February Bead Journal Project

Well, it's not February anymore, but I did finally finish my Bead Journal Piece for February, and I *might* have enough time to get March's completed by the end of the month now that I am finished with the package I have been working on since we got back. :)

Here is the February Bead Journal Project Piece:


This is supposed to be a protea flower. The King Protea is South Africa's national flower, but we didn't get to see any king proteas in bloom while we were there - too late in the season. But we did see a few other protea flowers, mostly pink and orange ones. They grow on very very large bushes, and they were all over Table Mountain in Cape Town and at the Cape of Good Hope nature reserve. It ended up being a lot harder to bead than I imagined (harder than last month's penguins, for sure!).

Here is the original sketch that I made, you can see the finished flower didn't come out quite as I had envisioned it. I hope it actually looks like a protea!


Project Notes:
Size 11 delica seed beads in opaque pearl butterscotch yellow, pastel pink, pink, hot pink, watermelon, limeaid, lime green, aloe green, and forest green
3mm swarovski crystals, XILION Bicone Palace Green Opal
4mm swarovski crystals, XILION Bicone Light Emerald
5mm swarovski crystals, XILION Bicone Fern Green
leftover quilter's cotton
size D Nymo thread with size 10 beading needles
backing: dark green ultrasuede


Eventually I am going to attach a pin back to this, but I didn't have a good-quality pin back on hand and wanted to finish this before too much later in March! I think I am going to give it to my mom, as she has a collection of pins (mostly antiques, but not all) and she loves protea.


I do have the beads for March's project as well as the sketches completed, so I will get straight to work! Hard to believe that in another week it will be time to order the beads for April! :D