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

Memories of Childhood

Aren't there just certain things that are "stand-out" memories from childhood? They are just so sweet that you long to experience them again, even if it's just for a little while. Some people remember a doll, some - a vacation, others - a visit to Grammie's, some fondly remember playing with a childhood friend or playing a certain game.

I have a couple memories that seem to torment me because they are elusive, I can't quite grasp them again. One is a doll. I'll tell you about that another time. So far, it does not have a happy ending. The other is a book. This one is well within my reach. I can almost taste it.

When I was in the 4th grade, my teacher, Sister Raphaella, read us a chapter a day from a story book. I loved that story so much, I would race back to her classroom for the story reading time. My little girlfriends and I would rhapsodize about it on our long walk home from school. It seemed so romantic - the stuff dreams are made of.

Several years ago I began, in earnest to search for this book. I knew the title but not the author. Because I'm such an estate sale and flea market junkie, I thought for sure I would run across it. I would see a wall of old books, not in any particular order (like at the library). The wall became daunting after a few minutes of reading dusty old titles, my neck bent over sideways to see the book spines. I'd give up after five or ten minutes.

I even tried, unsuccessfully, to contact the headquarters of this particular order of nuns that Sister Raphaella was a member of, thinking, perhaps they might have a copy of the book in their libraries.

So every time I go to an estate sale where there's books, I search. When I go to flea markets, same. Antique Malls, the same. Just recently on a "girlz day out" my friend and I went to a Christmas Bazaar, then to lunch and capped off a wonderful day at an Antique Mall. I began to search again. I told my friend the story. She also searched. Then she said to me........."have you checked Amazon?" I had not. It never occurred to me to try to find an old book on Amazon.

Of course, as soon as I got home I checked Amazon......................THEY HAD IT !!!!!!!! (sorry SueR-I hope it's not too early for those !!!!!)

Have a look.....



There's a glitch. There's 4 copies and the price starts at over $300.00 !!!!!!!

Here comes the happy ending.............I googled "borrow Uncle Frank's Mary" and several libraries appeared on my screen which owned a copy of the book. One of them was the Library of Congress. I emailed them. I was told they do not lend to ordinary citizens but only to other libraries.

I went to my local library, submitted a requisition, which will first go to the main library here and they will requisition it from whichever library has it available, starting with the closest (Library of Congress).

My librarian said I will have it in my hand within 3 weeks. I am so excited. I get to be 9 years old again ♥ ♥ ♥

Recycled Christmas Cards

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There are so many uses for those wonderful Christmas greetings you receive each year. It would be a good habit to just get a BIG box and save them because you never know what kind of an idea you'll imagine in the future.

In the past I have made gift tags with them and the best book marks ever. But yesterday, while doing my work-out walk in the mall, I passed by a furniture store window and something I saw in the window of a furniture store sparked this idea.

I am an inveterate estate saler and I buy things that tickle my fancy. I've had this ancient rusty old iron receipt piercer forever and never really thought of any good use for it. But now it is the base and tree trunk of a little Christmas Card tree.


I sat at my kitchen table with my stash of Christmas Cards from years past and cut out six pointed Stars of David. Then I jabbed them onto the receipt holder, curling the points a bit with the scissors, piling them up, making smaller and smaller stars.....until.............voila!!! a little Christmas Tree made from stars cut from old Christmas cards.

It needed a star on top. I rummaged through my jewels and found the perfect rhinestone star earring.

Here's a close up shot of some of the card stars.



At the moment I am thinking of some ways you could adapt this idea to fit the type of reusable goodies you have around the house. How about using a tiny clay pot for the base, sliding a knitting needle in the hole in the bottom. Then stacking your Christmas Card stars on the needle to fashion your very own tree. How about drilling a hole in an old children's alphabet block, perhaps glueing a pencil into hole and building your tree on that base? Let your imagination soar..............