Sometimes It's Just Too Much! November BJP

Sometimes it's just too much. Too much to do. Too many meetings. Too many social events. Too many newsletters to publish. Too much food to cook. Too much food to eat. Too much to clean up. Just too much.

Late October through early December were just too much. Not that I'm complaining. I volunteered for (or at least agreed to) all this stuff. And for the most part, I enjoyed it.

But I felt as if I were being pulled in too many directions all at once. It was hard to focus and concentrate. I had voluntary, self-induced ADHD.

These feelings came out in my November BJP. But I ripped some of them out. My original intent in this page was to revisit Abundance, a concept I pondered in November 2008's BJP. In this year's page, Abundance became Just Too Much.

I started with golden yellow beads, creamy yellow beads, and some light brown beads. But the light brown beads were just too much. Too much contrast, too much busyness, too much distraction, too much lack of focus. So I ripped out the brown beads. And I finally finished the page last week.

Technical Details:

The foundation is Lacy's Stiff Stuff, painted with yellow and orange Memories Mist spray.

The beads are the usual suspects--15/0s, 11/0s, 8/0s, with some hexes, Delicas, and triangles. In this piece I also used some larger beads--6/0s and some even larger than that, whose size I don't know.

In addition to the backstitch, I used the stop stitch, some fringe, some ruffles, a twisted stitch, the moss stitch, and the picot stitch.

The page is 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches.

I used yellow C-Lon thread.

What I Was Thinking:

It was interesting to think about how Abundance moves to Just Too Much. How do we know when we have enough, when we have an abundance, when we have too much? And what does that mean when we think about those who do not have enough? Beyond that, I spent a certain amount of time thinking that I had better get this done and that I hadn't blogged in a very long time. I tried to prioritize what I had to do so I would not be overwhelmed, and the beading and the blogging ended up at the bottom of the list. I'm sure that my discomfort with the brown beads slowed me down, too.

Issues That Came Up:

I am SO much more comfortable working with a limited range of color and value. Very limited. How do I balance my comfort (artistic preference?) with the desire to challenge myself?

I had a similar reaction to working with fuchsia (still can't spell it) on my October BJP. Should I just admit my artistic preferences and forget about moving outside them for my BJP?

I've got to do a better job of organizing myself. Or perhaps of organizing my mind and exercising self-control.

And I've just got to stop spending so much time surfing around on the internet learning about Turkey and attempting to learn some Turkish. Oh, no I don't! Instead I'll spend even less time vacuuming.


My December BJP is well underway. I hope to finish it by the end of this year!