What to Do with 12 Bead Journal Pieces?????

I'm just about finished with my 12th and last BJP (Bead Journal Project) piece for this year and wondering... what shall I do with them? Maybe if I review some of the finishing solutions from the first year of the BJP, an idea will come to me. And, if you're in the same boat, you might want to join me for a look-see!

Books and Journals


Terri A (Pirate Poem) knew from the start she would assemble her pages into a book, placing them back to back and binding them with cloth.


Denise D (Farewell) stitched her 12 beaded butterfly-wings to a strip of stiffened felt which she had pre-folded accordion-style. She then joined the inward folds to make a wheel book, each page representing a spoke of the wheel.


Heidi T (A Year of Beading) finished each of her pages by whip stitching the beading to stiff felt. She added grommets to the left side so that she could bind her pages into a book.


Jann B (Encrusted Pages) attached her finished pieces to stiff, hand-made paper which she had pre-folded into an accordion-style book. She made two of these, each with 6 of her pieces.


Sandy J also made an accordion-style book featuring half of her pieces on one side and the other half on the other side. She stitched her beadwork to felt and put a stiffener between the two sides so it can be shown standing.

Framed Work


Lisa B (Hope) gave her beading a quilt-like fabric background and then framed each piece individually.


Lisa was invited to have a show show (Fabricated Realms) of her framed pieces and sold several of them. Don't they look wonderful hung together like this?


Ellen C (Fish) also framed each of her pieces individually.


Karen C (Spiral) designed her pieces to be in the shape of a spiral. She folded back the fabric edges on each of the pieces and stitched them to black upholstery fabric using the picot edge stitch. Then she framed them all together as one piece.


Christy H stitched her pieces to fabric-covered foam-core board (see directions here) and framed them all together. She decided to arrange her pieces in chronological order.


I grouped my pieces into three groups (not in chronological order, but in groups that looked good together) and glued them to heavy book-board that I had covered with papers I painted with acrylics. This is one group of 4 pieces.


Lunnette HH (Priceless) made one beaded button per month and grouped them chronologically in four groups of three, one group for each season of the year. She then made button cards (featuring her own calligraphy), attached the buttons and hung the cards in a frame-case. The frame can be opened and the buttons removed easily should she wish to fasten one to her hat, jacket or purse.

Tapestries and Wall Hangings


Jann B (Silk Fusion) made two BJP pieces per month. You saw one set (accordion book) above. The second set is less heavily beaded. These she attached to a wide piece of satin ribbon (6 on one side, 6 on the other) to make a two-sided room-divider wall hanging. (For the above image, a picture of one side is placed right next to a picture of the other side so you can see both sides at the same time.)


Angela P backed her pieces with stiffener and hung them from chains.


Carol L (Midday 4) made post-card sized pieces (4" x 6") in the "landscape" format. She used three different color schemes, making four pieces in each scheme.


Carol then made three tapestries (Shimmering Gardens), one in each color scheme. This one is Midday.


Trish L (Casey) used 8 of her finished squares to make a long, narrow banner. You can see more of this piece here.


Krispi S, being a quilter, hand-stitched rails between her 12 squares creating a single wall-hanging with all of them.


Thom A (In the Beginning) made each of his pieces as a beaded quilt. Hung grouped together, they make quite a show.

Other Possibilities


Morwyn Dow (Elementals) finished each of her pieces with a leather binding and grommets at the top. She bound the pieces together with large metal rings.


Morwyn also constructed a leather box to hold the journals with a 13th beaded piece mounted on the top.


Anytime she wishes, Morwyn can remove one of her pieces from the rings and attach it to a leather purse, which she also made.


Trish L (you saw her banner above) used two of her other pieces to embellish a store-purchased box to hold the finished banner.


Bobbi K (Triptychs) fashioned four standing sculptures, each with three of her postcard-sized journal pages. If you click to enlarge, you can see that she made fabric tabs on the sides of her pieces and passed the "legs" through the tabs to form the sculptures. Like Lisa, she was invited to show her work in an exhibition.


Becky L decided at the start of the year to make one hair barrette each month.


