MY FIRST EVER PAPER BAG SCRAPBOOK

Making a paper bag scrapbook is something I've been wanting to do for a long time. I don't know why I waited so long. It was so much fun to do that once I got started I could not stop until it was finished. But, of course, that's how I am with every new venture I try. I cannot wait to see the end product.

I did watch a youtube video to get the general idea of what needs to be done.

I used 3 regular brown paper lunch bags, folded each one in half having the top and the bottom of the bag matching. I placed them one on top of the other, like the video showed. I punched 3 holes on the "spine" of the book. I did use reinforcements for each hole. Later I will bind the book by tying ribbons through each hole.




I folded each page along the inside of the row of holes, leaving me page surface for scrapping, of 4.25" by 4.75". I glued pretty scrapbook paper to all the pages.

Then I began to gather all the photos for my little story. I wanted the scrapbook to tell the story of my March visit with my granddaughters. The book is actually for them. I don't want them to forget all about Grammie while we're separated. They are engraved on my heart so I carry them with me always. But they are little and are busy as little bees, scurrying here there and everywhere, living life at full throttle. This paperbag scrapbook will be a remembrance, for them, of our time together.



Because I used 3 bags, I have 6 pages and there are 3 slots where special goodies can be tucked. I used tags to write little legends or paste pictures to tuck into the slots. I changed the string that came on the tags, with ribbons to pull the enclosures out of the slots.

This will go in the mail and be a little Easter present for the girls.

THANKS - GRACIAS - MERCI - DANKE

You know how you bring along a book with you on vacation just in case you get bored or, perhaps, to read while sunbathing on the beach? I brought along with me ONE THOUSAND GIFTS by Ann Voskamp. My interest was piqued when I read an article in our town's daily newspaper written my our religion columnist. She encouraged her readers to buy the book and join in one of the several book discussion groups forming around town. She also pointed her readers to her facebook page where she will conduct a live interview with the author on March 13th.

I am about one third through the book and I honestly, don't ever want to finish reading it. The concept is so amazing, yet so simple. How could we have missed it?

I highly recommend this book to you. All the local bookstores have it. Amazon has it. I got mine at ChristianBookDistributers.com. It's a New York Times bestseller.

I'm including a link to author, Ann Voskamp's blog where she journals daily. This is todays post. Have a look..


http://www.aholyexperience.com

THE FUNKY CHAIR

I had "writers bloc" for a while and couldn't think of a single thing to blog about. But this morning, as I was encouraging a cast teammate and offering her suggestions on how to more economically produce her product............a brainstorm !!!

I was taking pictures to show her what could be done with a simple wooden ball cabinet pull, when voila !!! my subject matter was right before me.

Enter: THE FUNKY CHAIR.


This particular chair had five exact replicas. It was one in a set of six that paraded around our kitchen table when I was a child. Handmade by my Daddy (I guess I come by this inclination naturally!!). My dad was a school teacher. Wonderful profession for a dad. He was home early, had weekends off, all school holidays off and the whole summer. He had plenty of time to doodle on his hobbies. He made us lots of wonderful things. I'll share more about them in future blog posts.

My dad died when I was just 14 years old. I am the oldest of four. All my siblings were each a year younger than the the preceeding one. Just six months after this, we moved to another state, lugging all our earthly belongings - the chairs included. Moved again a year later - but the chairs came too.

My mom stayed in this final house until she died. Then followed the bittersweet distribution of our family heirlooms. With the blessing of my siblings, I inherited two of the chairs.

Of course, when were were actually using the chairs every day in our childhood home, they did not look funky. The looked like normal, everyday chairs. My dad was fond of decals and he plastered a "kitcheny looking" decal on the back splat of each chair.

When the chairs came to live at my house, I wanted them to have a place of honor. I wanted people to admire them. I set about to repurpose them.

