Fragments of a Friday

Remember these?

This is the last Fall bouquet of Wildflowers I gathered before the snow and the cold weather hit Northern Ontario.

It makes me happy just to gaze upon them again!

If it were possible (and I was rich enough) I would send a bouquet to all of my blogging friend, just to put a smile on your face today.

I have even decided that I will splurge next week and buy a bouquet of flowers for myself.

If  the store has any, that is.

I am ending the week here with projects. There are always projects around here.

I keep a long list of them and then check them off as I get them accomplished.

Do you?

Funny thing is that they never get checked off on the day that they are supposed to be finished, sometimes not even the same week that they are supposed to be finished!

                                           

Now here is a project that is soon to be finished.

 But when it is done I am going to be especially sad.

Tim and I have been watching Lark Rise to Candleford each evening together.

I know I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating.

This is the best written and the best performed period piece that I have ever seen!

I end up fighting back the tears nearly every program.

It is just that darn heart warming, ladies!

The characters personalities are so rich. And after watching a show daily since Christmas, I feel like I will be saying “goodbye” to very good friends when it is finished.

Oh, I know that sounds crazy.

But don’t judge until you have watched the series yourself....

Anyway, enough of that…Today’s project is to work on a curtain for the office/sewing room and then on one for our back entry door.

How about you, what are your weekend plans?

Do you watch the Super Bowl?

Whatever you do, I hope your weekend is a good one!

Kimberly

Paper Medallion Craft

Here is the paper medallion craft I’ve been working on, friends.

Done, finally!

When I ask you to guess what it was I was making, many of you thought I was working on lampshades.

Some of  you thought they might be cupcake holders….

And there were three who guessed flowers or rosettes.

You three were right!

This is a fun craft. But it is very time consuming. There is a lot of folding.

A Whole lot!

Here is a close up look of the extra details I added to a couple of the medallions by punching one with holes and cutting the other one.

If you are interested in trying this yourself here is the BH&G Tutorial that I followed.

Have fun…

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I apologise for the poor photo quality. After three weeks Blogger still has not fixed the problem with my photo uploading, so I'm using Live Writer.

The photos are perfect there, but after they are transferred they show up blurry for some reason.

If you have any recommendations, please let me know.

Thanks!
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Can You Guess What I’m Making Today?

Well, here it is…

Can you guess what it is that I’m making today?

I thought this would be a quick project-it was not.

But in the end I think it will be worth the hours it has taken me to put together.

Please drop by tomorrow to see if you are correct!

Have a great Tuesday-Kimberly

Snow Scenes

It’s been a long time since I’ve shared any photos of the snow here.

It hasn’t changed much. We’ve had this amount of snow for months now.

This is our screened porch.

My husband does such a nice job of keeping the snow cleared from it's deck that I almost feel guilty about not using it.

 It's hard not to be dreaming of the warm and sunny days when I can once again enjoy reading out there!

This is a our back yard looking onto the ski hill.

This poor little bird house hasn’t seen one visitor since I hung it out last November!

I saw chickadees in the front tree and thought they might stay if I offered them food.

But they flew on…..

However, we are not entirely  without our birds here though….

One can always count on the Ravens ever present company.

Whether we like it or not!

I hope your Monday is the beginning of a good week for you.

Blessings-Kimberly

 

I Have Never Been Eloquent

 

Moses said, “I have never been eloquent,…I am slow of speech and tongue.” The Lord said to him,”…go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

Exodus 4: 10-12 (NIV)

This verse has never been one that was hard for me to grasp, because I, like Moses, have never been blessed with the gift of expressing myself in speaking!

However, this verse to me is about far more than the Lord giving me words to speak when I don’t have the ability in myself  to do so.

It is about any time and every time that I have been put into a situation or a position where I have felt inadequate in my own strength or just plain afraid of the possible outcome.

As an example: I will never forget the first move Tim and I made to the Yukon in the dead of Winter. We were driving the largest U-Haul one could rent, and also pulling our car behind that!

The roads were snow packed and in many places slick. Every time we would be coming down a steep mountain pass I would be gripped with fear just knowing that  we were going to slide off of the road and disappear into the abbess of trees below never to be found, seen or heard of again.

Then there was that moment just before being wheeled into surgery; I remember wanting to jump right off of the table and say, “Forget it, I can’t do this.” “I’m too afraid of the pain I’m going to encounter when this is all over.”

You’ve been there, you know what I’m talking about..

There were those times when I found myself in job positions where I thought  certain some of my employees had to be the devil incarnate! Honestly, how else could a person be so ugly, hateful and just plain disrespectful?

But looking back on all of these instances and so many more, I see where the Lord’ hand was in it all.

 

When I was frightened on that mountain or in that surgery room, he saw me through and he gave me courage.

When I was overwhelmed by the ugliness and what felt like the evilness of others, he empowered me with the strength and the wisdom to deal with it. And he gave me the victory!

