A glimpse into the creation of a project...

Somebody on a beading forum asked me how I planned my BJP. It's funny how this evolved. I started out knowing I wanted to participate in the Bead Journal Project. I had been drooling over bead embroidery for a while and made my moon embroidered bracelet. The only rules of the project are that the 12 pages for the year be the same size and that they be beaded in some way.

I initially decided that I would do 4x4 squares and then mount them together somehow for display. I didn't know how to do a "book" like some other journalers are doing (check out the BJP blog and then the BJP Flickr pages for more drooling).

Once I bought my interfacing and started thinking about it, I decided that I would just keep my "pages" together and hang them that way. I thought of lots of things I could do - different colors for each square, scenes from my recent trip to France...then I saw a bead quilt that had squares beaded in different colors but with outlines that when they were all put together, made a picture. I liked that idea, but didn't want to copy. I am not sure where the leaf idea came from, but I decided that I would do four of them in quarters on the whole 16x16 grid.

Once I had my leaf and the size of each quarter, I started doodling. Somehow, I ended up with something that reminded me of wind, and voila! the theme had been born! I think just as hard as coming up with the theme has been choosing what color schemes to use. If I hadn't already drawn the leaves on the interfacing, I might not have even included them, just going with the elements. After finishing the first one, though, I am very glad I decided to just go with what my original idea was.

After the entire project is done, my ultimate goal is to mount it under the glass top of a handmade mahogany coffee table. Not sure if that will ever actually happen, but it sure would be gorgeous!

Kassie