Not the best of photo angles, but I liked the details on this building.



I deliberated for a short while and then ended up going downtown yesterday. Shots of my overstuffed bag!!! What kind of crazy person buys bits and pieces of other peoples castoffs? Well, I do for one!













Buried in the middle, are some amazing 1/2 to 1 1/2" strips of printed papers. I know, I know, I'm not really a paper person.....but just think of the collage opportunities!!! Cards, tags & ATC's, oh my!! Not to mention mixed media pieces, with a sprinkling of paper, fabric, paint and beads......yummy and oh so liberating! I do have a few things in mind, but nothing to show just now. Keep tuned!!

colourful offerings & this & that

Wonderful holiday goodies from my friend Kaite in Australia! A very clever knitted basket that I absolutely adore, a couple of pieces of her natual dyed silk fabric and a mixed fibre/paper collage card. We keep the post office busy a couple of times a year, but this time my package was lost for a while. I had faith that it would turn up eventually. Although perhaps I should have kept quiet, because Kaite was thinking of starting another basket. Then I could have two!!! Hee, hee.... Kaite knit my colourful basket out of torn fabric strips. She also used bits of the original fabric on the card. Isn't that unique and amazing?

The 500 Baskets book is mine and highly recommended for anyone looking for a little artistic eye candy! I thought that it was an appropriate background for my gifts.

I've been working on my very late Receiver's Choice blocks for the Sparkly Chicken Yahoo group. I have three left to send. One is finished and waiting for a trip to the post office, a second is ready for embellishment/embroidery and the third is in the mental design stage (may the muse be good to me). All is good and I'm happy to have a little time to move this project along. Of course, I haven't even started on my January Bead Journal Project piece, but I'll worry about that when the RC blocks are done.

I know that I'm behind in posting the RC pieces that I've received, but I'll get around to that eventually. I've collected them all together and am just waiting for a nice, calm sunny and non-busy weekend to take some photos.

Oops! I just remembered that I forgot to include the calendar that Kaite sent . My apologies, Kaite! I'll make up for it the next time I take photos.

worms fini!

Never give up!!! See what happened when I was challenged to add beads to a sample I made in a Penny Berens class. After seeing my Bead Journal pieces, Penny tempted me to add some beads, so add them I did!!! What do you think?

Look here if you want to see where I started. Do you think I became a little obsessed?

The edges aren't finished yet. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, but the size is just about right for a book cover. Or, perhaps the focal in a larger piece.....only time will tell.......Any other ideas?

Presenting the finished worms!



Detail shots....The spiral looked out of place after I finished backstitching on the orange beads. I wasn't happy until I added a layer of turquoise fringe. Layer, layer, layer.....it doesn't matter if you're using paint, fabric or beads.....more layers = more depth!! Of course, it's hard to know when to stop, but I think I stopped just in time. LOL!







Techniques used:

Hand embroidery - french knots, straight stitch, back stitch, cross stitch and seed stitch

Bead embroidery - back stitch, stacked stitch, fringe and ruffle.