"Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together, and they add up to the story of life." --Rob Sheffield

I think the definition of crafting is boundless.  It doesn’t have to mean gluing things together or slapping paint on a piece of wood.  Personally, crafting is anything you make—anything at all you get creative about—for yourself and especially for someone else.  It’s kind of the core of my crafting belief system.  So, this post is about how I’ve asked some lovely people to craft something for me.  And even though they would never call what they are doing crafting…I do!         

I have recently fallen into a funk—musically speaking.  I’m not enjoying listening to anything.  I find this particularly distressing since I find it impossible to craft in silence.  Even my all-time favorite crafting music seems blah.  The Beatles’ The White Album has been my crafting constant since high school.  Though in the past few years, I’ve begun putting all The Weepies’ albums on shuffle when The Fab Four just won’t do.  And, lately, I’ve found the Stevie Wonder station on Pandora to be quite the inspiration.  But I realized last week that I need new music in my repertoire for the purpose of crafting and, well, just living my every day life.

 

So, I’ve recruited—okay, maybe coerced—four very different people into taking a blank CD and crafting it into a bit of auditory delight for yours truly.  I’m banking on their song selections having the power to pull me out of my musical funk and to take me out of my usual musical boundaries.  My only guideline is that when they give me the CD filled with their idea of amazing music they will provide me with some information as to why they chose the particular tunes on it.  I mean no mix CD with any integrity is haphazardly put together, right?

I’ve given them no deadline which means the anticipation is killing me…in a good way!  One friend has not only called me about the project but sent me two emails asking for clarification and mentioned it on Twitter…all of which I find quite darling!  And, I have given a final guideline.  The CD crafter must write the date of the day they burned the CD on it.  Not only do I have a crafting belief system, but I also have a CD filing system.          

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."--Marauder's Map, J.K. Rowling*

*The title of this post has nothing to do with my craft project.  I'm just celebrating and grieving the last Harry Potter movie this weekend.

Dates are sort of important to me.  And I don’t mean just birthdays or anniversaries.  I love the dates that can and can’t be found in a public record.  But mostly the ones when I was going about my day and something in my life shifted ever so slightly.  I love the date of a moment with a movement so small I didn’t even notice its importance until later.

August 23, 1999:  I sit down next to a girl I’ve never seen before and start to ramble.  Fast forward almost twelve years through many more rambling conversations to last week, the same girl visits me at work.  I’m greeted by the endearing title of “Auntie Laura” from said girl’s five year old and given an awesome kid hug that mostly takes place around my knees.  My life shifted that day, August 23, 1999.  More people were added to it even though one of them didn’t even exist yet.

January 11, 2000:  I begin sharing a dorm room with a girl with whom I went to high school but had little interaction with prior to standing in a half empty, university owned room.  Fast forward eleven and a half years later, I now call her my family.  We certainly aren’t related by blood or marriage, just a choice made because on January 11, 2000, I found a kindred soul.  

Dated Design Wall Art

Because of my fondness for dates like the ones above, I instantly loved the concept of the linked craft.  And I commend this blogger for being above-and-beyond crafty.  However, I’m not her level of crafty.  When I made my own I had to modify her process a bit.     

I bought a set of black number stickers and a piece of deep purple cardstock from Michael’s.  I carefully measured out each row of numbers and even taped a ruler to my dining room table to ensure perfect sticker placement.  I mean how hard could it be to stick a few stickers?  I had a couple Lisa Frank sticker books in the third grade.  Surely, that was training enough!  Yet, I have no idea what went wrong.  Everything ended up crooked.  I was pretty disappointed considering I had planned to give my little project to my husband as a gift.  It was one of those crafting failures you can’t even bring yourself to cleanup.  I left it in a pile on the kitchen counter.

However, a few days later my husband noticed it.  He told me he thought it was super neat.  It reminded him of computer programming code.  He asked if he could hang it in his office—which was my original intention.  Crafting triumph!

