Getting back to work...

I've really needed to get some cards made (I keep a stock on hand because I sell at a couple of local businesses). So tonight instead of doing yard work (I'll show you that progress in a future post), I spent the whole evening with a great friend and cranked out a stack of cards! 

I have to show you this set in particular simply because my youngest son went to the LSS and specifically picked out this piece of patterned paper with the clipboards on it and also the fruit stickers (Doodlebug) just for me for Mother's Day. He's so sweet and it was fun to put his gift together into a little set of cards. 

Loving getting creative....even though I'm up WAY past my bedtime tonight...it's nights like this that help center me again!

Also my first post from my iPhone. How fun is that??!?? I can see blogging being much easier this way!  

Goodnight!

Never out of his reach

"I will not forget you!

See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands..."

I love this verse.  (These verses).  It's verses like these that have kept my head above water in the last few years as I have had to deal with some major life changes.  In all these changes though, in all the things that these last 2-3 years have brought my way, I will say:  God is faithful.  Completely.  100%.  I still don't see what the end game might be....and I still don't understand why everything happens the way it does....but God is faithful.  And good.  And in all this, I am as close as the palms of his hands.  Never out of his reach.  Never off his mind.  Never beyond his grasp.

This is just one example for today of God's grace to me.

My cozy bed. It's not always made nicely...and honestly, I've changed the headboard since this photo was taken but it's mine.  And I love it.  Still.  It's still one of my favourite places to be:  sleeping, obviously; snuggled up talking with a kid; snuggled up watching movies with 1, 2, or 3 kids; reading late at night; doing devotions with a big cup of coffee early in the morning; enjoying the sun and birds in my window mid-afternoon....whatever.  It's still one of my very favourite places to be.  I could have been completely different. It could have been a place of sadness, fear and anger.  But it's not. And I love it. See?  God's grace.  He never forgets me.

I am SO done with winter

Winter is lasting FOR-EV-ER this year.  I know I'm not the only one feeling it either....but it feels like it'll never end.  Tomorrow's May 2.  Guess what's in the forecast.....flurries.  Seriously?  So done.

One of the reasons it's getting to me so much, I think, is that for me....summer is my creative time.  I only work September to June and so in July and August, I have quite a bit of time to do creative things:  make cards and scrapbook,  sew and alter things,  and more recently - paint and upcycle furniture.  I LOVE redoing furniture.  Somehow all that creative stuff feeds my soul.  I know...it's not exactly putting anyone through college $-wise....but it energizes me.  I could stay up til 3am painting something in my garage in the summer.  In winter, 8pm rolls around and I'm wishing my kids would go to bed so that I could too.  Last year I painted my first piece during Spring Break (outside, on my driveway, in shorts).  This year the weather has just not cooperated and I can feel myself getting a little anxious...and maybe more just impatient about it.

Today I gave up.  I'm not waiting for summer anymore.

I sold a dresser and a desk this evening (That is energizing for sure!) and I have one dresser which is sold but I'm painting it before it gets delivered to it's new home - housing scrapbook supplies in a LSS (a worthy calling For Sure!).  So, I pulled said dresser (and a few other pieces) into my kitchen and cracked open a new can of primer and went to town, so to speak.  Here are a few pics of what I was working on this evening....can you guess what some of these will look like when I'm done....or where they'll end up?

 This is the top piece of a 2-piece hutch that I got for really cheap.  It's not the nicest piece of furniture for sure - plain and boring....but I've used it for 5 different things which in furniture economy is pretty good :)  This photo is the top of the hutch.  You'll never guess where it ended up - holding up a Bearded Dragon tank in my daughter's room - exactly the right height to give her a bookcase headboard and a secure place for the dragon.    The doors (larger middle door and 2 side glass panels that never opened) came off and I took out the glass.  This summer I'm going to cut wood to fit inside these "frames" and paint it with chalkboard paint!

 

The bottom of that hutch was the perfect size to sit under my scrapbook paper shelving and raise them up to table height.  You can't really see it but it's there and it's perfect. 

 This is the lovely lady who will provide much-needed storage at a Scrapbook Store!  I'm so jealous she gets to live there full-time.  I'm giving her a simple coat of white and putting this amazing hardware right back on from whence it came :)  It's going to be stunning. 

 This frame I found at a moving sale at a neighbour's house down the street.  I guess giant canvases with ornate frames don't fit in brand new condos-for-two like they did when you had a home big enough for a family.  Their loss.  I haven't decided where to put this exactly yet.  I would love it in my scrapbook room but I'm not sure I have a wall space big enough for it.  Maybe....we'll see.  The canvas I'm selling....the frame I'm going to hang by itself so I can display different things inside the frame when the mood hits.

This long skinny shelf is one of 2 that I scored from a neighbour who found them in the crawl space of the house she just bought.  She thought they were supposed to be pantry door inserts for bottles, or little items but they weren't installed when they got the house and they had no intention of doing it.  So, for the low-low price of 3 chocolate bars, they became mine.  What am I doing with these?  I have a boy who needs some lego display shelves on his wall.  These I think will be perfect.  I'll post this again with an "after" picture when they're painted and hung.

That's it.  Back with more soon!!

Cathy