January 2010 BJP3 Completed

I was so excited to finally begin Bead Journal Project 3 (#2 for me).  When I finally got to sit down to try plan what I was going to do, I reflected on my last year.  One thing that seemed prominent in my pieces, at least for me, was my "crazy circles".  I loved those guys (the look of them and stitching them).  But what they meant for me, was chaos in my life, constant running around in circles with no end in sight....I didn't want that to be so prominent this year, especially beginning the project in January ~ the start of new things.  So I decided to not make those "crazy circles", at least not in my very first page.

As soon as I could, I cut out all of my pieces for the year.  A 4 x 4 square.  And I cut exactly that.  Oh no!  I thought I'd made a huge mistake and wasted so much of that material ~ which is hard to come by at my JoAnn's.  Well, I got a lot of good suggestions on my post at BJP3 blog 1 and decided to go for it and see what would happen if I just beaded to the edge.   To my surprise, it worked! 

Last year for, some of my pieces, I was able to sit down, pick some colors and just wing it and I'd get a piece I was happy with.  Very little planning went into those pieces.  So, for my first piece I figured I'd give that a try.  Too much thinking and planning all at once for me at the time, I was overwhelmed.....So, I began with a color I liked.  I started going and going...and pretty soon I had shape.  To me it looked like a rose.  Then I thought, hmmmm I'd like to shade this (something I'd not done last year, but I had the basic concept of).  I stitched that.  Then I filled in the rest of the "rose".  Once I was done I took a long hard look at it.  I HATED it!  I couldn't get past the fact it no longer looked like a rose. It looked more like a big blob of seed beads with another color thrown in for no reason.  I so ruined it!  But, not one to toss a project and waste a thing, I set it to the side.  No worries!

I went down and got myself another square.  I stared at it.  And stared at it for a very long time.  My husband thought I was nuts!  I then decided I needed some inspiration and logged onto the BJP3 blog.  I came accross Angela P's post and looked into all the links she had.  I found information on zentangles.  Oh boy!  I used to do those all the time.  Especially if I got bored.  Just what I needed! 

Well, all excited, I decided to sit down and get my colors ready and go for it a second time.  I got my basic outline done (how I started my zentangles before).   Oh boy the middle looked like it would take forever!  So I stopped and thought on that a bit.  I decided January is cold!  The edges, once stitched,  looked a bit like a window frame to me so I looked outside and what do you know.....it was snowing!  Oh that'd be perfect!

January is a cold snowy month here.  I spend a lot of time looking outside my window rather than being outside.  And, during this particular snow, my husband was out plowing for 36 hours straight.  I was feeling lonely with him gone so long.  This is one reason why I put nothing else in that "window".  Not exactly a positive for the start of the New, but when my hubby did come home, we were all quite happy!  It also reflects that January is somewhat a lonely month, not just for us here, but for others.  The Holidays are over with all the parties and celebration.  The weather outside is cold and often not that great to be traveling for visits in.  But, by using the light blue for the "sky", it does give me the impresion of sun and I know good weather is not that far away...

Well, here it is....January 2010!