At this point in time, there was a local arts movement - spear-headed by a local potter named Victoria MacKenzie-Childs. Her pottery was so whimsical, funky, and colorful, that she soon became a household name. Her wares were carried in posh giftshops all over the country. Even Neiman-Marcus carried MacKenzie-Childs work. There were TV shows featuring her and her home. Her production plant overlooking Cayuga Lake in upstate NY became a destination. Tours were offered, her work was for sale, you could get seconds, have lunch there, browse through the gardens......

I decided to embellish my chairs ala MacKenzie-Childs. What you see is a homage both to her style and to my Daddy.


If you have inherited a precious heirloom, give it a place of honor, make it the star of the show............

Dress A Girl Around the World

This past Saturday, February 4th, the women's ministry at my church had an old fashioned "quilting bee". Only we didn't make quilts, we made dresses for girls in impoverished nations. We brought sewing machines, ironing boards, irons, scissors, all kinds of notions and trims, etc. and we brought ourselves.



There were specific stations set up. Two tables of sewing machines, 3 ironing stations, 2 cutting tables, a doll making station, assembling of dress kits station.

A dress kit contained the two pieces for the front and back of the dress, elastic for the front and back gathering, seam binding for the arm holes and to tie at the shoulders, a pocket, and an embellishment or two. This was all color co-ordinated.

These kits were packaged in plastic bags for women to take home to put together. Of course, we also put together as many as we could on Saturday. All together we made 40plus dresses in sizes 3 to 12 and an ecology doll to put in each dress pocket.
(doll completely made from fabric and yarn scraps)


The rationale for a girl having a pretty dress in a third world nation is: she is then perceived to be well taken care of by her family (even though she may have no family). There are many, many children orphaned by the aids epidemic who are street waifs. Often the girls are transcripted into the sex trade and forced into prostitution in exchange for food and lodging. Even children who do have parents may live in ghettos made of cardboard boxes. A dress may enable a child to attend school. At the very least, it will lend her a little self respect.

The dresses are always hand delivered to the villages by missionaries. Two families from my church will be delivering dresses - one to Tanzania, Africa and the other with a Young Life mission to S. America. Dresses will be delivered by both of these families to the girls in the villages where they will be ministering.

If you're interested in learning a bit more about this ministry, Here's the link:
http://www.dressagirlaroundtheworld.com/

Almost Finished

I probably only have one or two more nights of reading the book I searched long and diligently for. Finally locating a copy of it in the Library of Congress. They were generous enough to make me a Xerox copy of the book. I can understand why they would not want the hard copy of the book to be lent out. The book was published in 1917 so it is almost 100 years old. There are just a few copies of it in the U.S. On Amazon, the best price was in the $400.00 neighborhood. There were a few copies that were over a $1000.




I am so happy that the Library of Congress copied it for me because I get to keep it. My friends are lining up for a turn to read it.

As I'm reading it, I'm trying to understand what I, as a 9 year old, loved so much about this story. Reading it now, more than a half a century after 4th grade, it seems so quaint. Soooooooo much has changed. This book was written before TV, cell phones, computers, leisure air travel (if you were going to the continent, you went by steamship - and it took a loooong time.

I think that, first of all, the main character, Mary, went to a boarding school and that fact had me quite enamored of her. Maybe even a little envious. A boarding school..............(swoon)- she stayed there overnight and had her own room, lived with her friends. To me, this was nirvana. She didn't go to a plain old ordinary school, like I did, nor sleep in the same room with two sisters like I did.

She had blond curls, not dark, straight hair done up in braids, like I did.

And she had this uncle who spoiled the living daylights out of her. He was her mothers brother. He had a special place in his heart for her because she was an orphan. ***

The relationship that the two had would probably be looked upon with some suspicion today but in those much more innocent times, it seemed enchanting. An uncle who doted on his sisters child, lavished her with tiny gifts and visited her often would have seemed like I died and went to heaven.

I think I have discovered why I was so enamored by this story when I was in 4th grade. I loved hearing about a girl my age who seemed to have a storied life. She lived in an idyllic setting - a convent school, went on sleigh rides to sing Christmas carols, had a steady supply of playmates, had beautiful clothes, a loving uncle, blond curls, got to travel to her classmates homes for holidays...........She also had much sadness in her life but the drama of that also made her seem attractive to me at 9 years old.

