It Is Well

Oh my----  it's odd how good it felt to log back in just now. The issues that led to my blog hiatus have not been resolved and it doesn't look as though they will be resolved for another four months or so. By that time I should at least know my options. No, I'm not really going to go into the details but I have begun to get over the initial shock of this forced life change. Not only am I eating again, I've gained back those twelve pounds that flew off of me back over the holidays. Darn. Mainly, however, I have decided to have faith. So we'll just go forward and see what happens.

I saw a plaque similar to the one above on Pinterest a few months ago and thought it would be fun to try to make one for my parlor. The one I saw on Pinterest had sweet birds on it but since I've already done birds elsewhere in the house I went with somethingdifferent. The hymn, "It Is Well", has always been one of my favorites and has come to have special meaning in the past years as my husband and I travelled over some bumpy roads together and I came to a commitment of faith. And now, here it is again, speaking perfectly to my state of mind. The canvas that I made (above) is not nearly as fancy or artsy or well done as the one I saw on Pinterest but I wanted it to be a calm, still reminder that in spite of it all, it is well and it will continue be well.

One of the things I worked on the past few weeks was to clean up my sewing room. I would love to be artistic enough to call it my studio but I'm not and since it started out as the sewing room, that's what we call it. Anyway, I came across some pre-stretched canvases that a friend had given me after she discovered them cleaning out a rental unit. Gotta love free crafty stuff. So I printed out my letters to check the size and then traced them onto an enlarged copy of the hymn.

Then of course I had to cut them all out. It just seemed so much easier to do the letters this way than to drag out the Cricut and fiddle around trying to get it right. My Cricut and I have a love-hate relationship. Anyway, I wanted the lettering to generally follow the hymn so if you read the music across the letters you get the hymn in its proper order.

So---  first I painted the canvas with a metallic gray paint for the base...

... and then a watercolor-y blue.

The I left it on the table for a couple of days. I would go in every so often and stare at it and wonder what to do next. I was off work that week so it was nice to have time to stroll, instead of race, through a project.

Once I arrived at a background that I thought would work...

... I added this leafy scroll thing. Turns out, I'm not at all crazy with how it came out (hate it, actually) but, whatever. It is well.

Next I coated the cut out letters with the paper flavored Modge Podge with just a dab of the silver Shimmer Modge Podge mixed in and let it dry before I glued the letters to the canvas.

The most difficult part of this project- the most technically challenging aspect- was hanging it. Because our old farmhouse has horse hair plaster walls, hammering nails into the walls usually involves a drill. But I wasn't in the drilling mood and after some muttering and sternly worded warnings to the wall, nails, picture, and furniture, the job was accomplished. No fingers smashed!

So now whether I come upstairs from the first floor or downstairs from the bedroom, I look into the parlor to see my canvas, not because it's such a huge tremendous piece of art but because it is a gentle reminder  to myself that in spite of the stress and turmoil, it is well. It is well because I have chosen to live out this bumpy stretch of uncertainty by trusting that God not only heard my prayers all those months ago and took me at my word but by continuing to rest my soul in Him and live as though I mean it. He will answer according to His will, and that is just fine with me.

Hey, I'll show you the parlor sometime. We started work on it many years ago and then it became first Zippy's bedroom and then her playroom. Once other projects in the house moved forward to completion, I was able to take back my parlor this past month from the Lego mayhem that was going on in there. Yea, I know, fake plants- but when you see the room, you'll understand my dilemma with the layout. I'll give you a hint on the big project in there---  grout.

I've genuinely missed my little jungle and all of you beautiful butterflies who visit me here. Though postings will most likely be sporadic for a while, I'm happy to be back.

Chrysalis of a Yellow Coster butterfly, indigenous to SE Asia.
Found mostly in the Himalayas.