Oh Yea, Baby, You Know What I Like

I Did and I Would Again Because I Still Do

July 2nd, 1994

Small, intimate ceremony.

The post-nuptial picnic, July 4th.

Happily ever after? You betcha, even with life's usual bumps and bends.

My cousin's daughter, who was at our wedding as a young child way back when, is getting married today.

My husband's nephew, also at our wedding, also a kid back then, is getting married next year on July 2nd.

I pray with all of my heart that both of these couples grow to love each other more deeply as the years go by, with all of the twists and turns, surprises and knocks, struggles and joys that come with loving and committing eternity to another person. Those things are the seasonings of a marriage, making it rich with flavor and nuance.

I might trade some of the days we've had because let's be honest- some things just weren't fun or pretty. But if changing them meant we would be in a different place than we are now, I would go ahead and kept those days with all their spit, sweat, tears, and grit. Anyway, those days have been far between.

I wouldn't change the groom for anyone in the world.

Oh my, looking at this picture now I remember how exhausted we were. This friend's home was right across from the fire station so we had fireworks that evening to wrap up the celebration.

Front Porch Remodel: A Make-over Flashback

In 1996, my husband and I bought an old farmhouse. When I say old, I mean pushing 200 years old. The woman from whom we bought the house casually mentioned, at one point in the purchasing process, "The original house was down below" meaning in the hollow below our house. Our title search only went back 75 years.

However, we had a craftsman out early on to do some drywalling for us (a task we have long since mastered for ourselves) who told us that his great-great-great?? grandfather had built the house and he brought us an autobiography of this man, the venerable and colorful, Mark Gordon.

Turns out, the house is circa-no-earlier-than 1814.

Pretty stinkin' cool.

The house has been added on to and "modified" repeatedly over the years and of course we've been working on it since we took over stewardship. We took out the old nozzles for the gas light fixtures as well as the remaining original electrical work- knob and tube that was added some time after original construction.

I had started a photo album to document our progress and the funny thing is that the very last photo in the album is of my husband pulling our toddler daughter through the yard in a wagon.

Once she was born, all work on the house came to a screeching halt for "a  few" years.

We eventually picked back up where we left off and our little darlin' came along for the ride. She can now include drywalling, cement work, and tiling to her resume. She does not clean her room with near the gusto with which she helps on our projects.

Our house has an enclosed front porch, which we had always thought we would open up again in order to have a nice sitting porch up front from which we could wave to the occasional car. You know how country folk are- wave at every car from your porch. My husband had even traded his old dirt bike to a wood craftsman for a custom porch swing.

I happened to see a house in Winchester, VA once that, from the outside, is an exact copy of our house, only in a smaller, cutey version with an open front porch. Oh, and it was pink, which my husband over-ruled.

One morning, about June of 2004, I started ripping paneling out of the porch.

My husband, Big 'Un, soon got in on the action and by the afternoon we had it all opened up, the roof supported by a few studs. It looked really awesome and Big 'Un spent the rest of the day strolling up and down the road past the front of the house to see how nice it was going to look when people drove by.

Now, it hadn't rained in our neck of the woods for weeks but it poured that evening.

Directly under the porch is what we call the cellar. Someone once told us it used to be the cistern but it can now be accessed from inside the house via the laundry room in our basement. Our realtor optimistically called it a wine cellar but it's a good place to store things like canned goods, paint cans, step ladders, Shop Vacs, etc. It's like a garage attached to the laundry room. At any rate, the porch apparently served to weather-proof the cellar because once it was opened up and the clouds let loose, rain poured into the cellar. I don't mean it dripped into the cellar. We called off work that day. The end result was that we decided to enclose the porch again.

Little Darlin' helped with the drywalling.

The previous owners had added a small bathroom on the porch. The funny part is that when they went to put in the little shower stall, they just pulled the blinds down in the windows and put in the pre-fab shower unit. From the outside it looked like a regular window with closed blinds but on the inside there was no greenboard or anything. I don't mean to be unkind, but some of the work done in the house over the years was probably not up to code.

Like the wiring.

Can you believe the house never burned to the ground? We found this kind of thing all over the house. Turns out the previous owner, once a local sheriff, used to bring the drunks from the county jail out to the house to work essentially as a personal work crew in exchange for a reduced sentence. Really, this house, the previous owners, and our time in it could be a blog unto itself.

Anyway, we chose to remove the shower but kept the rest as a powder room, mainly because there is no other restroom on that floor. Kind of funny, I know, to have a bathroom on the porch but you do what you can in an old house on a limited budget.

