{T.I.L. #17}

'What's that, now?' you may be asking yourself. 

I first saw a Swedish Mora Clock in a blogger's house pictures and I fell in love with the feminine shape and interesting curves. 

Pic from The Nester

When I bought my cottage, I knew I wanted to get a Mora Clock of my own. I googled around and found this cutie:

Ebay

I looked at the price tag and decided to wait until one went on sale. 

Well, it turned out that close-to-400-bucks WAS the sale. 

So, I kept looking and found this:

eBay

It is a reproduction and made for hanging on the wall instead of standing, but hey! Gotta cut corners somewhere to get the right price tag of $160. It looks a little more green-gray in person than the gray-green pic, but I really like it. It has delicate, dainty curves and a pretty distressed finish. I can't wait to hang it in my new house. You know, the one for which I still need to pick a white wall color? 

At least I have the important things done, amiright?

Life As It Is: Part Deux

If you have read this post, you will notice that I mentioned that I am trying to live 'life as it is' by taking risks and accepting life as it comes. I said I'd give you more info on that later. Well, now is later. Later is now?

Somewhere along the line I forgot how to take risks. I'm not really sure when it happened...apparently not before I decided to wear this to my middle school dance {the caption says it all}:

As you can see, my middle-school bestie and I shared a last name. Both of our older sisters were named Sara(h)...yes, it got confusing. I mean, not as confusing as the reasoning behind our wardrobe choices, but I'll blame that on the early 90's.

In 6th grade I poured my heart out to a boy only to be crushed {Want the juicy story? Read my old blog to find out.} But that didn't stop me from taking risks. In fact, I'd say I put myself out there even more. Later in 6th grade, I auditioned for a performing arts school with the audition song, "My Favorite Things." Yes, that really happened. And not well, I might add. Surprisingly, I got in. And once I was in, I continued to audition and get roles. I got out of regular school each day to finish my day at the acting and performing arts school. It was incredible...we even got to travel around the city to perform our stage productions for other elementary schools. I got rejected a few times as I auditioned for commercials and such, but that wasn't it. My risk taking continued as I was moved to Texas and away from my dream of acting. I moved on to other things and kept putting myself on the line.

Through heartache and disappointment, I wasn't fazed. Through friendships turning on me and parents going to rehab, I pressed on as a risk taker. As boys told me they'd rather be friends, my confidence only took a tiny dent.

So why do I consider myself someone who avoids risks now? I'm not sure exactly what happened but I can pinpoint it to the time I became a Christian. No longer supposed to rest on my skills, talents, or abilities, I struggled to relinquish the control in my life. If I had to give that up, I felt powerless over the outcome. Which makes me scared to even try.

Some might point me to the verse 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.' I hear ya. It makes sense. But my heart learns from experience. The more I want or try for something, the harder it becomes to attain. It's a bit frustrating really. But please hear me...this is not how I believe God intended us to feel or live. It's just how I (mis)interpreted 'walking' with Christ and took it to the extreme.

Today was supposed to be a big day in the risk taking department. I was all prepared to share the exciting news, but as risks go, there is always a possibility of losing. And so far in this area, I've lost. So while there is no exciting 'end' to this risk-taking venture, I believe taking the risk itself was huge for me. I'll probably share more on it later, but it still stings. For now, just know that I'm growing in this area and can't wait to keep taking risks, no matter how difficult it is for me.

To end on a happier note, I decided to share a couple pics of a project I did for my classroom. Frankly, you may never need to make one of these, but it just makes me happy to share it and it reminds me of gambling/risk-taking. Ok, so there's probably no real connection, but anyways...
 
I wanted a box to hold the sets of dice for my classroom and I found one at Hobby Lobby for $20. Um, no. I ended up buying a $3 wooden box and painting my own to match my classroom colors. 

Naked wooden box that I thought I could get away with spray painting: 

Nope. Craft paint it is:

I'm visual so I used dice patterns online and created my own tiny-sized dice template. When I brought it to school, it was all wrong. Is there a standard way to 'number' dice? Too late now, I guess. 