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being put in situations where I am stretched beyond my abilities. I like living in my own comfortable skin. I like doing what I’m good at and not being asked by God or anyone else to have to deal with what’s uncomfortable for me, or scary, or hard.

I realize that as adults we become less daring; maybe even less confident.

But think about it…..How is it that we were ever able to walk? Well, I suppose it’s because we stood up, we fell a few times and decided that walking was so much better than crawling was. It was the same when learning to ride a bike….We wrecked, we got cuts and bruises, but in the end the joy and the freedom that pedaling that bike brought to us made it all well worth it.

I personally need to quit letting age, fear and inadequacy become an excuse for not stepping out in faith and allowing the Lord to bring something new into my life.

I know that many of us have memorized the verse  Philippians 4: 13

 I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.

Maybe NOW is the time to really put this verse into action in our lives and truly trust the Lord to do just exactly what he promises he will do in us, and for us!

 

 

 

 

A Laundry Sign Project

Step #1

This Laundry Sign Project is something I’ve been wanting to try for some time.

I’ve seen  many neat subway signs made by a lot of talented bloggers and thought this would be a good place to start; With a laundry sign I can hang in the basement!

Step#2

Okay, here’s what I did:

I stretched a white sheet over a wooden frame and stapled it to the back.  I painted the sheet with white wall paint to give it a nice canvas texture.

Next I used wall paint again to trim the canvas with turqoise scallops.

For the lettering I dug out my stencils and went to town!

Here is a close up of the stencilling.

Can you tell by looking that I used magic markers?

I hadn’t planned on using markers, but I realized that I didn’t have one of those special brushes used for stencilling.

 I did have a large variety of coloured markers on hand.

See how I’m making do?

Step#3

When the stencilling was completed I added a clothesline. It is going in the laundry room after all!

Lastly I trimmed the top with a red ribbon and gingham. This, I attached to the canvas with a double-faced carpet tape.

And there you have it.

I have to say it was a fairly easy project, ladies.

The hardest part of it all was the alignment of the lettering.

I have to admit that I did draw very faint pencil lines, which helped, and did test stencilling on paper to estimate the letter lay out.

The only thing I would do differently next time is that I would paint the sheet first and then stretch it onto the wooden frames. This would eliminate the wobbles formed on the sheet from the wet paint.

        source

I have always loved this quote. It was popularised in 1942-1943 during WW11.

The original version was, “Eat it up, Wear it out, Make it do, or do without.” This was described in 1937 as “the four threads of the New England character.

I have recently taken this to heart and have begun to put this quote into action. It has become quite fun and challenging to practice just making do.

I would really like to know how some of you might put this quote into practice….

Have you even considered it?

 

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Lung Leavin’ Day

A few days ago I was contacted by Cameron Von St. James asking me if I would be interested in helping him share information about mesothelioma.

After reading how this cancer has personally touched his families life, I knew it was a story others should read.

Please link here to understand all about Lung Leavin’ Day and Heather’s journey.

Thank you friends.

How To Decorate With Colour

I wanted to share a few tips with you on how to decorate with colour.

Many of you, like myself, don’t live in a climate that allows us to have blooming flowers year round.

But never fear, we can bring colour and flowers into our home without spending even a penny!

Like here.

If you are like me, you no doubt have a stash of floral scrap booking paper in your craft room just waiting to be turned into sweet flowers;)

Do you have an old vintage suitcase?

I do.

A really ugly beige one.

I need to try painting it or decoupaging it like this one.

Now if I was experienced at crocheting, I know I would definitely want to make this!

So far the only crocheting I've mastered is pot scrubbers!

For more colourful inspiration please check out my Pinterest page and visit the Color My Decor board that Brenda started over the weekend.

It is full of many wonderful way to add colour to your home during these long Winter days.

This sampler is the inspiration piece for my latest project.

If it turns out you will see it.

If not, I think you know exactly where it’s headed for!

What things are you doing to brighten your Winter days, my friend?

I'm all ears....

and eyes!
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Guard Your Heart!

Above all else, guard your heart,
for it is the wellspring of life.
Proverbs 4:23

Bringing Back Red

                      I am adding Red to my kitchen.

Again.

If you’ve been a long time follower of mine you know that my past kitchens have always contained Red.

When I redecorated my present kitchen for fall I changed out my summer colours to neutral colours and left it this way throughout the Christmas holidays.

But I am so..done with the neutrals. For. Now.

I’m not sure if I’m just suffering from Cabin Fever, but I definitely felt the need for colour in the kitchen again.

Something cheery.

It always surprises me though, how much time a project like this takes.

My intention is to just grab a few pieces out of storage to add back to my kitchen decor.

But then it becomes a snowball of ideas  that just keeps growing and this simple (I’ll be done in a day) project ends up taking three or four days!