So now I have my private reading spot. The light and my benign neglect make it the perfect place for orchids and the Blue Knight Butterfly bush right out the window makes it a great place to spy on butterflies.

So, what's our next project?

Ribbon Picture Frame II- Backing

In my previous post, I showed you how to make this Ribbon Picture frame.

Today let's take at look at how I finished the back of the frame. Of course this step is totally optional but I'm a bit obsessive about things you can't see so I like to cover the back.

You need --- felt and glue- pretty basic stuff.

Outline your frame, inner and outer edges, onto the felt. It's best to do this before you start painting the frame or by using another unfinished frame.

Cut the felt backing out a bit smaller than your outline marks (dotted lines illustrate). This keeps the backing from being too big and overlapping the edges, thus showing on the front.

Mark the peg hole and snip a little "X" out on the felt. I just placed the cut out felt backing over the frame and used an Exacto knife to make the hole.

Add glue or Mod Podge and spread it out with a brush and then...

... adhere your felt to the back of the frame. You can adjust and smooth the felt while it is still wet.

Don't forget to sign your work!

Ribbon Picture Frame

This seems like such a classic craft project: scissors, glue, and ribbon. Even glitter, because the craft isn't done until the glitter has been added.

I'm not kidding myself to think that I am the first person to invent this project but this is my version.

I was really stuck for a craft idea at work one day last week so I sat myself down and asked,

 "What do I have?"

Wooden frame (this one's from Michael's)

Gesso

Paint (acrylic craft paint)

Glue Stick

Ribbon

Mod Podge

Glitter

A-Ha!

Decoupaged Ribbon Frames, of course!!

So get all your stuff together and let's get started.

First, gesso your frame.This will prime it and cover the wood grain. If you like the grain or it fits into your design, by all means skip this step.

Once the gesso dries, paint your frame. You may want to add a second coat to get good color saturation but be sure to let your frame dry very well before you go to the next step.

 Now comes the fun part! Cut out strips of ribbon long enough to fold over the edges of your frame, around to the back. You can use as many kinds of ribbon as you want: every strip different, three kinds, all one kind. Just play around a bit- that's what it's all about, right?

I like to cut all my pieces out and get my layout figured out ahead of time but of course you can fly be the eat of your pants and make it up as you go along.

I used a couple of different textures for this project. The plaid and the polka dots ribbons are a paper ribbon with a slick coating. This type works but can be a bit tricky- sometimes the coating starts to come off once the glue hits it and sometimes you have to "encourage" the ribbon to stick.

Apply a strip of glue to your frame (get it nice and glue-y) and ...

... start laying down your lengths of ribbon, smoothing them out with your fingers. Let the ends over

lap the sides.

Now things start to get a bit interesting. Apply a nice coat of glue to the edges and the back of your fame. Then wrap the ribbon around to the back and you'll most likely need to hold the ribbon in place for a few beats to get the sticking to happen.

For paper ribbon-

you may want to crease it where it wraps around the frame.

I wanted the ribbon on the inside opening of the frame to wrap around the edge.

So I made a mark on each ribbon to indicate where I wanted it to end and cut the ribbon there.

Then I put a good bit of glue on each ribbon and the frame, one at a time, wrapped it around to the inside, and held it in place with the end of a bone folder until it stuck.

Hint Hint Alert !

Don't pull too hard on your ribbon as you wrap it around the frame. The increased tension on the ribbon causes it to pull away from the frame and I had a devil of a time getting the ribbon to stick, especially the paper ones, until I figured this out.

You can also just cut the ribbon off at the edge, which is fine too, but I would encourage you to make sure you have the ends glued down very well so they don't peel up later.

Once all of the ribbon lengths are glued on, let your frame dry. I went back and rubbed off the glue that was exposed on the wood between the ribbon as I discovered that it sometimes balls up and besmirches your project when you start adding the Mod Podge.

And coating it with a good layer of Mod Podge is the next step. I used two coats, letting it dry well between each coat, and .......

La-a-a-a-a...

sprinkled glitter on the last coat while it was still wet.

And thar she be ..... cute as a button.

Keep in mind that the ribbon doesn't have to go horizontally on the frame. But if you want your ribbon to go in a specific direction or for your frame to have a definite top and bottom be sure to check the hole on the back for the peg to make sure you work on the frame in the orientation that you want.

Yes, I've made a frame that ended up with the peg hole on the side!

Here are some other frames I made, just for fun.

On this yellow one I simply cut the ribbon at the edges instead of wrapping it around to the back. Umm, don't like it really but there it is.

In my next post I'll show you how I finished the back because it just occurred to me that I left that part out.

Oops! and Sorry!

So we'll do that next time.