I am so glad I found a copy of UNCLE FRANK'S MARY and grateful for my friend, Patty, who got me on the fast track which eventually led to my getting a copy that's all mine.

***note: I have a sneaking suspicion that it will soon be discovered that she is not an orphan but I haven't gotten that far in the book yet.

Successful Search

A couple weeks ago, I told you about a book I was searching for. It was full of happy childhood memories for me. I had searched for it for years and years. This lovely story was read to me by my fourth grade teacher. She read it to the class every afternoon and we would race back into her classroom after lunch and all sit quietly, in rapt attention, to hear the next chapter of UNCLE FRANK'S MARY.

My searches always ended in dead ends until a Christmas-time outing a few weeks ago with my friend. Our girlz day out ended with a visit to an antique mall where I went into search mode again. My clever friend said to me "have you ever checked Amazon?".

Well, you know, with all that searching, I had never looked on Amazon. It never occurred to me to look there. In my mind, Amazon was for new books. As soon as I got home, I did search Amazon...............and they had it but, alas, the price was excessive.

I looked for it at other venues and finally entered the word "borrow" into a google search. And, voila! several libraries had a copy, including the Library of Congress. After inquiring at the Library of Congress, I was directed to my local library through which I would make an "inter-library" request.

I HAVE the book in my hand now. The Library of Congress did not send me an actual copy of the rag covered book published in 1916 but instead made me a photo copy of the book. Therefore, I can keep it!!!!! It does not have to be returned. I can let friends borrow it if they put up security of their first born. (just kidding)





As you can see from this picture, the book is quite thick - 265 pages.

I haven't begun to read it yet although I am very anxious to get started. I have another committment - a library book that I do need to return and I'm racing through it so I can start on UNCLE FRANK'S MARY, and savor every word.

Thank You, God, for photocopiers.............

My Goals for 2012

One of my CASTTEAM-mates made this challenge: instead of making resolutions for 2012 set 12 goals for yourself to reach in 2012. You can find her blog at: http://www.livedelightfully.blogspot.com

I turned this idea round and round in my mind for a week or so. Several goals quickly came to mind. But I was stuck at about #6. Then the inspirations came little by little - bit by little bit..............until, voila!! there were 12

Some of my goals will require a developement process (step by step until it's finished), some are chores that once finished will just make life a whole lot more convenient, some I'll do once and then it'll be over-done-finished, some are lifestyle changes which I hope to practice steadily until they become part of my DNA. This is what I'm hoping to accomplish in 2012.

1 - when I receive a HolySpirit impression - get right on it - don't put it off even if I'm in the middle of brushing my teeth - because if I do, I'll have forgotten it by the time I leave the bathroom. Sometimes I'll just put this insight on my list of things to do today (I always refer to my list - I cross of what I've taken care of). Other times, I will stop on a dime and do His bidding.

2 - Continue to meet with Jesus - first thing each morning.

3 - Clean up and organize spaces to house etsy inventory more efficiently.

4 - Organize yarn stash on bookshelves that are already cleared for this purpose.

5 - Do a much more effective etsy bookkeepping system.

6 - Plan a trip to Florida (maybe two)

7 - Clean out and re-organize household file

8 - Work-out 3-4 times per week

9 - Become familiar with the BIBLE CLUB MINISTRY resources (Empire State Bible Clubs, Inc.). Praying also for the launch of this new club which I will co-facilitate

10 - Organize, delegate, plan, a Christmas Craft Show at my church for late Fall 2012 as a fund raiser for the new kitchen.

11 - Self publish the family recipes cookbook

12 - Read through the Bible - this time in THE MESSAGE.



My goals look like this one week old infant. Tender, tiny, delicate and new. With a lot of growth and development needed over the next 51 weeks of this New Year.

"So neither he who plants is anything nor he who waters, but (only) God Who makes it grow......" 1 Corinthians 3:7