The Zen of Creating

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At the last two craft classes I conducted at Dorchester Senior Citizens Center,my crafty ladies really enjoyed themselves. We made a decorated matchbox in one class that they really liked, so much so that they requested to repeat the class and were giving me suggestions for alternative colors and designs they would like to see for the next time. (Note to self: definitely do this class again.) There's a photo of me with some of my "girls" holding their finished boxes. They were all smiles.

This week I decided to up the ante a bit. Usually I design a project, create a kit and lead the group in assembling it. This time, using stencils donated by The Crafter's Workshop, as well as blank paper fans and markers obtained at Materials For The Arts, I told them that there was no kit. They were going to design their own project. Good thing I brought plenty of supplies for the class. It was a FULL house.

I gave the ladies a rudimentary lesson in the art of zentangling.  I described it as conscious doodling where the aim is to concentrate solely on what you're doing and pay no attention to what is going on around you. I told them there was no right or wrong in whatever they chose to do. THEY were the artists and they decided what they wanted to do. Then I said, "Go!".

Boy, did they take that direction to heart! These ladies dove into their fans and stenciled away. It was so quiet at the table, you could hear a pin drop. When they were done, there were more smiles going around that table as they showed off their finished creations. Just take a look at those fans and those smiles.

When I asked them how they felt during the exercise, the consensus was that they were all very relaxed and focused. One participant said her friend sitting next to her was talking to her and she didn't hear a word, so focused was she on her doodling.

So it's official. The Friday afternoon crafting class is becoming a go-to at the senior center. Autumn, one of my favorite times for seasonal crafting, will be here very soon and I can't wait to see what projects I'll be dreaming up for this wonderful group of women. I'll do anything to keep them smiling.

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

A Small Bookcase Gets a Makeover

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Bookcase - Before

Bookcase disman

 I get a certain satisfaction out of taking something unwanted and turning into something beautiful. Recently I picked up a small wooden bookcase from a fellow Freecycler for the purpose of refinishing it for my home in upstate New York. It presented with a few challenges, most notably that it had stains from wood knots showing through the painted finish. I took it apart, stripped and sanded everything except the back. Then I gave it several coats of white paint especially made to cover stains and dark colors to obscure the wood knot stains.

One side stripped.

A shelf is sanded

By the time I got to the back of the bookcase, I was anxious to move on to another project so I opted not to paint it. Instead I covered over it with three pieces of white wrapping paper in the spaces corresponding to the shelf openings. Then I used a fun stencil from The Crafter's Workshop,  TWC97 - Swirly vines. I wanted a coordinated look but not cookie cutter sameness so I chose to color the flower elements in each panel in a different color palette. When the back was replaced on the bookcase, I was pleasantly surprised to see it looked even better than I imagined it would. Next up is to make some low trays/containers for each shelf to hold miscellaneous items. I think I'll make each tray in a solid color to echo the background and low enough to allow the design on the back to show through.


 I want my new home filled with small treasures made by my own hand. This bookcase will join the birdhouses that I recently painted in the kitchen/dining area and they will be among the first things I see when I enter my home.

It's little things like this that make me smile.


Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

Done and Done - Finally!

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So, remember that small chest of drawers I started stripping over a month ago? (Click here to read that post.) Well, after numerous interruptions I finally finished it and I'm rather pleased with the way it came out. Full disclosure here -- I am NOT a furniture refinisher so my experience and skills in this particular area are lacking. Nevertheless, I have never let not knowing how to do something stop me from doing it if it was something I really wanted to do. In this way I have learned that I can do anything I set my mind to. Just understand that I may not do it very well.

Back to the chest of drawers. It's old, with chipped corners and questionable construction but I really like its clean, simple lines and it's a perfect piece upon which to practice my burgeoning refinishing skills. Above left you can see a before photo taken when I began to strip off the varnish. Below left you see what the chest looks like today, stained, stenciled and ready for a new life housing cardstock in my crafts workshop. The colors are a departure for me inasmuch as I prefer natural wood tones for furniture but I figured as long as this was going to be a creative learning experience I was going for broke.