The picture on the left of the finished craft is terrible.  But it was a terrible craft so you aren't missing much.   

“Gratitude is the sign of noble souls."--Aesop

My kitchen is probably the most difficult room for me to decorate.  There is a sharp contrast between the soft shabby chic colors of the walls and cabinets, the stainless steel appliances and the bright bold colors of my dishware.  It’s the room I was most regretful about once we were done building our house.  And that was even after we had the first set of cabinets replaced, had three special meetings with the builder about the arched doorway and I sent back the first refrigerator.  I really don’t know what I was thinking on any of it.  So, now, I’m spending way too much time thinking about how to fix it.

I really want to create something crafty to pull the room together.  I want to center it on a word or phrase.  And to get all Eat, Pray, Love on my craft blog, my kitchen’s word is—thankful.  Whenever I’m in my kitchen it’s the word that absolutely surrounds me. 

I’m thankful for the food in my kitchen whether made from scratch on straight out of the takeout box.  I’m thankful for my Fiestaware—it’s the persimmon color that has been discontinued which makes me love it more.  I’m thankful for the red tea kettle given to me by my husband’s Mamaw which has sat on every stovetop I’ve had since college.  I’m thankful for standing barefoot in the kitchen early in the morning and listening to NPR while I wait for the coffee to finish.  I’m thankful for the important conversations I’ve had with my husband while I cooked and he leaned on the counter or while I sat on the counter and he cooked. 

So, what says all of that!?  I’m thinking of using “Be Thankful” or “Be Grateful”—like a reminder.  Thoughts?  Suggestions?  Links?            

"Do they give a Nobel prize for attempted chemistry? Do they?”--Matt Groening

I'm hoping to get more crafts out this paper.

When I started my blog I promised to report my crafting mistakes.  Ohhhh, but let’s just call them mishaps.  Shall we?  Are there really any mistakes in crafting?  I don’t think so.

I woke up this morning feeling pretty crafty.  I had four thrift store picture frames and some craft paper I bought a few weeks ago on my mind.  I thought I would put a little crackle medium and paint on the frames…cut the craft paper to fit…and, BAM, adorable accents for my amazingly bare kitchen walls.  Easy, right?!  Yeah, I thought so, too. 

When I posted a few months ago about the wonder of crackle medium I gave the instructions off the bottle which explain one should paint a basecoat, apply the crackle medium and then a final topcoat for successful crackling.  However, I must confess, I thought the basecoat was only needed to achieve the color contrast that makes the crackle effect really pop.  My frames already being a dark brown, I decided to skip the basecoat.  I went straight from crackle medium to a cream colored topcoat.  Yeeeaaahhh, that didn’t work.  Clearly, I should have been thinking less about pretty and more about basic chemistry.  The basecoat is needed for the reaction to occur that causes the paint to crack.  Whoopsy!

Bleck!

I then for reasons I don’t understand decided to paint a layer of crackle medium over the cream color that didn’t react followed by a layer of red paint.  The cream would show through the red and be super cute, right?!  Uh, no.  It didn’t even look a little cute.  So, I applied another layer of crackle medium and another layer of cream.

I wish I could end this post by saying my mistake…I mean mishap…turned into something wonderful.  But I can’t.  It’s okay but not good enough for me to show a picture of the finished product.  I did manage to salvage the other frames which look quite perfect.  Yay!

I end by saying slow down.  Read the directions.  Think about it.  

And don't get too big for your crafty britches.

When I'm home/Everything seems to be right--"A Hard Day's Night" by The Beatles



You can't see from this angle a tiny blue bird being
obscured by the giant purple flower on the right.





