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Sunday, April 20, 2014

Happy Easter!





Happy Easter from Us to You!

This lovely fruit pizza was decorated by my daughter after I baked the sugar cookie crust and made the vanilla pudding/cream cheese "sauce".  Thankfully all this fruit is quite sweet!  I know this because I am eating what was cut up but not used. 

I think our "egg" might have been better outlined by the blackberries. What do you think?  Probably more strawberries too.  I can add just a couple more to the cutting board when I take it out of the fridge and head over to the family's, where the most amazing Louisiana cook in the world has used her inherited magic to cook up the most amazing meal I'm the world.  

Stomach!  Be thou HUNGRY!



While the egg shape might be a familiar icon of Easter, we know what Easter really is.  Perfection meeting the ugliest of Mankind in order to save Mankind.  Without Jesus Christ we simply wouldn't exist in the world of today, and we absolutely would have no chance of eternal life with Him.  

Thank you Jesus.  


Saturday, April 12, 2014

Getting' crafty - The Letter "M"

So ... my daughter was in an awful accident right as her senior year should have started.  She lost her senior year.  As a homeschooler, I seriously was not worried about her not doing her schoolwork!  I just wanted her to concentrate on healing, and sitting up and using her right arm hurt too much at that time.  Well, now she's coming to the end of her senior year, thankful to Abeca Academy for working with us and getting her here!

So, as a homeschooler, how do you graduate?  When my first daughter graduated, there were 3 others in our church that were also homeschooled, and we had a wonderful celebration.  Decorations, cakes (I do the baking), the pastors officiated, pictures, it was just wonderful.  When Micaela would have graduated last year, she was the only one and we would have, what, gone to dinner?  Bleh.  Probably.   However, she lost that year, and this year our church has THREE homeschoolers, so once again we can hold a celebration down at the church, all official and stuff.  A real garaduation ceremony.  With no schools doing all the work.  That means us parents are doing everything.

Graduation pictures - check.
Announcements/invitations (Jason's job) - check
Digging through old photos with plenty of sniffling nostalgia and wishing-I-could-turn-back-time (me) - check

NOW TO THE CRAFT STUFF

Today I am taking a bunch of those photos to the printer/copier/scanner, and making simple black&white copies.  I'll be cutting those out and making a collage on a large paper mache' "M" which I ordered from Joann.com.   DISCLAIMER:  This was a Pinterest idea, and this is the blog I got these instructions from.  Not my idea.  But I am going to list here exactly what I did, any difficulties I ran into, etc.

The M.  It came to me as ugly brown paper mache'.  Must be painted!   I asked Mic if she wanted it "brown-based" or "grey-based" (because Mod Podge comes in a large variety of possibilities these days, including a browned antique-y color).  She chose grey. 





This M is 23.5 inches tall.  So far in this picture all I've done is paint it black using a sponge brush.  As you can see, I'm working on my dining room table (gasp, would that be yarn in the background?!), with a Dollar Store plastic table cloth thrown over it to keep it safe.Getting down in those corners is really tricky!  Next time, SPRAY PAINT!

Copying the pictures.   According to above-linked blog, just copy the pictures black-n-white onto plain copy paper.  This will glue down and collage up nicely.  So, taking a while to fix breakfast and make copies while the M thoroughly dries.



I had to lighten the intensity (they were way too dark) and even bring down the size.  With an M this large, I figured I'd be able to get tons of pics on it, but the reality is, not really.  I want her childhood on this M, and I now realize I'm going to have to just pick pictures again, not just copy everything I dumped in the folder.  Sigh, back to weeding out.

Okay, playing with scissors, lay out photos on the M until satisfied, then paint Modge Podge on the back of the picture and on the M, lay it all down, let it dry, come back later in the day with a good coat all over the M, front/back/sides.  Dare ANYONE to walk near it for the rest of the day until it is no longer tacky.

Here it is propped up against her bedroom wall where it will soon be properly hung. 


And here it was used at the homeschool graduation ceremony on her table.  My beautiful miracle.  My Mic.