Exciting news and good intentions!

The announcement went out this morning--I'm now part of the amazing team of Hybrid Chicks at The Digi Chick site! I have had a blast coming up with digital + paper projects for the WM[squared] Designs team for the past several months, and am really excited to add The Hybrid Chick to my creative work. THC focuses on teaching hybrid techniques as well as showing off awesome projects, and I'm really excited to have the opportunity to contribute there!

And, as a bonus, I am feeling very motivated to amp up this blog... since the announcement on The Digi Chick forum included a link to this little corner of the web!! :) So if you've popped over here from TDC, welcome! And I hereby promise (or at least have every good intention toward) a more active blog with lots of hybrid and other scrappy and crafty goodness!

Just a couple other notes for now:

*The prayer kneeler (see older posts) I worked so diligently on for so long is still in the garage in a very sad state. I had lots of optimism when I put a coat of stain on it.... and all the stain did was highlight the scratches and divots and bumps in the wood. I've rethought my plans and am going to go a different direction with it---based on this fabulous chair makeover at CentsationalGirl. I'm even considering twine-wrapping the cross... though that might be a bit much. Meantime, it's back to the paint stripper and power sander!!

*Lent is around the corner (I know, it's super exciting, I'll try to contain myself ;) ). I will be blogging daily at The Ordinary Times beginning February 22. I am planning to do a rather, um, extensive nutritional overhaul during Lent, and I am also scheduled to lead a devotional series at church once a week, so my plan for the blog is to do "40 Days of Prayers" during Lent---to keep it doable (and also because I may need all the prayer I can get to get through my diet cleanse!). Don't worry, though, I don't intend to write prayers about food (or coffee, *sigh*) every day! There will still be scripture references, and prayers based on the Bible. If you'd like to pray the days of Lent with me, please come on over to The Ordinary Times and bookmark it, follow me, or add your email address to receive new posts in your inbox.

*I made two resolutions this New Years, and have actually been somewhat successful so far at keeping up with both of them... and my other "good intention" is to blog a bit about them. So if you're interested in cooking (and getting off the same-old-meals merry-go-round) or fashion (and defrumping a mumsy wardrobe), stay tuned!

Have a wonderful weekend, and I'll be back soon! (At least sooner than 3 months' time! I promise!)

Coming soon to The Ordinary Times...

Just a quick note to remind you all (and myself!) that Advent is starting SOON, and yes, Virginia, I do plan to blog daily Advent devotions on The Ordinary Times blog. Mark your calendars for Sunday, November 27 for the first post; and add The Ordinary Times to your bookmarks or blog reader (or subscribe to receive posts via email).

I haven't decided for sure yet where I'll be taking scripture readings from, but as always I will post links to the scriptures with each daily post.

Thanks in advance for joining me this year! I can't believe it's almost here... but I'm excited to begin the journey once again!

Blessings!

What a difference a few chemicals make...

Was:

Is:

I'm happy that I can put away the scary chemicals now... but I suspect that if I thought stripping paint was tiring and physical, sanding is going to kick my rear. I have even been too tired to knit after working on this for a few hours every day! But I'm excited at the prospect of another shopping trip to the hardware store, soon, to choose stain colors--a day I wasn't sure would be possible.

And, no doubt, another shopping trip (even sooner) for ibuprofen! :) (I have miles of Christmas gifts to knit before I sleep; can't afford to be slowed up by all this "hard" work!)

Encouraged.

New (giant can of) paint stripper, steel bristled brush, cooler temps, and a whole new attitude:

 "... she works with her hands with delight..."

Prov. 31:13

Labor of Love

A couple of months after my grandmother's funeral, mom gave each of us "kids" a surprising gift... some money from Grandma's "estate." Mom's only request was that we try to use it (or at least a good part of it) for something that would be a keepsake.

You would never believe me if I told you how much anxiety this caused me.

For real.

I was close to Grandma... as the oldest grandchild, the one among my siblings who lived closest for the longest, the one who wrote letters back and forth for years (and years), the one who loved hand-crafting like she did. I felt strongly that I wanted to spend the money in a way that would honor her, that would be not just a keepsake but a tribute.

After much (!!) consternation, tears, brainstorming, I finally decided what I wanted... a prayer kneeler. She never had one herself but she was a pray-er. The last time I saw her, in fact, she said she hoped when she was gone people would remember that that's what she was. She believed no matter how far apart we were separated geographically, we were all connected in a "web of prayer," and she believed in being an on-your-knees pray-er especially for those most serious concerns.

