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Coming soon! What is coming soon you ask? I will be opening an Etsy shop. Yes, here in the next week it will be up and ready to go. Keep checking back here as I will have a great big Grand Opening party. There will be a giveaway. You will not want to miss out on the fun.
Valentines day is one of my favorites. I love the shape of hearts and have been drawing them, cutting them out, and looking for just about anything heart since I can remember. So when I saw this great heart wreath over at Little Birdie Secrets a couple of weeks ago I thought I would try it. You do not have to be "crafty" to do this project, even children can do it. We did something very similar with our Girl Scout Troop out of Styrofoam balls back in the day.
Here is what you start with: Styrofoam heart, glue (place glue in a swallow bowl), sharpened pencil (a large knitting needle works well too), and 1 1/2 yards fabric cut into 2" squares (I used 3/4 of a yard of two different prints).
Wrap the square of fabric around the end of the pencil and dip it into the glue.
Then poke the pencil down into the Styrofoam heart.
Keep repeating that until the heart becomes full of fabric squares. I did this last night while watching American Idol. I guess it took me about an hour and half if you are the kind that needs to know time. I love how it turned out and it looks great on my red door for Valentine's day.
I just cannot believe that my little girl is now 21 years old. Although, it does seem like a long time ago that I had little ones at home, it also seems like just yesterday that I was receiving big hugs and wet kisses from this little girl. Time goes by way too fast for me as a Mom, but I am so looking forward to what life has in store for this very precious young women. May you always seek your God given purpose in life. We love you!
But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.
2 Corinthians 12:9
We have another team in India. I received a text from my friend Belinda that they arrived in Bangalore and were traveling by van to their destination. She said the roads were not smooth nor straight and I know exactly what she is talking about. We partner with the India Gospel League to encourage and develop the women of India in their journey towards God. Pray for our team as they participate in conferences and travel in India through February 8th. You can check Belinda's blog for updates on the team and their travels.
I just finished my first week of homework in the new Bible study that I just started. We are doing Beth Moore's new study, Esther, It's Tough Being a Woman. One thing that I am looking forward to is the drama of this story laid out over 9 weeks. I know the story and in fact read another book, Esther, A Woman of Strength and Dignity over the holidays by Chuck Swindol on in preparation for this study. But you can never anticipate how Beth will make something come alive and new in how she presents things.
Beth says on day one of our study, ".....no life is free of troubles, regardless of religion race, or nation........When we trust our lives to the hand and pen of an unseen but ever-present God, He will write our lives into His story and every last one of them will turn out to be a great read. With a grand ending. And not just in spite of those catastrophes. Often because of them."
Yeah! I am looking for my life to be a great read with a great ending!
Has anyone else seen a bigger bow on a hat? When they announced her and she walked out of the Capitol building I burst out laughing. Are you kidding me? I guess the bow is not on the hat, the bow is the hat. I am not sure who her stylist is but I think they missed this one. The bummer thing is that this will go down in history and the hat will be seen forever.
Now there are times when bows are appropriate, but come on they can be WAY TOO BIG no matter how cute you are. I mean come on, what was this mother thinking?
On this historical day in our country, I have the opportunity to have the president in my home. Yes, he will be spending the day with me. You too can have president Obama in your home today by going here and doing a little cutting and folding. I love these kinds of events in our country and have a hard time pulling myself away from the TV. Although I know that all of this will be reviewed in tedium in the media, I want to see it all for myself. I am going to try to stay on task today and not sit and watch, after all I can multi-task. I just am easily caught up in the hoopla.
Wow, today is my day I am the featured blog over at The Secret is in the Sauce. This is web site that supports women who blog. So welcome all of you who have stopped by from SITS. I have been looking forward to this day for a while now, but wasn't sure when that day would be. After having been sick all weekend, I was moving a little slow this morning, open my email and I have over 100 emails all from those wishing me a great day. What a great way to start my Monday. So here you are, take a look around, and have a great Monday!
I had so many plans this weekend to play in my new studio. My plan was to start back up on scarp booking and getting caught back up as well as working on my new soldering skills. Saturday morning I went to my weekly Panera visit and on the way home stopped by Michaels for a couple of supplies. As I was waiting in line to checkout it hit me. I got sweaty, and dizzy and truly thought I would pass out right there. I paid as quickly as possible and felt better once I got out into the cold air. I laid down as soon as I got home and haven't gotten up since. Although I am feeling a little better today, to sit up makes me a bit dizzy after a few minutes. One more day of taking it easy and I hope I'll be back to normal tomorrow.
So if anyone would doubt that I can shovel snow here is my first solo snow shoveling job. With no kids around to do it for me, and Jeff at work, at lunch time I decided I would accomplish the task. I was even able to use the new and improved shovel that we purchased earlier this winter. This may have been a little bit of a selfish act as we have plans tonight after work and if I did not get it done now Jeff would have insisted on doing it before we were able to go out and have fun. In fact, I found shoveling kind of fun, with making the lines and then clearing the snow within them. So for all of those people out there that believe I could not or would not shovel snow, just call me a snow shoveling kind of gal.
I have been working on the makeover for the Stitches By Sturman studio since early December when the wall unit pieces started to arrive. They not only be had to be put together, but stored out of the way until all were here so we could build the unit.