Among the lessons I learned during this exercise was that paint and stain do not behave in the same way when applied to a surface. Paint would have been easier to work with but I wanted the wood grain to show through the color, something I would  not have been able to accomplish with paint. The edges of the motifs are a bit darker than the center. This was accomplished by going over the motif edges with a second coat of stain but the first layer must be allowed to dry first or the second layer will lift it off and cause unevenness in the color. I used two sizes of plastic scrapbooking stencils by The Crafter's Workshop (TCW192 - Ginkgo Leaves), 12" x 12" for the sides of the chest and 6" x 6" for the drawer fronts. This was  the most difficult and labor intensive part of the refinishing project. I had to clean the stencil after each use before laying it down again to prevent blemishing the surface with wet stain. Because the stain dried quickly and formed a sticky bond to the plastic, this was much easier said than done. It took nothing less than Magic Eraser and a lot of elbow grease and patience to clean those things. Next time I'll paint.

So my paint stripping score so far is one bedroom door, one radiator cover and one small chest of drawers stripped, sanded and refinished with one more bedroom door in the works. After this I think I'll take a break from painting. I've got some apple and pumpkin pies waiting to be baked.

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

...And Miles To Go Before I Sleep.**

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My schedule has been filling up at any alarming rate and I'm finding it more difficult to carve out the time needed to complete the projects I have begun and move on to other projects waiting in the wings. This weekend I decided to make some definite headway on some things that have been lingering around in various stages of completion (or should I say incompletion).

Last month I posted about painting my daughter's room and stripping a chest of drawers. Here's an update. Although the painting of the room was completed some time ago, the bedroom door, which had been taken off the frame for stripping and priming, has yet to be done. My daughter has been using a curtain on a tension rod in place of a door for over a month and while she has been a very good sport about it, I know she wants her door back. Making headway on stripping this door was my number one priority this weekend. Given the experience I had with stripping my son's door in August when he painted his room, I was not really looking forward to it but I was determined. Here you can see what the door looks like with much of the paint in the center panel scraped off. The dark brown color is the original stained and varnished finish of the door before all the layers of paint were troweled on over the years. It took me an hour or so to get most of the paint off the center panel and then I started on the other side and did the same. The doorknob and hinges were taken off, cleaned and stripped as well. I didn't get too much further than this before the sun went down.

I probably would have gotten further along with the door had I not taken some time out to help my husband harvest some apples from my tree. He was up on a ladder placing winter covers on all the air conditioners and was in the vicinity of the tree. He just couldn't resist those red beauties so he reached over and started plucking those he could easily reach. I caught most of them but some hit the ground and got banged up.  We ate a couple of those and they were really delicious. Maybe the garden lime I added around the base of the tree at the beginning of the season was the reason for that. In any event, I guess I have some apple pies and fresh apple sauce in my near future. On a somewhat related note, I made a batch of fresh seasoned tomato sauce for the first time last night using tomatoes and some  fresh basil, oregano and scallions from my garden. My intention is to use it as a base for a lasagna I'm planning to make in the near future. Can't wait.


My son came home from a shopping trip with his girlfriend. (Can you imagine? A guy who actually goes shopping with his girlfriend?) They had gone shopping for Hallowe'en costumes and modeled what they had purchased when they got home. My son chose a Scotsman's outfit complete with kilt and cap and his beautiful girlfriend, Carla, chose the Mad Hatter.

 So, getting back to that chest of drawers I was stripping last month, I completed staining it in a pale green color which is totally unlike me. I tend to be a lot more conservative colorwise when it comes to furnishings but I felt adventurous and decided to break with convention. To punch up the green, I stenciled a design on the chest and drawers in a deep turquoise color. In the photos at left you can see the completed drawers and the chest in progress. It will soon be finished. Now all I have to do is find a spot for it in my already crowded crafts workshop where it will be used to house some of the TONS of craft papers I have.

The rest of this month is coming up hard and fast and I still have loads to do. I need to finish stripping and priming the bedroom door, complete the stenciling of the chest of drawers, attend one board meeting, one community association meeting, create a database, design and manufacture an invitation for a client, celebrate my son's 23rd birthday, my husband's and my 26th anniversary and get flu shots. And then it's November.

Whew! I think I need to lie down and take a nap.

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

** Title of this post is a line from the poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost.