...the behinder I get...

July has gone, and so has August....and here I am, finally posting the JULY Bead Journal project. July was a jumbled up month....mostly overshadowed by the decline and too sudden death of my dear Mama (mother-in-law to be technical, but to me, she was Mama) at the end of July. I loved her dearly, and will miss her always...

I actually had my project done before things accelerated and seemed to scatter all over the landscape, but there just was not ever time or inclination to sit and put it up here. Didn't help that the project was yet another that sure did not match what I had in my head when I started!

 The idea actually came from my sister (ah...technically another in-law, but I just don't feel that separation at all) to do something 'beachy' - since it was summer, and I love the beach...so that is what I had in mind. I thought of the tiny symmetrical patterns the sand sometimes makes where it is real shallow on the beach, and picked a pretty green fabric for the background that had that kind of pattern in it. Liked the 'sea' green color too.


Then I added a little starfish to the center....I think they are such marvelous little creatures....like the ones from the sky come down to the sea to live. Then my idea was to have my beads....sea-green and sand-beige kind of flowing over and off the little starfish, like water motion captured as it moved. I really liked the whole idea of it....but alas....when I added my streams of beads, the reality didn't much match my imagination. But...at that point, there wasn't much more to do...but to do...and I added a little beaded decoration all around the edge to represent tiny shells...nah....didn't much work either.
Ah, well...there's always next month!


So...such as it is.....my little 'beachy' project.....

To add to it all - my scan didn't turn out too well (the starfish made the scan uneven)....but you can see the idea....

I have my idea for August ( I WILL catch up!) - and it will be for Mama....have exactly what I want to do in mind....and am now getting my time back to yet another 'new normal' - so hope to have that up here very soon....and the September one too....no pressure.....no pressure.....:-)

Stay tuned....

June Bead Journal Project

Can't believe the month of June is history, and even though I have my June Bead Journal project done.....I forgot to post it. Sometimes I wonder about myself.....hmmmm...

At any rate - I did do something different this time, though I'm not sure it will turn into any kind of 'theme' for the rest of the year....have to wait and see what comes to mind for this month!

Without further ado......

I love the fabric - the colors of the strips appealed to me, so I didn't want to cover them up with beads....so I decided they'd be a nice 'abstract' landscape for a fantasy bunch of flowers...just drifting away from a bed of dark and light green dagger bead 'grass'. I added the stars, for a starry sky, even though the fabric doesn't suggest night - but I just liked the effect!

Now....what will suggest itself for July? Stay tuned.....

A bit of 'out of the box' fun...

After the creativity prompt series ended - created and run by A Creative Dream, I noticed as I followed her blog, that she does many creative things....and one of them was doodling.

Yep, the same thing we all used (or still) do during classes, at work, at church....whenever we have paper and pencil, and are using ears, but not hands....I know I'm like this (not always.....but a lot of the time). I told myself that one of these days, I was going to try my hand at doing what JC does - making the doodles an artistic creation. So..the thought sat and simmered through the entire year of creativity prompts, until....

I got out one of my ATC cards and decided to see what would happen if I just started doodling. I drew a bunch of curved lines in no particular pattern, and then began filling in the spaces with lines, dots, flowers...whatever. It was kinda fun.....like making a picture that isn't an idea first!

When I was done....I liked it - but it was all so ....black and white. Duh. That's what a pen and paper look like - but then I got out my markers (another of my favorite things that I don't use enough), and added some color. Not a lot....I didn't want to fill it up with color - it was quite busy enough without that!

So now it is done! And the next thing is....what do I do with it? Frame it? Make a card out of it (like that, but I've not made many cards...hmmm), keep it, give it away...
Help me out here, readers! Give me some suggestions....(not including 'good grief, Trish, what were you thinking - I've already done that one).

Here it is in all its glory!

This was fun.....and I just may do it again....even think of a general theme....or not...