The trouble is, a prayer kneeler isn't the kind of thing you can just run out and pick up. And once I knew I wanted one, I didn't want to sit around waiting for who-knows-how long. I started researching online, finding everything from inexpensive (boring) woodshop-made ones, to hundreds-of-dollars antiques (that cost more hundreds to ship). Finally we went out one Saturday morning just on the off chance that one of San Antonio's antique shops *might* have one.

We found 5 in the first 2 hours. And yes, I came home with one of them.

It wasn't what I'd imagined (how I wish I'd bought one years ago in England, when we visited a church antiques warehouse every few months just for fun!) but the price was right and in the antique store it looked pretty good.

Then I got it home.

And it didn't look so good anymore. C'mon in, Buyer's Remorse. Bad paint job, wonky nails, dried-on crud. (I'm ashamed to admit I planned to take a photo of it but I just couldn't bring myself to do it, I was that bummed about it.) So it has been sitting in the garage since summer, waiting for me to decide the next step. Spend a bunch of money (probably more than the price of the thing itself) to have it professionally refinished? Probably the right choice--but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Frankly, it doesn't seem very Grandma-like. They weren't "pay a ton of money for something" people. They were "do it yourself and do a good job" people.

Plus, it doesn't seem very prayer-like to me to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on what amounts to a religious display piece, when real people are hungry for want of a few coins.

So I'm doing it myself. Starting today, armed with a slew of chemicals and scrapers and sanders and pretty much just keeping my fingers crossed.

I didn't take a "before" picture, but here's how it looked today when I remembered I should snap something to remind me where I started. (This is after I removed the cushions from the top and the bottom. They're currently covered with yellow velvet-like stuff... which will be replaced.)

The antique store guy told me it had been refinished, and that they'd tried to strip it but the wood had absorbed some finish so they just painted it all. Now that I've spent 90 minutes and 1/2 a can of stripper trying to remove LAYERS of paint from one little section, I'm thinking maybe he was......... *cough* mistaken. Still, a bit of happy news: there IS wood under there! See it?? And it even looks like I might be able to get to it... eventually.

And then there's that golden cross. I've been trying to imagine what kind of refinishing I might want to do on this. After spying that tiny bit of real wood, and getting a look at the white under the gold, I'm now considering trying to get the main body of the kneeler somewhat natural and woody, and leave the cross itself a distressed cream, maybe even with little bits of the gold left on the edges and corners?

At this rate I have no idea how long this project is going to take (but clearly I need to find a more effective route that paint stripper and a scraper to get all the layers off). It'll be a labor of love, I guess.

Just like Grandma's prayers.

I *heart* NY in the movies!

So you're switching over to dvd and downloaded movies, and don't know what to do with your beloved VHS tapes?

After we filled a box or two of tapes for donation, there were a couple of old friends that I just couldn't bear to part with; dvds are better in so many ways, but I saved a few boxes of a few very favorite VHS tapes, thinking someday I might turn them into notebook covers or... something. I used "It's a Wonderful Life" last year for my Journal Your Christmas 2010 album. (Check out Shimelle's blog for info on my favorite project of the year!)

And this week I was thrilled to use "When Harry Met Sally" for a mini-album all about our favorite movies set in New York City! WM[squared] introduced a new addition to her Great Escape kit, Great Escape: New York, and after puzzling over what to do with it, I finally realized that I wanted to journal a bit about these favorite films!

This time, though, I flipped the box covers over so I could decorate the outsides, and see the movie images on the inside covers of my book.

I used the same journaling block on each page to tell a bit about the movie and why I love it, and added embellishments from the kit that coordinated with the movie itself.

I used the Zutter Bind-it-All and page protectors; the inner pages are just inexpensive 4x6 photo prints. And there are still several movies I need to add!!

And... doing this project made me realize that I also need to do movie journals of London and Chicago movies! *sigh* It never ends!! So if you need me, I'll be out scouring Goodwill stores for VHS copies of "Notting Hill" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"...! :)

Awareness calendar printable

One of "my" designers, WM[squared], has created a fabulous kit for Breast Cancer Awareness month called Be Aware... she's donating 20% of the kit proceeds to the Susan G. Komen foundation, and she let me create a printable freebie that is available on her blog:

CLICK HERE TO GO TO BLOG POST WITH DOWNLOAD

The 13 calendar pages (Oct. 2011-Oct. 2012) are sized at 4x6, so you can simply download the pages and send them off to your favorite one-hour developer for easy, inexpensive printing.

If you download, please don't share the files directly with others, but definitely DO share this message and the link to the WM[squared] blog so people can download their own calendars! While you're there you can check out all the amazing layouts and projects that the rest of the team created with this "think pink" kit.

Enjoy!