Pinterest Challenge #5 - Glitter Pumpkins

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Here the Link to the How To : Glitter Pumpkins

I saw these on Martha Stewart last year and I FELL IN L.O.V.E
I certainly didn't have the time last Halloween while teaching 2nd grade and the community potluck.

Unemployment.

Pure Crafty Joy.

Joy.

Since I'm broke.
And not just a little broke.
A lot broke.
As in, I'm not collecting unemployment, just because and I'm not insured.

Hooray.

But seriously, I need to pinch every penny until I get my rear in gear.

Therefore, glue from home and $3.00 thing of glitter from Michaels got the job done.
I only have one pumpkin here, but I did three different sizes.  
I opted for real, but small gourds.  
Something about the faux pumpkin screams YOU BOUGHT ME AT THE DOLLAR STORE and no amount of glitter could fix that.  
Even though these guys will only last the season, they were worth EVERY penny and look stunning beside the the gold thumbtack pumpkin.
Hooray.




Redecoration...AKA Moving Home

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When you're 28, unemployed, unmarried, no children, and most of all NO clue what you'd like to do, along with having a master degree in education, and a bachelors in communication and feeling like a complete and utter failure there is only one place you can go to make yourself feel even more defeated.


Home. :)


That's right.

The lane of flowers.  

Where, 11 years ago I peeled out of that driveway so fast and said I'd never look back.

Truth be told, for 11 years I never did.

I stayed in the area of my university after graduate school, taught, worked for my university, my biological mother found me facebook, lost a best friend to cancer, got engaged, I traveled, met my biological sister in NJ, called off my engagement, met an adult bully known as my boss, and realized that everything I was doing was someone else's dream and had nothing to do with what I wanted.

So I took a step back.  

I called my mother.  
You can cringe.  
I did.

And I asked to come home to a haven for a few...well...I didn't don't know how long.  
Days?  Weeks?  Months?  Years?

We stopped talking about how long about a month ago.

I also decided that sleeping in my old, very, VERY tiny room in it's current condition would, inevitably, kill me.  

I didn't tell my mother because even at 28 and 64, she thinks I'm 4 and crazy when I want to try anything something new.

Are your parents high-strung? Not.  Even.  Close.  
Do you know she still won't let me mow the lawn with the rider, but if I want to use the push mower on our ACRE of land, that's cool?

Yeah.

Anyways, I took my less than $100 budget and thought about what I wanted.

Something RELAXING for sure. 
Something that made the room look bigger.
Something blue to help me sleep.
Something that could double as an office and not just a room packed with furniture that looked pre hoarders.

My original color scheme is gone and I didn't take any pictures I don't think.  The top half was pink and the bottom half was like, heavens, I can't even describe the green, like, early 90's green.  EVERYONE's room was that color, which it why I went 1/2 and 1/2.  With a black border in between.  

That black border was my mom's idea. 

She's a lesbian.  I tell you this because...well...OUR ENTIRE HOUSE is in border.  

Really?  You didn't know that early 90's lesbian decor was borders?  Welcome to my life.  She even has a border AROUND the door.  A PAPER BORDER around the door.  It's painful friends, painful.

So, in my search for inspiration, I started HERE!  My lovely teacher friend crafted this for me and I LOVE it.  I had it in the bathroom of my townhouse...those were the days.


I picked the wall color behind it based on some of the hues in the shells.

It's an ice blue and it's perfect.

My room is a work in progress and I'd like to get it to be a cottage feel.  

However, my mother still has the 90's dark wood (lesbian) molding.  
What is that?  

When I finally get around to putting hardwoods down, I'll be painting the molding white.  





It's uncanny.

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I have been thinking about this journey I'm on.  With more time for me and more time for scripture and more time for crafting this horrible year into a good year has been SPECTACULAR.


So I don't have a job.


I think Steve Jobs would say, "You also don't have a job you hate."


I've spent a lot of time in the last couple of years of my own journey worrying way to much about what everyone else thought about what I was doing.


I ask all women and mothers, daughters and sisters, and friends WHY we do it?  I know I'm not the only one.


We compare, we condemn, we condone.  It's not right.  Shawshank Redempton - GET BUSY LIVING or GET BUSY DYING.  We need to support one another.


No matter how ridiculous.  Or goofy.


Or uncool we feel.  I promise myself to stop listening to the voices in my head that tell me I'm lame and someone thinks I'm uncool.  And start living.


It's a journey, folks, no one said it came with a manual.  Although, the following is now added to my happy book and I will stand on these happy words and breathe deeply the air of unemployment and reckless abandon.


"You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle."
-Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

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Unpaid Internship?

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I'm 28.

I have a B.A and an M.Ed.

And.

I'm unemployed.

Boo.

But I'm not down about it.  Really, I'm not.