Jean U decided at the start to make flower pins and to stitch a background for each of them. Each can be removed from the background and worn.

Important Tip!

OK, we've had a look at some possibilities. But you know what?

We do not have to do anything with our journal pieces.
The greatest benefit we will ever have from them is the creative process of making them! We don't have to keep them all together. We don't have to exhibit them. We can simply feel good that we have realized our commitment and have learned more about beading, more about art, more about technique and more about ourselves.

I'm going to take the pressure off my shoulders to do something fabulous with my pieces. Well, I already did something with two of them... You'll see that in my next post. But the other 10 can hang out in a box indefinitely. Maybe I'll get inspired and think of something for them... maybe I won't.

One of our members emailed me a while back in more-or-less panic mode because she had sold a couple of her BJP pieces. She wondered if she should make new ones to replace the ones she sold. My answer to her is this: "You could replace them if you feel you need a full set of 12 pieces for some reason. However, you already fulfilled your commitment and experienced the benefits of making them, so good for you that you sold some! Congratulations!"

My hope is that each BJP member will be gentle with themselves about this. If you have a plan for doing something with your pieces, great. If not, that's OK too.

One More Thing...

Last year, using My Publisher.com, I self-published a printed, hard-bound book with pictures and stories about my BJP pieces. There are several on-line publishing firms that offer this service for a fairly reasonable price. I bought 3 copies of my book and gave two of them away. I think it was about $40 per book , including shipping. You can see my book (virtually flip the pages!) on line, here.

It was challenging and fun to download the publishing program and follow the instructions to layout my book and the dust jacket. And it's really fun to have the book as a physical journal of my first year in the BJP! I'll probably do it again this year.

BJP Begins Again in January, 2010!

Registration for the next (third!) year of the Bead Journal Project begins October 1 and closes on December 15th. We will begin our 12-month commitment in January, 2010 and continue throughout the year.

Registration is open to both returning members from either of the previous years and to new members. This is not a competition. Beginners at beading are welcome. There are no BJP police... It's a self-commitment with nothing to turn in to anybody and no reports are required.

We will have a group blog (similar to this year's blog) and members are welcome to post pictures of their work on the BJP blog or our Flickr page. For more information, see the BJP website.

Past and current members who complete the project say it's a life-changing experience with amazing benefits. That's certainly true for me!

Is Your Piece Pictured Above?

If I've made any mistakes in what I wrote about your piece and you'd like to make a correction or if you have a link you'd like me to add, please contact me and I'll do it! And thanks for being such an inspiration!

Witnessing Art… from Your Heart

Today I invite you to pour a cup of your favorite tea or coffee and sit with me for a few minutes to ponder the concept of witnessing.

Although I am no expert on this topic, I have a sense that it may be one of the most important benefits of being in the Bead Journal Project and (on a much larger scale) the whole idea of blogging.

Let me digress for a moment. Many years ago I took a life-changing class called Process Painting. The idea is to hang a large sheet of paper on the wall, stand very close to it, grab a paint brush and, with a minimal palette of Tempera colors, paint marks on the paper. It is not about proper painting. Rather it is about inviting an inner truth to come forward through the paint… spontaneous and uncensored, quick, gutsy, raw and private.

Our teacher says:

Don’t step back and judge… Stay with it, up close.
If you put one more color on this paper, what might it be?
If you paint one more thing on this paper, where might it be?
If you have one more thing to add to this painting, what might it be?

She encourages us to paint with the self-promise that we will NEVER show our paintings to anybody…. not ever! Nor are we allowed to look at our classmates’ work… not at all, not for the entire three days of the class! This gives us an exhilarating freedom to open the closet door (no sugar-coating) and to let go of having to do it right. We paint like children, without constraints.

But a few weeks after the class, I break the rule. I trust my best friend, Liz, completely. She loves me as I am. She rarely shows any sign of judgments. She is always supportive about my art.

My paintings are strange. They don’t look like anything I’ve ever done before. They frighten me a little. They are not pretty, yet they are extremely compelling. There is an element of strength that I do not recognize as belonging to me. I want Liz to know these things and to help me understand the paintings.

