Simple can Help .................

Sometime early last week, I came across a neat Tutorial for making Beaded Christmas Ornaments using trash and left over bits of jewelry and beads.  The tutorial is available here and I must thank Jenny at  Jenniebellie Studio for her wonderful blog and terrific artistic spirit.  I watched her video tutorial and then set out to make this technique more my own.  For the interior of each ball, I used wadded up plastic grocery bags for the first and then moved on to wadded up used drier sheets wrapped in a plastic bag for the second.  After wrapping the bags the held it all in place with lots of scotch tape, as Jenny suggests, and then covered that with white tissue held on with white glue. This first ornament I did according to Jenny's instructions.

You can see that I used some vintage buttons and some bits of old jewelry along with seed beads and larger beads from my stash of left over beady bits. For the next ornament, after drying, I added some of my own fabric/paper scraps in various patterns. Jenny showed her "Baubles" as she calls them, done entirely in beads and jewelry, I wanted to speed up the beading process and also to add more of my own style to each ornament.  I am now calling these creations, my Mosaic Beaded Ornaments.

Here is the first ornament done with my fabric/paper and beads.

Ornament #1 and #2.

With the horrific and heart-wrenching news of last Friday, I turned to my art to calm my nerves and force me to concentrate on something other than the huge flood of pain that is washing over us all. This process of creating from "trash" and gluing on beads and bits in a haphazard mosaic fashion was, and is, very soothing and gratifying. The repetitive and quiet process of adding beads and bits was extremely soothing and peaceful for me. With each sparkling crystal I place, I think of a child's laughter and the joy that was brought into the lives of parents and their teachers despite the life being taken far far too early.  that laughter and joy can Never be erased from the hearts of the loved ones who are left behind.  As the ornaments hang sparkling and twinkling on our tree, I look at each twinkle as representing the precious smile of a child.  These ornaments are gifts for other's and those that receive them will know that they were created to help me walk out of the darkness through the power of Art!  I have quite a few of these ornaments planned and it will be an activity that I look forward to after a busy day, for quite awhile.

We must all work hard to overcome the strangle hold that the gun lobby has on our society. We MUST be able to honestly tell our children that we are doing everything in our power to keep them safe and secure.

For the next Mosaic Beaded Ornament, I started thinking about combining fiber with the beads and bits. So after the tissue paper drying bit was done, I glued on bits and snips of vintage lace and trim and then filled in the spaces with crystals and old pearls and flat backed crystals.  ( A great place to find inexpensive, very sparkly flat backed crystals is in the Scrap booking area of your local craft store!! If they have adhesive backs, be sure to add some glue as the sticky back will probably not hold up well over time.)

I also added some strips of muslin that I had written on.  these bits were left over from an old project and I am pleased with the vintage text effect that the scraps add to this ornament.

There are so many directions that this tutorial can be taken, be sure to stop by Jenny's blog and check out all of the fabulous projects and inspiration that she has to offer!!!