I'm joyful.

Do you hire a 28 year old for an unpaid internship?

I HOPE so.

The Rosie Show

I made a video.  
I'm not sure I like it.  
I also have some ridiculous outtakes.  

I may turn those into my real video.  

We'll see.

Pinterest Challenge #4 - Weekly Calendar

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I know, I'm in love too.

Inspiration Blog here: Weekly Calendar
Inspiration #2: Scraptastic Version

You don't need these.  I wanted to stencil on the days of the weeks.  Don't.  It was a mess.
I changed to stickers later and I like them WAY better.
I started this idea not liking something about the scrapbook paper.  

I don't know?  You tell me, something about it just wasn't what I wanted.  

Then I realized I had left over fabric from my magnetic fabric board, that I LOVED.  I decided fabric was just the texture I was a looking for.

I went about the remnants at Wal Mart and found 1/2 yard of each of my coordinating fabrics.  

Why 1/2 a yard?  Mistakes?  If I wanted to change the fabric, it'd be really easy?  

Mostly mistakes and believe me, while stenciling, I made a lot.  That brought me to $1.99 letter stickers from Michaels.

I didn't use spray glue to hold them down, I just covered the inserts and taped them onto the back.  

I may want to change, so this option was better.

I laid out what and where I wanted which colors and just loaded them into my $10 WalMart frame.





Pinterest Challenge #3 - Gold Tack Pumpkins

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BEAUTIFUL Tutorial Here: Madigan Made
My pumpkin from WALMART!  $2.94.
Solid Metallic Paint also from Wal Mart.
I like the pumpkin just like this and almost finished here.
Dollar Tree Tacks.  $1.  
I bought 20 boxes because I knew I'd do more than one pumpkin.
And I really want to make the wreath from pinterest, too.
So, I went crazy.
In progress.  It only took me three hours.  SERIOUSLY.  Only :).  I watched three of my jams at night.  Including Up All Night.  Which either makes me want a baby or Christina and Will as my parents.

Finished project to be loaded in a bit.

Pinterest Challenge #2 - Fabric Covered Magnetic Board

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AMAZEBALLS directions here: Fabric Covered Magnetic Board Tutorial

I followed her directions to a T.  

Almost.

I did get a little lost and overwhelmed at Lowe's.  Meh.  It happens.  

No one EVER comes to ask me for help.  

Ever.  

Big girls get no love in supply stores. 

 None. 

I wandered those aisles looking for the sign pictured in her post. 

(Her TUTORIAL is thorough.  THOR.  OUGH.)

I almost gave up and paid $25 for a piece I did find.  

But, on my way back to the expensive sheet, a little glimmer of metal, from RIGHT where she said it'd be caught my eye and 8 dollars later it was mine.

I will say later I went to Home Depot, where I also never get help and this young gentlemen stopped and asked if I needed help.  

Probably because I was standing at the end of the aisle with tears in my eyes frustrated that I never seem to get help and all I needed were magnets and I was standing right beside the aisle with magnets. 

I'm such a nerd.  

I tell the boy every time I go to one of those stores he needs to come with me.  He always looks like we've got a project that needs help.  

I'm not sure which is sadder, that I can 't get helped or that he can never not.

Boys.

Anyhoozle.

I said I followed it almost.  You follow it exactly, mkay?  

I didn't buy gorilla glue because I'm penny pinching and the glue that was right next to it was a thicker white glue that looks more like paste when it dries.  It worked, but it was MESSY.  Mess.  Y.  Save yourself the heartache and splurge the extra 2 dollars.

I used gems and fabric from Joanne's. 

As I was making over my room, I chose an ice blue for the walls, and have some things that are a little Martha's Vineyard Cottage-y.

So I wanted a color that would pop and that's where that loud fabric comes in.

Also, I didn't find my frame at the Goodwill, I found it at my sweet spot. :)

Michaels.  


They have a big bin of frames someone ordered and never came to pick up.  Dimensions already on it, mine was 23X23. 

And...

$4.

SCORE.

I really LOVE this project because I don't just have pictures I want to hang.  I have a substantial collection of letters and cards that I love that I can now easily change in and out.

I also used colored squares from a scrap of scrapbooking bag ($3 at Michaels) to back some of my photos.  Since the back fabric is so loud, it helps the picture stay grounded.




That card at the bottom is from MC when I left teaching.  It says "Thank You" on the outside.  "You're Amazing" on the inside and then his hand written name.  2nd grade love.



Pinterest Challenge #1 - Creamy Chicken little pot pies

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 These Creamy Chicken little pot pies LOOKED so good, and while I'm rockin' gluten free life, my family is not and they gave this 4 out of 4 stars.

