Saturday, January 28, 2012

Oh HERE is where I put the title. Doy.

Well, it's finished.

As expected, the beads take me sometimes, and sometimes not. There are parts of the piece with conscious meaning to me, and others I was trying a technique or color combo or just keeping going!

The size is 2.5" by 2" (63.5mm x 50mm) approx. For much of the time I worked on this, I shut off TV, computers, printers, monitors, etc to get the room as quiet as possible. Working in a pharmacy there is a constant noise of printers, computers, monitors, faxes, lights...and it makes such a difference to turn them off. Of course, then I can get no work done!

Here at my bench, though, the quiet is nice, and only the Ott Light (desktop-folddown type) is on. I even took the batteries out of my mouse to eliminate the red light! That reminds me, I unplugged something to plug in the Ott Lite and did not reverse the process. Everything I want to work is working though, so maybe it's the old useless printer up on the shelf...

There is never complete silence because I have a lifelong case of earworm. Today, on my own, I came up with the intro to the old Bugs Bunny cartoons (Overture, hit the lights...sorry :-) Then my husband is belting out Copacabana in the shower. Could be worse. It went on for hours (in my head) until I had remembered almost all the lyrics I had forgotten over the past 30 years of not listening to much Manilow. Of course, Dave does not know the lyrics and poor Tony is shot dead in all 3 verses, sad to say.

I have no current inspiration for February. It's cold. Not Arctic cold but cold for Anchorage (low -20F : high -5F). Yeah, minus. No wind though, and sunny like it usually is when it's this cold. I have gloves on with the fingers cut off. Earlier I had a qiviut headband on. There not much on the planet that is warmer for the weight.

I designated this day a "no website work, no housework, nothing but doing what I would do if I could play with beads whenever I wanted" day. Most of last night, too. I wanted to prove to myself that I could at least get one month of BJP completed! Oh it's also a "not wasting hours surfing mindlessly on the Internet and spending money on things I don't need" day. But the day is not over and the computer is back on...

Good night :-)

Ooops! I thought I was writing this on my own blog. I am going to try to move it. Success! But sorry if it shows up in both places. So I will also sign in case it does.

Cindy A.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

2012 Bead Journal Project

Well, I am going to try to commit to this again. It did not go so well in 2008 but I have chosen a 2 1/2 by 2 inch piece of Lacy's Stiff Stuff to bead on so that part will be easy. I won't have to worry about getting through leather, or stitching too tightly on fabric, etc.

For January, I have chosen to leave the background white. I am combining a little bit of Zentangling with my beadwork. I thought about coloring the background but as I have not done any stitching for a while, I thought I'd better KISS (keep it simple, stupid!)

I have found that I have trouble with actually "journaling" anything. It's more a matter of where the beads take me, and there's not too much to analyze, I think. I've never kept a written journal (well, once, for a few months), and whenever I have tried to do the freehand journaling of The Artist's Way, I have not lasted more than a few days.

Maybe some of that will come once the process of stitching gets more comfortable, though that has not been my experience in the past. For that reason, I consider myself more of a "crafter" or "artisan" than an "artist"

Well, gotta get up early to work at the hospital tomorrow. Time to try to sleep. Lately, I have started with a bit of trouble sleeping combined with night sweats (I'm 43), and I fear that perimenopause has started. Since nothing else related to my reproductive organs has been "easy," I am not particularly enthused about this development! :-)