my current WIP

i generally don't post too much here about my job, in an effort to keep my work life and my personal life separate. but for the purpose of my current WIP, it involves a little bit of both!

i am a project manager at Peter Mayer, a family-owned advertising agency here in New Orleans. i've been here for almost 5 years and love working in a fast-paced environment with creative people. one of the cooler parts of our building includes "the bead wall" that hosts the agency's former logo made entirely out of mardi gras beads. 

me and cricket in front of the bead wall, 2013

i like having personalized needlepoint pieces because it tells a story. so i took a picture of the bead wall and had annie from needlework vault paint it on a canvas for me. the perfect size for a christmas ornament. i knew that i would bead most of the canvas.. after all it is the bead wall. which is precisely why it sat in my stash for close to 3 years, it was an ambitious endeavor and i always had other projects i was working on. 

i pulled it out last month and started mapping out my plan. again, i wanted to do as much from my thread stash as possible, so i used my sundance beads and got to work. 

i've neglected to post until now because it has all been somewhat mindless work. progress doesn't seem as enticing to show because the beading process takes significantly longer.

luckily, my sweetheart has been busy with work, so it's given me more time to devote to making headway on this! originally i thought i would bead the entire blue background, but that would have been boring. i decided to break it up with framed scotch in metallic ribbon floss, and using the beads as the frame. it adds a fun pattern and helps make it more dynamic. as of last night, i finished all the lettering and moved on to the 2nd cloud. i figure i'll "reward" myself by outlining the scotch in blue beads once i can complete the monstrosity that is the clouds.

i could have probably done way more to this canvas to make it pop. i could have "don-beaded" or i could have stranded the beads and couched it down in a cool swirly design, but honestly i wanted it to go as quickly as possible. i know i'll love it when it's completed and finished, but the process to get there is less fun compared to other projects that i'd like to move on to. have you ever had a project like that?