So, I was on my way to buy a food processor…and I accidentally crafted this wreath.  I have never been one of those people who hang things on their front door.  I only rented doors until a few years ago, and joked we always found out we were moving the week after I hung anything on the walls, let alone on the door.  It got to the point after about the fifth move that I didn’t put anything up at all.  I always knew we wouldn’t be there long anyway.  When we finally became the proud owners of our own front door, I still felt like I was renting.  It wasn’t until Christmas came, seven months later, that I put up a nice seasonal wreath.  And there it has been living since December 2009. 





Yep.  Those are cobwebs. 
*hangs her head in shame* 

 Then today I was on my way to buy a food processor when I remembered a Michael’s coupon in my purse.  My idea was to briefly stop in the store to purchase a pre-made wreath.  I had big plans to make salsa this afternoon—not craft!  I should have known myself better.  Forty minutes later and two missed calls from my husband on my cell phone, I came out with all of this:

I didn’t end up using all of the items.  Heck, I didn’t even mean to buy the third bird.  I only brought it to the register because the yellow bejeweled bird didn’t have a price tag on it.  However, I became too enthralled in a conversation with the cashier about my next stop to buy a food processor to tell him I didn’t actually want it.  As for the green glitter ribbon…don’t you hate it when your inner five year old makes you buy things?

I wrapped orange yarn around a basic wooden wreath. 

Later, I added a bit of blue yarn for some contrast.

These clip-on felt flowers made it super easy to attach them.



I clipped the birds to the yarn and secured them with a bit of wire.

I made a bow out of the rest of the yarn.



I’m happy with how it turned out.  As I hung it up I started thinking about the flowers I planted a few feet away, the grass in the front yard which my husband pays such careful attention to, the color of the front door that took us two months to pick out—and all I kept thinking was—we’re home.   

"Hey baby, do you like fine cooking? Cause you know what? I got Swanson's Dinner in the freezer with your name on it.”—Jimmy Fallon



Crafting Tip:  Pets should always preside over your work.



I love when someone I love finds their crafty bone!  My sweet friend Becca found hers this past weekend.  You see she is the cook of our friendship.  She takes cooking classes. She writes a cooking blog.  And, well, she cooks delectable edibles.  And being one of those people who take great pleasure in telling everyone the awesome things their friends do, Becca is also one of my most favorite people to brag about.  Personally, I’m not a cook.  It isn’t that I don’t like to cook.  It just seems like such a chore.  It’s fun when I have the time, but on nights when I don’t get home from work until 8:30 pm…cooking just seems like an obstacle between me and rest.      

Oh, and I’m not that good at it.  One of my main cooking problems is I get distracted and skip a step…or two.  Plus, I try completely ridiculous recipes.  I can never seem to find exactly what it calls for, so I make poor replacement choices or end up at three different grocery stores buying ingredients I’ve never heard of.  Lastly, I tend to over think which leads to over slicing, over mixing and general over cooking.

Becca, on the other hand, is quite the intuitive cook.  Yet at the same time, she really thinks about the food she is working with and the meal she is creating.  She carefully plans.  Heck, she organizes her shopping list by grocery store sections.  She likes the line by line instructions.  She likes the structured process.  Which is EXACTLY why she doesn’t like crafting—and I do.  Craft instructions are simply guidelines.  Skip a step?  No worries!  Just add more glue…or glitter!  Started making a birdhouse and ended up with a dozen pot holders?  Awesome!  Crafting is as all over the place just as I am while cooking is down the line like Becca.  And what is really cool is that at their cores crafting and cooking are the same:  Why buy what you can make?!

Anyway, so this is why I’m so proud Becca made this:



Adorable, right?!

As for me and cooking, I think it will come in due time.  It will be just like me and French!  I took four semesters of French in college and walked away barely able to speak a word of it.  Then, four years later, I went to France and somehow through the jetlag I could speak French!  It was like I was Angelina Jolie in some kind of spy movie.  I half expected to remember I also knew kung fu!  My husband was absolutely amazed.  He kept asking me to translate signs, menus and conversations.  I think if I had to cook—if all the takeout food in the world disappeared—I could cook.  But until then I’ll let my nifty friend Becca handle it.                