So I invited her to witness them.

Although I have broken the rule, it feels really great to unroll my paintings and pour over them with Liz. We talk about every detail of my paintings. She honors me with her caring attention and witnesses parts of my inner being that I keep hidden (even from myself).

I do not show my paintings to any family members. I do not show them to my boy friend. I do not show them to other art friends.

Why not?

I am afraid they might judge, critique or analyze them psychologically. When I put my most inner being on paper, it needs to be respected and accepted exactly the way it is. If I do not choose my witnesses wisely, I may be swayed into a position of non-respect, non-acceptance and judgment. And that position can be a huge block to creativity and satisfaction with life.

Now here is an odd thing! I sense that most of the Bead Journal Project members and other blog readers are like Liz. Whether my work is raw or common, many of my blog viewers/readers tend to witness, encourage, seek understanding and share their own personal experiences through their comments. If they verbalize a judgment at all, it tends to be positive. In fact, I am quite surprised by the amount of witnessing I receive through my blog and how important it is to me…. When, through my art and words, the authentic me comes forward in my blog, I often feel tenderly witnessed. I see the same type of witnessing in many comments on other blogs as well.

Conventional wisdom proposed by my process painting teacher (also Julia Cameron in the Artists’ Way and even Pat B. Allen in Art Is a Way of Knowing), suggests that we grow and heal, become authentic and find peace through the process of making art or journaling, especially when we keep it entirely private. At the most, we must choose our witnesses carefully. Wait!!! Doesn’t my experience with blogging go against this wisdom somewhat? So it seems to me.

I find this very curious. It also seems odd that I trust and look for witnessing from the blogging community more than from my family and friends.

I’m very interested to hear your understanding about the concept of witnessing and how/if it applies to your experiences sharing your BJP pages, other art or personal stories and thoughts on your blog. Do you seek and receive witnessing from your family and friends?

* * * * * *

By the way, I looked up the meaning of the word witness and found this:

Verb: To witness is to take note of something, to observe or to gain knowledge about something.

Noun: A witness is someone who has personal knowledge of something or can attest to a fact or event.

Word derivation: from Old English (1300’s) wit, which meant knowledge.

There were also two other slants on the meaning of witness… religious (to preach) and legal (to give evidence in court). These are not relevant to my use of the word in this post.

July BJP... all about Dad... I miss him sooooo much

My BJP for July is all about my Dad (and me...) Always the optimist and a person who both gave and commanded respect, Dad died July 13, 2006. Every day I think of him… every day I miss him, his quirky sense of humor and our frequent phone conversations… more than I can say. Every year, when July rolls around again, I feel an incredible sadness and loss. It seeps in and out of me more than it does during the other months of the year.

As a child, Dad contracted Pott's disease (also called bovine tuberculosis). As a result his spine collapsed, leaving him with a shortened torso and neck. His lungs were crowded into a smaller than normal space and he wore a brace to support his back/spine. His Doctors would never have predicted he would live to be 88 years old. Yet never once did I hear him complain about his condition, even when breathing got quite difficult or when a stroke paralyzed him from the waist down. He just found things he could do and went right on enjoying his life. He cherished my Mom and his five kids. I am the eldest. My life is enriched beyond words by this man, my Dad. If you're interested, I wrote more about my Dad here and about making spirit dolls in his memory here.


The fabrics for this piece are from neckties that I made for Dad years ago (specially altered pattern - thin at the neck). The top layer is the front of one of the ties. I de-constructed the other tie (which was silk patchwork) to make the underlayer of my piece. The bear, birds, dragonfly, beetle, kitty, tree, water and flowers are all symbolic of important memories about my Dad. The tip of the tie lifts to reveal a little “book” of words and pictures.



You may recall that I did my November BJP about my Mom and that it is also a "book" with a butterfly wing as the cover. See it below and more pictures here.


My plan for these two pieces is to construct a box (out of book board) covered with quilted fabric in the inside, plain fabric on the outside... and mount these two pieces on the top of the lid. I will use the box to store letters, photos and other special memories of my parents.

