Bead Journal Project

beadembroideredstar.jpg

I am very excited about a decision that I have recently made but also a bit nervous as well. It took me over 2 weeks to sit with it and think it over but I have taken the plunge and committed to a year long project which involves beading one journal page per month over the next year, starting June 1st. I’ve never made a commitment like this before but my intuition is speaking to me very strongly that this is something that I need to do to learn more about myself. Robin Atkins, my “beady” hero, has created the Bead Journal Project and there are already over 100 members. Details are here and you may join until the deadline of May 30th.

I want to keep my journal pages small and, instead of putting them together in book form, I would like to make them into a wall hanging. At first I thought of sewing them onto fabric and making a small quilt. However, this morning as I was browsing through a magazine, I saw a great idea where the artist had linked fabric squares together in a line, one above the other and so on. I really liked the way that looked. As far as the pages themselves, I want to follow Robin’s advice when she says to approach it as a way to “journal out-of-the-box”. It is a way to put your intellect aside and just go with the flow of the beads. I imagine a river of beads flowing gently by and I jump in and see where it takes me. Wish me luck!

What are your experiences when you have gone with “the flow of the beads”?

4 comments on “Bead Journal Project

  1. Mary says:

    I saw your post and wanted to say welcome. I have been fussing for days trying to draw what I wanted and decided today to just put the paper behind the fabric and start beading. So far it is working great. sometimes changing 3 dimension to 2 in a drawing is more work than I need. I’m expecting to learn a lot as the year goes on. Journaling out of the box is a good way to put and I’m grateful to Robin for being willing to do all of this.

  2. artandtea says:

    Thanks Mary. And thanks for stopping by to visit and comment. I really enjoy reading comments, too! I considered drawing something for my pages but then the “go with the flow” feeling came over me and that seemed like the best way to start. Enjoy the flow of the beads!

  3. Acey says:

    Hi Karen – thank you so much for dropping by my blog and leaving a comment. I actually stopped by your blog yesterday but felt too shy to leave a message. I am glad to think of other people here in Massachusetts, playing with their beads and thinking about the BJP!

  4. artandtea says:

    Hi Acey, I’m glad you came by to visit. And thanks so much for leaving a comment! Stop by anytime. We are kindred Massachusetts bead spirits. 🙂

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s