"The discontented man finds no easy chair."—Benjamin Franklin

Isn’t this chair A-MAZING?  If I could be a chair I would want to BE this chair!  It’s actually a found chair of which I became the serendipitous owner. 

I once worked for a lovely non-profit which was housed in an old jewelry factory and mostly decorated with mismatched furniture donated by the community.  Our chairs, desks and our favorite, the credenza, were quite worn…but free.  Despite the good intent of the donations, a very official person from a very official agency said we had to get rid of some of the items because they were not up to code.  Insert my good fortune here. 

I opened up my work inbox one morning to find an email announcing a particular chair needed a good home because it had only four legs and needed five to be a regulation chair.  It was the fear of the official person that someone might sit in it and flip out onto the floor causing them to sue our little non-profit.

I might add the email did not include a picture.  It simply stated the first person to walk to the back of the office and claim the four-legged chair would be its rightful owner.  You see not only did I really need an office chair, but I have a soft spot for things slightly broken, irregular or with missing parts.  A good example of this is the one-eyed teddy bear Christmas stocking I own because no one would take it at a holiday party I attended.  This chair was the furniture equivalent of a puppy with three legs.  I raced down the hall to claim it.

It felt like Christmas morning, one-eyed teddy bear stocking and all, when I saw the chair was actually the one pictured at the top of this post.  Pottery Barn sells something similar which retails for roughly $400.  I put a giant sign on it declaring my ownership.  Then I called my husband to explain I needed him to pick up yet another piece of abandoned furniture of which I had taken possession.

Oh, chair love is truly blind.  My husband informed me upon retrieval that my chair needed new casters.  He knew this because when he picked it up all the wheels fell off.  And it seemed to need some wood work, too.  The casters had fallen out because the threads were completely worn out.  I assured him I had big plans for my beautiful chair.  I had dreams of sanding, colorful paint and a set of brand spanking new casters.

It’s almost five years later, and I still haven’t replaced the casters.  The chair is still carefully perched on the original set.  Nor have I touched it with a piece of sand paper or a single drop of paint.  Oh, and sitting on it is a bit trickier than I thought.  But, hey, as long as you don’t lean back too far or try to pick it up, like at all, you’re fine.  I thought it was going to fit in perfectly with my shabby chic home décor once we moved into our house until I realized the original casters might scratch my new hardwood floors.  *sigh* 

My husband finally convinced me to let him put the chair in the attic.  I have to say to his credit every time we get down the Christmas decorations, one-eyed teddy bear stocking and all, he tells me to remind him to buy casters the next time we are at Home Depot.  I have no idea why I can’t get it together to fix this chair.  Part of me wants to use it just as I found it, but the crafty voice in my head wants to paint it a glossy bright green.  Make it perfect by accepting it is perfect the way it is?  Or make it perfect by crafting it into something that is perfect for me?  I think there is a metaphor for life in there somewhere.  I’m undecided on all accounts.

Lastly, here are some pictures of the other found chairs in my life. 

This is a picture of my great-grandmother’s rocking chair of which I am now the proud owner.  My mother gave it to me with the story that my great-grandmother rocked all of her babies in it, and the instructional warning that I should never rock my babies in it for fear we might fall out onto the floor. 

This is a picture of one of the four dining room chairs I inherited from my grandmother.  None are exactly alike because my grandparents put the set together one by one.  I know for sure the most unmatched of the group was discovered by my grandfather on the side of a country road while he was delivery eggs.  My grandmother recovered the seats back in the early nineties with this terribly tacky fabric which I can’t bear to remove because I get all of my tacky good taste from her.

For further reading on abandoned chairs:

50 Sad Chair by Bill Keaggy (I have to warn you it just might be the tiniest book you will ever read.  I’m sure the collection development department of my local library is still shaking their collective fist at me for requesting it.  Sorry!)