I'm in "just do it" mode about this box. I've never made a box before and I want this one to be as special as my Mom and Dad... which, of course, it never could be... so, for a while I was stuck... bogged down by anxiety about making it good enough. Finally, the suggestion I give others came around to my conscious mind...

I do not have to be perfect.

This box does not have to be perfect.

This box does not have to be worthy of my parents.

Perfection is not necessary to memory.

Ha! Back on track, I'm headed to the studio right now to work on the box! I'll post a progress report soon.

Bead Journal Project ~ June Finished!

Sometimes when life gets too busy and stressful, I forget about my ongoing need to stay in touch with the river, the internal life of my soul, the spiritual flow, the source of love, wisdom and peace. For several months in a row, I hardly touched the river at all and seemed to go through the days on some sort of automatic pilot. When finally I felt the dryness, I knew I needed to make myself another visual reminder to stay in touch with the river.


So here is my BJP piece for June, Stay In Touch With The River!

I've been grappling with this concept for some time. It shows up in my piece for March (Zero Circle) and again last month as I seek help from tiger (Open the Door). I am thankful to Pat Allen and her book, Art Is a Way of Knowing, for giving me the word river as a metaphor for that deeply honest force flowing within. And right now, a sense of contentment and ease holds me for a moment as I share my work and this immensely important idea with you.

* * * * This and That FYI * * * * *

The shells on this piece are old puka shells from Hawaii. I found a strand of them when I was teaching there years ago and have hoarded them ever since. I got them out to offer some to my brother for his under-water quilt... Ha! Immediately I knew some had to go on my river piece.

The tiny pink flower sequins are from Accessories of Old, a shop full of vintage beads, trims, sequins and buttons, located in Bethesda MD. They sell these flower sequins on line, here. Thanks to Plays With Needles for the discovery of this shop!

You can find new flower sequins (and oooooodles of other new, reasonably-priced sequins) at Cartwright's. Most of the new flower sequins are large, compared to the vintage sequins I used on this piece, which I think are only about 2.5 mm in diameter.

The folded fabrics are strips of loosely-woven cotton which were hand-dyed with indigo by my friend Carol Berry. The top piece had a single indigo bath, the lower piece had two. I pulled the threads to make the holes and fringed edges. You can see these strips and the pile of pulled threads at the bottom of this post.

My finished BJP pieces are 4" x 6" ~ post card size. I haven't decided yet what to do with them and consequently have not finished the edges of any of them yet.

Most of the seed beads on this piece are size 15s.

Bead Journal Project - Banner & Box

This is Trish! She is a local friend, quilter, beader!

Just when we started the current Bead Journal Project last September, I did a powerpoint "slide show" about it for our Quilt and Fiber Arts Guilds. Trish was there. She got so jazzed about all the fabulous beading and the idea of visual journaling with beads that she decided to be an unofficial participant (already past registration cut off date).

While watching my presentation, she began to think about her son, Casey, who was just starting his senior year in HS. Trish and Casey are like-minded, close friends and companions... She wished to celebrate his life and his place in their family as he was going through the transition from boy-at-home to man-on-his-own. This would be the theme for her BJP pieces and she would make them into something for him to keep.


To have the project finished to give him as a graduation gift and still do one per month, means she has two pieces yet unfinished. These will be for her, to keep as a permanent connection with her son. Her ten finished pieces and how she made them into a banner & box are the subjects of this post!



First, this is the box she made to hold the banner. One of her pages is glued to the top of the box and a second piece is glued inside the bottom of the box.


Above is the full banner, shown hanging from a tree. The banner is made with black Ultrasuede wrapped around a copper tube at the top. Each bead-embroidered piece is sewn to a square backing of black Ultrasuede, cut about 1/4 inch bigger than the piece on all sides.

Trish then sewed these units (beaded piece + Ultrasuede backing) to the banner, but only on three sides (top, left and bottom), leaving the right side open so she could insert a card with a message to Casey explaining the meaning of each piece and her thoughts about him. So each piece has a card that can be removed from the right side.


