Wednesday, January 13, 2010

A- Z Activities

Thanks everyone for the support yesterday. I wasn't sure if I should post my feelings splayed naked like that but I also wanted to keep this blog real and right now everything isn't moonlight and rainbows.

A-Z has been awesome. A lot of days I've wanted to sit still and hurt but A-Z has got me engaged. To be honest, I had written myself a pass until "C" fortnight because of the whole back surgery business but I'm terribly glad I didn't use it.

Here are some of our A-Zs so far:

Antiques: We went to the coolest antique store I ever saw. It was very Indiana Jones with towering piles of chairs at least 20 feet high (they looked like they'd been pushed together with a front-end loader), fertility gods, animal heads, pieces of docks... it was AWESOME! I wanted a little bit of everything. We bought the neatest drawer insert. It looked like a modern clipboard but came from inside a huge credenza type of cabinet like a business or post office would use. I'll post pics once I take them :-)

Armature: We made clay creatures with wire skeletons. The boys made up wild tales about each of their creatures and maimed them accordingly.





Arranged Furniture: I'm third shortest or third tallest depending on how you look at it. With all these big people in my house now, our little couch didn't fit everyone. If we wanted to watch TV we'd have to move everything and it was really annoying. But, due to the budget, we don't have spending money for new couches. So I took the couch from our formal living room and made a cute U-shaped family room and then moved our big dining room table (Chris had been using it as an office desk) into the former living room making a dining room. The old office now houses our chairs and is a lovely sitting/reading room. We're all pretty thrilled with the changes.


Altered Item: We went to Re-Store which is the thrift shop run by Habitat for Humanity. It's a wonderful, dangerous store. I bought a selection of drawer fronts for a dollar each and used three of them to rescue to a favorite old print of mine that has suffered some injustices over the years. I really like the effect and we now have a large piece of wall art for three dollars. Yay for Mod Podge.


And finally, unrelated to A-Z, I was reading the Oh, Fransson blog and decided to dip my toe in joining their Quilt-A-Long. Basically everyone works on a similar quilt at the same pace. I used to quilt about twelve years ago. Then as I was finishing the binding of a very time consuming Bargello Quilt, my house burned down. I never felt the urge to quilt again. This Paintbox Quilt is tempting me though. I made a sample set to see if I want to take a crack at it. I'm still on the fence. Fortunately, quilt squares wait happily in zip-loc bags so I can come back to this later if I don't do it now.



Well, I think it's safe to say I've talked your ear off. Hope you join us doing A-Z. You can start anytime.

7 comments:

All of my Todays said...

Love your A's I can't believe how much you have done considering how lousy you are feeling. An inspiration to all of us. x

Amy said...

I love your A things as well! My husband would love the clay guys! You always inspire me with the things you come up with for the A-Z year with how much you're going through!

Kathi said...

The "A"s have been AmAzing!

I really love your drawer front-wall art.

Kristen H said...

That drawer front art is so awesome! You are so good at this. Very cool!

Carmen said...

Your drawer fronts are incredible and those monsters look SO much fun! Wow. Some preetty AAAAmazing stuff there. (See what I did? Did ya? Did ya? Huh? *g*)

LisaNRoxy said...

I want to make creatures - what a fun project and I bet the boys had a blast - they are so cool. Very clever idea. Your rescued drawer fronts - wow - what a beautiful piece of art. I also love your quilt squares. So sorry to hear about the fire that stopped your desire for quilting. You are right - the beautiful squares you created will wait for you!!

Sarah said...

wow you did some really inventive stuff for A - I never even heard the word "armature" before, had to google :)

I've finally blogged our "A" fortnight here:

Sarah's Family do the letter A

thanks again for this brilliant idea, we are all having so much fun with it :)

and I hope you feel loads better really soon