Pop Art Side Table

This is a time for celebrating...whether you are religious or not. Most of us associate the Holidays with seeing loved ones, families getting together, having fun, making memories, etc etc. Why then, is everybody so miserable and impatient and stressed out? Isn't this supposed to be a happy time?

I have a theory about that. What makes us miserable this time of year, is expectations. We are told by the media that this time should be and look a certain way. Happy families smiling in the warm glow of crackling fires, perfect little children with cute outfits playing sweetly together, the smell of good food wafting in from the kitchen, loads of presents under a perfectly decorated tree.....
The truth is that most of our realities are very different from that. And so we start to strive for that picture perfect Christmas .. And if we fail, we strive harder, and become unhappy and stressed out. And what was supposed to be a festive time, becomes the time of year with the highest suicide rate, stress and huge credit card bills.
Maybe we should just relax, and appreciate our own reality for what it is.See the blessings in the little things. Appreciate the people that are with us, instead of being resentful for the one's that are not.
 Maybe we can even reach out and be a blessing to someone else....
Maybe this is my advice to myself, since Christmas started to become such a burden  having to spend it without family since my husband and I moved to the US 10 years ago....
Maybe I will take my own advice and just be happy  this Christmas.

ALRIGHTY THEN!  Enough talking...


Check out this ultra cool little side table I painted a while back. I am sooo stoked about it.  I loved doing it so much, I just want to make more. Even though it's not selling. Go figure. Probably not everyone's cup of tea.

My friend bought me this at a garage sale for $3

I painted the body black, and did this Roy Lichtenstein pop art on the front.

I used my trusted projector to do the drawing.

I googled the image. Funny how I always think I have an original idea, but when I start to google it, I discover that some one else has done it already! I found a lot of cool pop art furniture online.

At first I was thinking of putting something humorous in the thought bubble.

Something like: " I wanted Chick-A_Fillet, but it's Sunday..." 

or any of those First World Problems, but I eventually just went with the original saying, which was:" that's the way it was supposed to happen, but now its hopeless!"

Unfortunately I did not take another pic after I wrote the quote in, before I took the table to the consignment store. 

So, there it is! Hope you love it as much as I do!

Happy Thrifting and (Truly) Happy Christmas !

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Christmas Card Picture

Hi There

Do you know the part in The Bible where it talks about "weeping and gnashing of teeth" ?
If you want to know what that looks like, come to my house when it is time for the yearly Family Christmas Card Picture Taking....(cue in scary music here)
You would think I was asking each one of them to donate a kidney, or worse....
My 10 year old daughter still loves it, but she is sadly the only one.
Lets just say that on picture day, there is not very much "Christmas Spirit" in this household...

This year, I came up with a different plan., that I thought they would be more willing to do . I was "sort of " right. My oldest grudgingly agreed to participate, but made sure I understood that I was ruining his reputation...LOL.

I took three different pictures of them in poses to make up the letters : J O Y

Oldest put his foot down when it came to the "O", and refused to make up the other half with his brother, so I had to improvise...

I flipped the picture, put the two sides together, and blurred out the background to make an "O".

The "Y" was pretty straightforward.

Then I had to go and blur out all the backgrounds. If I ever get to do this again, I would make sure that the background and the floor are the same color.

After editing the pics in Photoshop Elements, I made a collage on Picasa 3,  and  Voila!

Can you see that it spells JOY?

I was afraid some people might not see it, so I used this template from Walmart's photo to make my Christmas Card...

I really enjoyed doing this. Wish I had more willing "subjects", but, never the less, I have my Christmas Card! Yeah!

Have a great weekend!

Suzanne  xx

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Making Christmas Stars

Helloooo!
Having a nice, laid back Sunday, and decided to show you my stars I made a couple of months ago at our bi-annual craft day, hosted by a friend's MIL.
Lauren, the hostess, was so kind to cut the shapes out for us before we got there. She even sanded it for us! All we needed to do was paint to our little hearts' content.

I decided to do blue and silver, and left the centres white, because I wanted to decoupage pictures of each of my three kids in the middle...

 Then I decided I did not like the gold polka dots, so I painted over it, and just splattered gold, silver and blue all over.

 I never got around to doing the decoupage (surprise!) , so when it got time for me to decorate last week, I just grabbed a white chalkboard marker, and wrote the letters of JOY on there.

Here are the NOEL blocks I made last year..

And this is my buffet all decorated for Christmas. I like to keep this one more monochromatic, this time in blue, white and silver.

Remember my silver tray chalkboard that said "Harvest" before?

...aaand that's all for now. Have a great week, Everyone!
                                           
                                                                Love,

Jingle Bells, Batman Smells, ( PS: so does my Attitude....)

I have a confession to make. I might as well tell you now. Hope you won't judge me.....I am a Grinch.

There ...I said it. Didn't use to be one, just the past 8 years.

Christmas time is not a jolly time for me since we moved to the US. Everything that was Christmas to me in the past, I can't have here. In South Africa, this would be the end of the school year, and our long summer break. That meant vacation by the beach, and seeing our family.

Ok, don't worry, you can stop the sad violins now. I am adjusting. And I know Christmas is really about Jesus, I just want to explain why I have to work hard at being full of cheer.

Then there is the small problem of my lacking in decorating skills when it comes to Christmas. Don't ask me why...I wish I knew. I really don't like it. Especially the tree.Ribbons drive me crazy! I wish I has a dollar for every time I tried to decorate with a ribbon and had to do it over, and over, to try and get it right. This year I decided to give my daughter her own tree to decorate, and I just have my collection of little trees all over.

I do love Santa's, little trees that don't have to be decorated, and angels.

So, here are some of my attempts....

                                      Shower curtain turned table runner.

                           Another shower curtain used as a table cloth..

OK, I realize I sounded really negative there a minute ago, but I am really not..

Now that the decorating is done, I love the Chrismassy atmosphere. I love the candle light, Christmas music (some more that other, lol), making cookies and peppermint bark, hot chocolate, buying gifts for my loved ones, watching Christmas movies with my daughter, going for drives through the city to look at the lights,Christmas plays, and many more. (Did you guess from my title that I saw Junie B. Jones with my daughter this week?)

So, I really do wish you a very merry and blessed Christmas!

                                           

                                                 

PS: I know I have not blogged a lot lately, but I finally have something to blog about again, so see you soon!

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Love,