April Bead Journal Project

April! One more month to go & then we'll be all finished for 2007-2008. How the time has flown & how I've changed my outlook on this project. Once again, I'll need to explain my April leaf.

April 1st is my oldest Scottie, FionaRoseBlossom, birthday. Yes, she's an April Fool Dog! She is a wee blond fool too making me laugh. I originally started wanting to dedicate this to my girl & how much love this little 8 year old Scottie has given me since the very first day I saw her at one week old until now when she's the first to see me when I get home in the mornings. I had this piece of jade shaped as a Scottie for a couple years. I was going to make a pendent out of it, but decided for such a special girl (Fi) I need something special for her page. I used fabric that I'd made from a class I taught at Byzantium on the first Saturday of this month. I secured the jade to the fabric & then reached for a tube of beads to start beading. But, my hands grabbed the kit of beads from Beading For a Cure. I've been working on my doll for next year & they just happened to be sitting close. So I decided to use those colors as they complimented the piece of jade.

Let me stop for a second here & explain BFAC a little more. Beading for a Cure started back in 2002 with a group of talented bead artist from a Delphi Group called All About Beads. This will be my third year participating in this charity for Layne & to do research for colo-rectal cancer. As in other years, I'm working on a doll to be auctioned off. Now back to the BJP leaf. As I was working with the colors that just melt into the piece, I took a break. My eyes wandered over my work bench, but focused back on the fabric I had chosen as the base. I saw little threads of pink & blue that I'd used to embellish the thread. I looked at the Scottie jade piece, and then I shuddered. There before me not only was a piece for my Fiona, but embedded in the fabric was pieces of memory of my other two beloved Scotties who'd passed & now stand at the top of the Rainbow Bridge waiting for me. My other two Scotties were FalaPink and SkyeBlue. My eyes just started to flood with tears & all that freeze dried love I had for my two Scotties was hydrated and pouring down my face.

Scotties had started my journey into beading. Through my first web page which was about my boy, FalaPink, I met Cynthia. Cynthia & I loved our Scotties so much & we corresponded for months until we finally got to met each other face to face at a Wee Scot's convention in Cincinnati. Wee Scots was a haven for Scottie dog antique collectors. We instantly bonded & through Cynthia, I was introduced to beading, and eventually to All About Beads. My Scotties FalaPink and SkyeBlue led me out to CyberLand, where I've evolved to what I've become.

I touched the beads from BFAC & caught my breath. Money collected from auction for this project is for colo-rectal cancer research. My FalaPink died due to complications from his bout with cancer back in 2001. Fala had colon cancer. I'd come in a circle just in that one piece of beading. From my Scottie boy, to beading, to exploring myself through my art, and now back to my beloved FalaPink and SkyeBlue (Skye died from cancer also. She had hepatic cancer). So there I was holding this leaf that started with a whimsy about my funny April Fool's girl, and circled back to those two loving Scotties that caused me to love this breed so fiercely. And through my devotion to Scotties, I've found so many wonderful Scottie owners and to my best friend in the world.

So, to all my beloved Scotties with me now & withing my heart, to all those men and women who I've met on the Internet through Scottie Dog chat groups, to those devoted Scottie people I've got to met at shows or antique conventions, to those people who touched my heart and my soul and made me become an artist, I'm dedicating April to you. To you who have taught me to spread my arms and embrace life.