Once the wall unit started to come together, I needed to get baskets to put in the cubbies so that it could be organized and still look nice. I had no idea how much organizing baskets cost. Do you? Well, they are stincking expensive. But thanks to Home Goods and IKEA I was able to find some great prices on baskets and boxes. With a coat of great red spray paint all of the baskets would look similar, yet I would still be able to get the cheap ones.
Here I painted an old window frame I had hangin' around with the great red spray paint and put a piece of wood behind it and pianted it with chalkboard piant to get a chalkborad above my computer area. You can leave me a little note on my chalkboard any time.
Okay, now the fist picture is of what things look like when I am trying to organize and put things right. They have to go really bad before they can get to the end organized, neat, and tidiness that I want. This drives Jeff crazy in case any of you are wondering. He does not get the organizing in the middle of a mess thing. In the first picture, notice the iron marks on the cutting table, they have disappeared with a new cover on the surface. We all know they will reappear again because that is just the way it is but for now we have nice clean surface.
In this first picture is a little bookcase that I almost threw away. If you look in the very first picture, you will see how it appeared before. I still needed something right by my cutting table to hold various supplies, so of course out came the white spray paint for the bookcase and the great red spray paint for the little cabinet on top, once again looking shiny and new and both were saved from the dumpster. I love it when I can be a dumpster saver.
So you have had a tour of my new and improved studio. I will never, ever work in a "workroom" again. I will be going to the studio for my days work now. I am so excited. Thanks for allowing me to share this exictement over the new digs for Stitches By Sturman, after all I am the only one that usually works here and just wanted someone else to think it was great working in the studio.
This weekend I spent part of Sunday in my new almost complete studio. It is so fun to finally have most of my supplies organized and in the right place. I found things that I had forgotten I had, which inspired me to do a little beading project. Here are the results. Hearts and buttons are some of my favorite findings. I have been drawn to the shape of hearts for as long as I can remember and I have a huge button collection. A little bag of buttons just makes me happy so putting the two together in a bracelet seemed to be the right choice.
I have been updating my workroom into a studio for the last month. It's not quite complete so I will not be showing pictures yet but here is one of my dumpster chairs that will be in a small sitting area in my studio. Jeff is the one that rescued this chair. Now picture it, I was not even with him and he brought home this chair that he actually took out of a dumpster. I guess if you live with someone long enough you are bound to ware off on one another. Anyway, I am so bad about getting before pictures because I get so excited about starting a project that I forget and don't remember until I have already started. I actually stripped the fabric off this chair over a year ago. I just could not bring it into the house like that, and it sat half naked until this week when the makeover began.
The arms and legs were not bad, but they started out as dark wood. So with my trusty spray paint they became a colonial red.
After I allowed the paint to dry I sanded some of it off in the areas that would naturally receive ware.
Add a little more stuffing and some fabric and this is the little dumpster chair that landed in my studio.
I love before and after projects. These are where you take something old add paint and some of your own touches and before you know it you have something jazzy to show for your efforts. There is a website, Southern Hospitality, that is showing a bunch of before and after projects from 2008. Click here to see my favorite before and after project of 2008. Take a look and get inspired to do something new with something old in 2009.
Journeying toward purpose!
I was on the phone yesterday with someone who was telling me about how they felt that they needed to make a job change. Although their job is paying the bills and they have had success, they felt that there had to be something more. Even as they have been assured of an upcoming promotion, they were not sure that would not be enough. Their questions were about the purpose that they felt this life held and whether or not this job would help them fulfill that purpose. In our culture, making a change from a successful job goes against the consensus. Sometimes we have to go with our gut rather than the opinions of others. When we are truly ourselves, following the convictions and gifts God has placed in us, we will be effective. When we trust in God, we can trust that still small voice when the culture around is yelling. I hope that I will always have the courage to lay aside the transcript that others are placing on me and follow the promptings of my heart.
Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God re-mold your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity. ~Romans 12:2 (PHILLIPS)~
Once my house is back to normal after all of the Christmas decorations are put away. I feel like it looks so plain around here. So last night I decided to make a garland for the mantel. I used the supplies that I had, paper, ribbon and my handy Cricut machine. With Valentines being the next holiday the hearts and love seemed to be the obvious choice for the theme. Besides any excuse to use pink in decorating, I am all over it.
I just cut out a bunch of hearts and the letters and strung them on a ribbon and then hot glued little bows between each. I got a little too ambitious and made it a bit long to start with and had to take a couple of hearts off. The "O" kind of falls forward so I put some tape on the back to secure it to the mantle but that could have been avoided had I placed the holes for the ribbon a little bit higher on the letter and it would hang right.
Okay, every year I have to put the Christmas decorations away and the storage closet gets all straightened up and I can walk in it. All the plastic bags you see are my Christmas trees. Once they come out of a box they never go back in. I just undecorate them, leave the lights on, and cover them in a Christmas tree bag and they stand there waiting to be beautiful once again. But it never fails that by the Fall of next year this storage closet will be a wreck. I am not sure why, but I just keep adding things to it. I guess because there is room. Like the chair that you see, I picked that up out of a dumpster. Yes, you heard me right. But the wood on it is so pretty and with a little bit of new fabric and some new stuffing it will be beautiful again. The real sad part is there are two more that you are unable to see in this picture, another one in the garage, and still another one I have actually moved out into my studio for a redo. And to think all of them were at one time in a dumpster. Someday I know they will all be in someone's home never revealing to anyone they were a throw away.
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