They generally enjoy my cooking, or they more accurately generally enjoy that I do the cooking, but this night was DIFFERENT.  There was a quiet wonderment about how I had spent all day making this awesomeness.  I let them continue to think it took me forever.  Instead of the 7 minutes it really took.  That's love.

So simple.  SOO Delicious.

Here' the link: Pennies on a Platter - Recipe Go NOW.


My attempt is less glamorous, and I missed the shot when they emerged as golden brown goodness.

I made her recipe exactly, and I got 17 rolls!  I did butter and breadcrumb after this picture too.

I also put PARCHMENT paper down on ANYTHING but, especially with crescent rolls so there is no residual crumb-age (that's a word, right?).

It's hard to remember life before parchment paper.  How did I live and how many perfectly good chocolate chip cookies had to over cookie or burn before I realized one sheet of this stuff is like heaven?

The Author Writes The Words

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Dare you to not fall in love.



:)

"The author writes the words,
the author writes the words, 
hi, ho, library-o,
the author writes the words."

KB inserted "librarian" for library because she's an artist and a Diva and you know, she can.

The Christmas Wreath

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Also known as, Rena can't find the power cord to download craft photos.

:)

Nice.

Anyways, these photos were never posted and now that I'm O2F2N....officially off Facebook for now...and have EXPONENTIALLY more time on my hands and feel better about myself, I'll share this short story here.

This was our Christmas wreath 2010.  I know what you're thinking, your crafts skills have better have improved.  Believe you me, I'm working on them. 

It stayed up into January because it's also new year's-ie...right?  
At least that's what I told myself.
My sister on the other hand was going to kill me for leaving it up.

But God works in mysterious ways, and as always...there was a reason we left it up.

So someone could build a home.

Out of the cold, and away from the elements. 

They were pretty quiet neighbors and we didn't even realize they were moving in until, well, their home was finished. 


And I kinda didn't know they'd have so many babies, and they'd be messy, and protective neighbors, but I knew they needed that space away from the snow.

And sparrows are tiny.
And all of God's creatures are important.
Right?

And so they moved in.
At eye level and technically into our house EVERY time you opened the door.
But we had a bad winter in New England and I thanked God that he had found a safe shelter for them.

And then the babies came.

One at a time.

And they were BEAUTIFUL.

They were so little and every time I came home from school, I felt God's hands, securely around them.  Those neighbors of ours knew we meant no harm and would fly to the barren tree beside our house and wait for us to ooh and awe and then go inside.  Then they'd fly back and continue to rear.

Then it was Spring Break in April and time for me to travel to Virginia Beach.

When I came home.  

The BABIES were born!
2 Corinithians 9:8 And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

They grew up at our house.

We had the space.

They got even bigger. 
And some part of me learned about sharing.

And some part of me learned about space and that fact that sometimes all you need is family, space isn't so important.

And some part of me learned about caring.

My kindergarteners were fascinated when I shared the photos with them.


They got even BIGGER.  I stopped taking photos in their "teen" years because by then, I'll be honest, I was ready for them to learn to fly and leave.  They were so MESSY.  Never cleaned up after themselves.  Had friends over without asking.  Ate their parents out of wreath and home.

And then one day, just as quietly as they had moved in...they were gone.



And the Christmas wreath home was taken down.

But I felt good every time we saw the sparrows in the now growing tree.

Is it weird?

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That I think about fall more than spring as a time of renewal?

It may be the fall air.

The brilliant night sky.

The day of crafting golden guilded pumpkins.

Walking with the brisk air this evening.

Watching Patti Lupone perform...eh.

My nephew, Logan's, baptism on Saturday.

Most likely, sermon, from this morning:

Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9

There is something about living through the difficult patch, the part that feels like a zillion hurdles, that makes the grass on the other side that much softer. 

My dear friend explained it through this Romans message: When we give it up to God, he not only holds us tighter, but he helps us to see the goodness.

It's that, "we're never alone" thing.  Right?

Fall Renewal.  Lurve it.

My faith is strong.  STRONG.  I feel it all around me all the time, and most of all in the prayers I pray for others.  For their healing, hope and faith to be faster, deeper, and stronger.  Renewal.  It's like: whoa.

I have a ton of pics on the mac to upload once that mac is internet ready.  Or, rather, the house is :).

No pics of Patti.
She is all about no cameras. 
We heard from the couple next top us that she walked off stage once because someone snapped a phone photo. 
Which made when she came out on stage for her 2nd ovation with a disposable camera even funnier.

She was good.

No Idina Menzel at the Boston Pops.

But good.

Next on the this Show Girls - Broadway, not the Jessie Spano version, List - Audra McDonald in NY at the end of the month.

Tomorrow I hope to finish my pumpkin, daily schedule, and get the room almost finsihed.  Oh wait, the room has been almost finished since...okay, I get it - home improvement is never ending.

Never.

Ending. :)




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