Stepping Through the Gate

My BJP page for July is done. I am still working on the journal for it but mostly need to figure out what I want to say. It has been an interesting month with some over due realizations on my part. If you want to read about those go to My BJP Blog.

The photo is of my first two months and gives you an idea how I am going to be hanging them. I may move the spacing closer but that won't be hard to do. My plan at the moment is a mix of pages that are pages of full sized photos and pages with smaller photos on a fabric background.

Tomorrow Colleen and I are going to a local gym, we have a free week to decide if we like it. We have decided to be work out buddies and maybe with both of us trying to take better care of ourselves we will manage to motivate each other. We are going to plan on around 10am which since I am a night owl puts it first thing in my day. I am hoping that when I get myself to eat more healthy and do some kind of exercise it will effect everything in my life in a positive way. Can't hurt.

I have gotten a start on designing my new website. Since I was moving it I decided I wanted to make some changes and I have a good start on it. I have plenty of things that I need to work on so it is remembering to prioritize and do some of several different activities each day. I probably should work on my to-do list so that I make sure that I know what I need to work on. I need to start thinking about getting a start on my Christmas cards. I have an idea so it is just a case of fitting it among the many other things I have going at the moment. At least I am in no way bored.

My First Beaded Commission

I have managed to get all of my Bead Journal Project journal entries moved onto a new blog. They were all entered with in 2 days so if you want to see the pieces from a particular month you will need to use the labels for June or July. It took a bit of work but I think it will make it easier for people to access it. I will have additional photos for each month on my website.

I went out for lunch with Colleen (my landlady) today. We had a good time and she is easy to talk to which is helpful at times.

Wayne called on Monday night and is doing well. He has built a bit of storage furniture for his group to use. He is keeping busy and working out regularly. It sounds like there are lots of critters there, more than you might think of for a dessert. They have bats and lizards and birds and other animals that he tells me about once in a while. Since many of those eat insects especially those that bite I am sure they are glad to have them around. I send him daily e-mails about how the Red Sox are doing so he gets to keep up on how they are doing. Wish we were still in New England since they are doing so well this year, going to the games are always fun but when they are winning it is even better.

My class yesterday didn't end up happening (no students) but things are slow at the bead store especially classes at the moment. The good news for me at least was that I had my first piece of commissioned bead work. Not anything overly elaborate but kind of neat to know that the bracelet that I had at Bead Boutique made the man ask for a necklace like it for his daughter. I went in to the bead store and made it while I was there since I needed the crystals to make it and didn't really want to drive there to get it, come home and make it and then drive back to drop it off, especially since he needed it in a week.

Things are slowly moving forward on my projects here. I am a little further along on both my pop-top purse and my July BJP page. I have spent more time on the computer getting my 2 blogs up and running and will work on getting my new website figured out. Since I am moving it anyway I decided on starting sort of from scratch. Now that I know how to do things it won't be as time consuming and my site will feel fresh. If anyone has any suggestions feel free to e-mail or leave a comment. It will still be with dotmac and somewhat graphics intensive but I will continue to play with it to see what I can do with it to reflect my art.

Recycled Art

I am still working on getting everything figured out for my upcoming change to my website and learning a lot about what my computer can do. The good news is that I have few distractions and lots of time on my hands so I have also had time to play with creative endeavors.

My BJP for July is coming along and I will probably get more time spent on it tonight. I am thrilled with the texture and dimension that I am getting with the piece and the creative journey my life is taking as I go through the process and my life at the moment.

My other creative project at the moment is my Pop-Top chain maille purse. I started playing with the pop-tops about a year ago and built it up a little here and a little there and this spring I decided that I wanted to turn it into a purse. At that point the hard part was to figure out how I wanted to do that, but I love a challenge and slowly things are coming together for it. I am planning on entering it in the "Bead International" bead contest. They consider anything pierced as a bead so I figure that my pop-tops would count, they also tend to like innovation and such so maybe this will get in. I just need to get it finished before the September deadline. I don't think that should be a problem now that I have figure out how I want to do some of it.

Starting over again.

I decided that since I am going to be switching my website over to actually have my name on it and that it seems to be getting harder to load since it is getting large that I would move my blog over to Blog Spot. This should allow me more of a web presence and make it easier for people to leave comments to, subscribe to etc. Who know maybe Wayne will even be able to check it out. Hopefully it will load a bit faster for people.

With this and trying to figure out the changes I need to make for my website I am already learning a lot and spending even more time on the computer. Not that I needed to do that.

I went to Bead Boutique on Saturday night for "Girls Night Out" I really enjoyed spending the time with other beaders and getting out of the house for a bit of social time. My class for tomorrow isn't going to happen. Tricia said that except for beginners class that it has been slow for classes. Maybe once fall comes it will be better. I worked some more on my Bead Journal Project (BJP) on Saturday, I am getting closer to the ending. I need to start getting the back ready so that when I finish the front it will be ready.

I spent some time today working on the metal mesh screen that will go inside my pop-top chain maile purse. I need to make some decisions on that and take some photos so that I can include them.

Until I get my website figured out I won't be including links to it in the actual posts. There is a link in the side bar to my website and I will include links to other sites in the posts and once I get all of the computer stuff figured out I will include links to photo pages etc on my website in the posts. I have so much to learn on how to do all of this stuff so bear with me.