Who he is - aspects of Casey's personality - uses refrigerator poetry magnates - rainbow celebrates part of who he is.


Let's Bake! - represents his creativity with baking and having fun in the kitchen since he was a young boy.


Maturity - represents growth, maturity and the development of roots for the foundation of his life.


Sweden - represents the time he spent in Sweden as a foreign exchange student.


Strengths - inspired by a package of rings with words stamped on them - these represent both his strengths and areas where growth is needed (he knows which are which).


Ferry Boats - celebrates our beautiful water and all the sunsets shared as a family.


South Africa - honors the time we spent together in South Africa as global volunteers and his strong interest in human rights.


Heart Floating Free - inspired by Hug Nation - Casey is a hugger - the heart is a metaphor for him.

Can you imagine Casey opening the graduation present from his Mom? Do you think there may have been some tears shed?

Personally, I just love this whole idea! Thanks, Trish, for letting me share this with my readers.

Beaded Quilt in Process

This is my little (16 months younger than I) big (6'4") brother, Thom, with his wife, Jennifer, and me in my studio in 2006. In front of us is one of his beaded quilts, Blue Miranda, and you can see more of it on Thom's website, here. He was also in the first year of the Bead Journal Project and you can see his 12 beaded mini-quilts here.

Thom is making a name for himself in the quilting world, bringing both his art/painting training and his passion for embellishing with beads to his quilts. Thom and I are beading buddies, frequently spending hours on the phone talking about our latest projects, bead sources, techniques, etc. It's a blessing for both of us and has deepened our friendship with each passing year.

We also totally enjoy getting together when we can (he lives in central California, whereas I live in northern Washington state). We just had a great week together, beading and sharing in my studio (same place as picture above). What was really FUN for me was to see his process as he went to work on the very beginning stages of a new quilt!!!

Finding himself inspired by two things (1. a strand of stone, disc-shaped beads, dyed to look like turquoise and 2. a funny technique with organza), Thom's mind went to an under water look, with anemones made with the discs and some sort of puff creature made with the organza.


Here's how the discs look, made up as sea anemones. See how he circled the discs with dagger and claw-shaped, glass beads.


Here are the puff creatures.

The puff technique uses polyester organza (Thom uses two layers of different colors stitched together with a contrasting thread color) wrapped around small stones or pebbles and fastened with rubber bands. After fastening a bunch of them, throw the whole thing in a pot of boiling watter and let it boil for 10 minutes. After cooling and removing the pebbles, the polyester is permanently bubbled in the shape of the pebbles. You can crush it (like those cute tops you can buy at shows), but it always comes back to shape when released.

But I'm getting ahead of myself with the pictures... Knowing he would use the puffs and the disc beads, Thom gathered some fabrics from his stash (a blue-brown, blended stripe, which he could use for wooden posts, a blue-aqua batik for water, a brown batik suitable for rocks, a purple batik that might work for the sea bottom , a navy-blue tulle netting to layer over fabrics and some angelina for sparkle). He's been doing a series of quilts 18" x 52" and wanted this one to be in the series. Spreading things out on the table, he began cutting and laying out the pieces.

Soon it took shape! Two posts and some cross bars, angelina used to add a sense of movement to the water, purple sea floor and brown rocks. He used permanent marking pens to create the illusion of depth and texture on the rocks and wood. Then he added 1 to 4 layers of tulle netting to hold everything in place and to give the appearance of depth. Next came a whole lot of stitching, hand-quilting everything in place! By the time he returned home, the quilt looked like this (except for the seaweed).


Remember my previous post about silk ribbons and Nancy's Sewing basket???? Well, Thom and I had a glorious time shopping at Nancy's just prior to his flying out of Seattle. In the ribbon room, Thom immediately spied a large basket filled with hand-dyed China-silk, bias-cut "Hanah Silk ribbons." Gorgeous! Drop-dead gorgeous (and reasonably priced from $.75-5.00/yard, depending on width - up to 4 inches) these could be used in many ways, including quilt bindings. Thom instantly saw them as seaweed for his quilt. Since it's cut on the bias and therefore doesn't fray much, he could re-cut strips of it in seaweed shapes and apply them to the quilt with tulle. Here's how the seaweed looks pinned down.