Tiny die pattern:

Burning the midnight oil to git 'er done before school starts. I get by with a little help from my friends. And by friends, I mean baristas at Starbucks:

The final resting place above my math stations and next to the real-but-the-kids-swore-it-was-fake plant:

I lightly sanded the edges and surfaces to 'matte' it out a bit. It's ready for its closeup:

See that little twirly note holder in the background? That came from my family's deli and means a lot to me. I love that the kids love it as much as I do. I swear, I'm gonna create a bunch of antiques dealers...maybe we should take a field trip to Canton? Yes please.

Princess and the Pirate: Not trying to brag, but...

Ever since I saw this beautiful woven board tutorial on Jones Design Company's blog, I knew I had to try and make it. Since you all know that I've completely admitted to being one of these, I went for it. 

At my job, we have had some changes take place and an idea that has been in the works was finally OK'd by my boss: The Brag Board. I love the idea of a Brag Board at work. It is supposed to be fun and it is one way that you can thank others for lending a helping hand. It is also the place to share things that seem too personal to send out over staff e-mail...or maybe it just seems too small to mention. I believe it's these things that make us human; these are the bits of info that connect us in a place where our only connection is the job we're there to carry out.

So, I recruited my friend and partner in crime, Ashley to help me. Did I mention how talented she is?? Yes, I think I have...

After like a month of procrastinating, we finally dove in and stayed late at school one evening...then realized that we didn't have enough burlap to start. *enter: last minute trip to Hobby Lobby*

Once we got back to school, we started 'The Cut-n-Weave':

Ashley was the cutter...

And I, the Weaver

I stapled as I went, because we couldn't remove the board from the wall

The *finished* product...well, the background at least!

That was the hard part, kind of. The rest of it was "figure out as we go."  I had added a newspaper border to cover the edges, but the board was fighting me. So I attacked it with a stapler. HA! (But then you could see the fifteen staples at each cinch...) Clever Ashley fashioned these punched-paper circles to thumb tacks and Voila! Problem solved.

We added those all around, along with the scrabble-tiled thumb tacks we'd envisioned (we had our counselor do the grunt work on this tedious project!) This is what I got for 'farming' out that job:

Hey! I almost spelled 'FAMILY' We LOL'd on this one.

After the pins-through-the-shoe mishap, we were on our way...we continued with some trimmings and this adorable lil' banner o'flags that Ashley made:

And it was finished! Here is the before and after:

Before...snore.

After...muuuuch better.

Here are some of the sweet little details that we added:

Scrabble Tile Thumb Tacks

Sticky Photo Frames--don't try this at home. They are a paaaaiiinn!

"A Little Birdie Told Me..." with a newspaper birdie--thanks Ashley!

Ashley's fabric flower

My watercolored newspaper flower I added to the black frame...I think it looks better in person!

My "stiffie" glued fabric flower I added to the green frame. Yes, you can laugh at the name of the glue...we did!

The Brag Tags...from The Handmade Home blog

There you have it! Lots of sweat, laughter, thought, and procrastination went into this project. This is one act of piracy I am proud of. Ashley found the gift tags we used as Brag Tags here. I will post how to make the different fabric & newspaper flowers lay-tah. I'm sure you're tired of scrollin' by now...

Anything you'd like to brag about? Go ahead...don't be shy.

Princess and the Pirate: Font-licious

As my first official act of piracy, I pinkie promised that I would follow the rule of Pirating 101 [look, I made it up but humor me]: 

Give Credit Where Credit Is Due.

I had to tell you where I got the cutest free font that I used in my blog's header. I adore fonts...especially ones that look like I could draw them (even though I'd be delusional to think I can). I fell in love with this website: Fonts for Peas from KevinandAmanda.com

c.u.t.e. cute. Go check it out--they have hundreds! They can even turn your handwriting submissions into fonts. How talented is that?! But don't blame me though if your baby starts cryin' and your husband starts screamin' because you were checking out fonts all night...