Thievery... and Other Crafting Adventures

I'm a crafty sort of person.  What I mean by that isn't that I'm artistic, that title goes to my husband.  He can create something out of nothing.  I, on the other hand, am good at stealing ideas from other people.  That, and I have a personal affinity towards the mundane and monotonous.  Honestly, usually find tedious tasks very cathartic.  Anyways, a few weeks ago, I was walking through a garden center and found some boards for really cheap.  So, I bought a few and some wooden cut outs, brought them home and started searching the internet because these boards, I knew, would be the perfect venue to complete a project that's been stewing for nearly 5 years.

You see, when we choose names for our kids, I have personal criteria.  Most people pick something they like the sound of, or maybe a family name.  A few even find out what a name means and pick based on that.  I wish I had something so simple, but I don't.  I have three rules.  1.  It must yell from the bottom of the stairs well- full name, middle and all, otherwise, it's out.  2.  It must be after an American author because there are some things which I dearly love, and books rank extremely high.  3.  It must be a last name.  Every time I walk into a place (like the doctors office) and have to give my surname, I'm always asked to repeat myself because inevitably the little girl asking the question thinks I don't understand what a "surname" is.  This happens in every country I've been to with my married name.  I figure, this way, at least it will make sense when there's confusion :)

Anyways, because each of the kids have an author behind their names, I made a point to pick authors I personally love, whose books I've read and enjoyed, and who have rather profound statements.  When we were dedicating Emmerson, our pastor encouraged us to find a verse for her, a "life verse" if you will, and as we were going through that process, I also went ahead and picked quotes as well.  As a result, for a number of years now, I've been holding on to these quotes, wanting to put them on display around our house, but not sure how to get writing on the walls (without Todd freaking out on me).  Enter stage left:  The boards.

The first thing I did was lay out Em's quote, to make sure it would fit the board I'd bought.  Then I grabbed the wooden cut out, and after searching the internet for ideas and inspiration, I figured I'd wrap the thing in yarn and see how that looked.  LOVE how it looked, hated the connected wooden parts!  After a few hours of wrapping, it came time to write the quote and hang it above the entrance to my kitchen.  I know grey seems rather dull, but the whole house is now this beautiful robins' egg blue and grey so it looks really nice with everything else.

Finally, it came time to write the quote and hang it above the entrance to my kitchen.  I know grey seems rather dull, but the whole house is now this beautiful robins' egg blue and grey so it looks really nice with everything else.

Em is blessed with a writer who has an abundance of wonderful things to say, so I actually wrote in chalk so that if we ever want to, we can change out the quote.  I thought I was so clever.

The second board was going to be for Cooper's room.  I wanted a "surf" themed nursery before Em was born, when we didn't know if we were having a boy or girl, and I've kept that dream alive over the years.  Now that Em is thoroughly entrenched in a love of all things pink and purple, I've given up on her and focused on Coop.  When we were still living in the States, Todd had a work trip down to Florida and he brought back a number of shells, so I wanted to somehow use those on Cooper's board.  Since I want all the authors' quotes in the main living space, I decided to use his verse, but unfortunately for me, the verse we chose for him  is long.  I only used the second half, but I still love the way it turned out and Cooper loves his crab down in the bottom corner.  Win-win!

And then at MOPS this week, we made "Celebration" plates.  The idea is that any time someone is celebrating something (first day of kindergarten, birthday, promotion, etc) they get to eat off the Celebration Plate... or if they need a pick-me-up, which with my two girls might come in handy sooner rather than later.  Anyways, we had to decorate this big, white plate.  Right.  But then I remembered that Dr. Seuss is really easy to copy and decided to go with my favorite, Oh the Places You'll Go.  I still remember my high school Econ teacher reading it to my class and thinking it was such a treasure trove of wisdom... and so easy to remember.  Needless to say, I didn't finish in the hour we had at MOPS and ended up taking the plate home.  Todd's been having Regional-something-or-other meetings all week and has been getting home rather late.  Which means instead of folding laundry or washing dishes after the kids are in bed, I've been finishing this little gem, and tonight, I finally got it done!

It's been one of those weeks where I feel like I'm slightly more than invisible, but slightly less than productive... you know what I mean?  When nothing seems to go right, but nothing seems to go terribly wrong either?  So as soon as I finished my plate, I thought that at least I could look at all the hours I've spent stealing ideas from other, slightly more inventive and creative people, and realize I'm not half bad at thievery, which has to count for something, right?  And something is much better than nothing! :)