And here's how it looks hand-stitched in place.


Here's how the quilt looks now after he's worked on it at home during the week since he was visiting me. (Be sure to click to enlarge and see details.)


Are you curious about the fish and the sign? Have aquarium, have some old wood and marking pens, have camera, have photo-editing program, have printer, have ink-jet-printable fabric... and yipppeee... soon you have fish and a sign ready to sew on a quilt. Neat, huh!


Oh, yes, I forgot to mention above... somewhere along the line, it came to Thom that this piece seems to say something about global warming and rising sea levels. Although it's not even half way finished yet, he's named it Global Warming.

I'll post a picture of it when it's finished. Hope you are having fun seeing the process.

Ribbon Question + MOP buttons!

Click on the picture to really see the lush colors of these silk ribbons. Aren't they just the yummiest?!

45 yards in all... 25 different colors!!!!! I bought them at Nancy's Sewing Basket on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle (WA) a couple of weeks ago. Nancy's is a fabric store that's been in business for about 30 years selling fancy fabrics. If you are in the area and love silk, it's a must... They may not have as many different bolts as some shops, but oh my, every one of them is simply luscious.

The other two main attractions at Nancy's are their their button wall (I go NUTS looking at so many beautiful buttons) and ribbon room (a whole, large room devoted entirely to ribbons of all kinds, including I'd estimate about 80-100 colors of silk ribbons... Akkkkk, be still my beating heart... I go NUTS in there too)!

Below are some mother of pearl buttons I bought at the same time as the ribbons. Again, click to see details. You'll be noticing them on my beading soon, that's for sure.


These ribbons and buttons make me happy! They are paint on my palette!

My only question is this... Does anybody have a good method for storing the ribbons???? They're all relatively short pieces of 1-3 yards. I thought of winding them on floss bobbin-cards, but I don't want creases in them.

My next post will be about my brother, Thom's recent visit and the beaded piece he's currently making. He found some hand-dyed silk ribbons at Nancy's that make perfect seaweed. I'll show you in my next post soon!

Bead Journal Project ~ May ~ Open the Door

Ahhh, back to improvisational bead embroidery for me!!!! Here is my finished May BJP page...


Here is the poem I wrote from the piece after it was finished.

Open the Door

I am old and rusty.
Yet still I am a key.
Yet still I hold power
to open the door.

I am old and rusty.
Yet still fierce tiger waits.
Yet still I find courage
to open my heart.

I am old and rusty and empty.
Yet still red blood courses.
Yet still I have strength
to open the door.

I am old and rusty and afraid.
Yet still I want to know.
Yet still the river flows
and tiger takes me there.

Are you wondering about the tiger? It's machine sewn. Fabulous, isn't it?! Karen L. Cohen, BJP participant, gifted it to me after I asked her how she stitched the elephant for her April BJP (here). My old sewing machine doesn't do this type of thing, but apparently one can buy programs for newer machines that create images for you. Here is the program Karen used to stitch both her elephant and my tiger.

Karen offered me a choice of animals and colors. Since Tiger is one of my totem animals, I was immediately drawn to it. Saturated colors were calling me, strong and true... red, yellow, blue! Karen picked the background fabric and determined which of my suggested colors to use for the different parts. I'm so pleased with red as the main color!!! Red, the color of blood and love and energy and protection! Thank you, Karen!

The beading fell together easily on this piece. But the meaning of it wasn't clear until the last 15 minutes of working on it. I seemed to be inside looking at Tiger through a window or a door. I felt a strong urge to get through the door, to open it. At the last minute, I realized I needed a key.

Odd thing... I've been suggesting to several BJPers and to my brother, Thom, (who was just here for a week) that they/he add a key to their work. HA! Duh... It was I who needed a key all along!
Right after finishing this piece, I began my June BJP. Below you can see the fabrics I selected. Do you think maybe this could be the river??? Did Tiger take me to the river? We shall see.