Crafts

 OUTDOOR DECOR

While the inside of my house remains nice and neat, the outside begs attention. It has been, of course, months since it has seen any attention - especially from me. Eastern Colorado winters are something else, let me tell you. Even when the sun is shining, the weather is bitterly cold - leaving crystals on your nose hairs. Nevertheless, it is March 15th and a balmy 75 degrees out. Time to give the outside a facelift. As it is still a little too early to start a-plantin', I thought I would spend some time on outdoor decor. Here is what I did this morning.

BEFORE

AFTER

I fell in love with this old box carrier Cory made in high school, but it needed some sprucing up. I dumped all of the odds and ends Cory had stashed away  in a bucket and began to stain. Using stencils to paint the word "GARDEN" was easy. I used scrapbook stickers to dress it up a bit, followed by MANY coats of Mod Podge. A simple swipe of polyurethane, and POOF - practical garden decor.

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I am obsessively compulsive, or compulsively obsessive - which every way suits me on a particular day.

 I blame my parents, of course. Isn't that what one tends to do when looking for cause of a particular trait, after all? My father is very Type A - likes everything just so. Organized to a fault, my father drives my mother crazy with organizing things like the pantry, refrigerator, etc.

My dear mother, while not so obsessed with how things are organized, cares immensely of how things are viewed on the outside. Drawers could be crammed full of papers, receipts, gum packets and other odds-and-ends, but as long as it things on the outside of said drawers look like a picture from Better Homes and Gardens, she is happy.

And then there is me. I, bless my heart, inherited both the need for tidiness on the inside and perfection on the out. So, one would expect little else from me when organizing my craft station.

My dear husband knows me well, and suggested - after I mentioned setting up my new sewing machine on a table in my reading room - that I do my best to hide it. "You will never be happy with all your crafts sitting out," he said. Darn it if he wasn't right, (don't tell him:)

So, my solution became simple... organize it and hide it. Solution? Pinterest! I pinned a beautiful TV armoire that had been converted to a craft station. A trip on craigslist, a can of paint, and voila!

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I love menu-planning. Call it another attempt to quench my OCD, but I get a kick out of sitting down with a cup of coffee every Saturday afternoon and planning out the week's menu to the T. I take into account the seven day forecast - can't have a salad scheduled for a 35 degree day - and make sure not to have too many chicken courses in a row (because Cory doesn't really consider anything but beef a main course).

These are menu-planners I have made. One, which was a gift to my sister, features laminated cards (for use with dry-erase markers) clipped to a old window shuttter. Then next is what I have displayed in my pantry - cards that are fastened to our meat freezer by decorative clothes pins. They both make for a fun way to display the week's menu.

I purchased the MENU word art for $6 online, and used scrapbook materal for the cards. Each has a letter corresponding to first letter of the day of the week. Once made, I used a laminator to protect them, as well as make it possible to use dry-erase pens on them. I think they turned out quite nice.