That’s how it is for me, at least.

Just look at the mess I’ve created!

But you know how it goes with decorating.

You try this, you try that.

You hang something, then it doesn’t look right, so you take it back down again and try something else.

 

I often end up putting half of the goods back into storage again.

I think it’s a good thing I’ve got such an easy going husband…

Who, by the way, has his own home project he’s been working on.

But that I’ll share with you in a later post.

So tell me, are you suffering any Cabin Fever?

Or are you keeping it at bay with your own projects?

Blessing-Kimberly
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How To Paint On Fabric

Hello Friends!

I told you several days ago that I was going to show you how I painted on fabric for our sewing room/office curtain.

First, you'll have to visualise the above photo unpainted because I forgot to get a before photo.

Sorry.



 

I wanted to do this fabric painting project NOW, so I racked by brain trying to come up with what I might have at home that could work.

I have craft paints on hand, but I didn't want a stiff painted finish for the curtains. 

Then I came up with the idea of using food colouring .

I first cut fabric strips for experimenting with the right balance of the dye and water mixture.

When I discovered that I didn't have any red food colouring I decided to use beet juice.

And it worked beautifully!

I believe can thank Ma Ingalls from "Little House on the Prairie"  for this little tidbit of knowledge:)



Honestly I was surprised that the colours worked out to be exactly what I was wanting to achieve for this project.

The pale red and blue were simply diluted.

The lime green, which looks more yellow here, was a mix of yellow and green together.

I applied it to the fabric with a craft paint brush, being very careful to stay within the lines of the postal pattern on the curtains.

 I also placed a plastic barrier underneath the fabric to protect the surface it was lying on.

This is a must!

Now this is all experimental on my part...

But I figured that you don't know until you try, right?

 Since I was worried that the dye would run after washing I sprayed the painted areas with an acrylic coating to seal them.

I feel pretty confident this won't wash out.

At least I hope not!

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I will be back to share with you how it looks once it is hanging.

I want to paint the window's trim first.

Oh yes, another project!

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A New Day Every Day

An Up-Date

  First, thank you to all of you dear ladies who took the time to pray for our little Grandsons!

Camden came home last evening.

His lungs are O.K. now, but he is anemic.

This is due to his finicky eating habits.

His parents are going to have to try to get more iron filled foods into his diet.

I believe Reece is doing well.

I haven't reached anyone today yet, so I'll have to keep you posted on him.

My photo up-loading issues are still not resolved after three days!

This seems like a confirmation that it's time to move to Word Press...

Have a Wonderful Weekend!

Kimberly

A Prayer Request for Grandsons

 

Hi Friends

Tim and I have two little Grandsons who are in the hospital.

Camden, who is five, was hospitalised on Monday with only 70 percent lung capacity.

He is back up to 94 percent now, but he is so deficient in iron that his red blood count is still very low.

They still don't know what caused his lung problems yet.

Our Grandson Reece, who is three, had his tonsils and adenoids out yesterday.

He is doing well and will likely be dismissed today.

So it is not serious, but I would appreciate your prayers for them both the little fellows.

Thank you ladies!

A Cozy Cottage Day

  I awoke this morning realising it was Wednesday already and I hadn't written a post lately!

I thought about it yesterday and the day before that too...

But. I was busy working on a project and didn't want to stop.

The truth is I just started the project last night and finished it this morning.

The project? Our office/sewing room curtains.

All time leading up to that was spent on contemplating just how I wanted to dress the window.

Honestly!

One bloody office window and I thought I had to spend hours and hours pouring over Pinterest for ideas on what to make.

Then in the end I trashed all the cute ideas and just  came up with my own plan.

Which, I would've been happy to share with you today but Blogger decided it wasn't a good time, I guess!

After close to a dozen times of trying to add the photo to my post I gave up.

Maybe tomorrow Blogger will be in a more agreeable mood-then I will share.

I do want to share with you that we are experiencing somewhat of a heat wave here!

Yes, the high was a balmy -20C or -2F today.

Let me say that this is a welcome break from past three weeks of morning readings of -37C, which also equals -37F.

Brrrr......

I see that we are expected to get as high as -4 tomorrow.

When it gets this warm we can usually count on more snow coming our way though.

Tim and I haven't been out of town since before Christmas.

I  reminded him that we haven't even started reading, "The Long Hard Winter" or "Farmer Boy" by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

This has been our tradition for many winters now!

We both have figured out that it is because we  spending our evenings watching the "Larksrise to Candleford" DVD that I purchased him for Christmas.

Ladies, I'm not sure I can give any other program as high of a recommendation as I can give this one.

We love it!

We are addicted to it!

It is based on two communities in the late 19th century.

Larkrise is a less prosperous country hamlet and Candleford is a bustling up-coming community.

Laura, a young girl from Larkrise takes a job in the Candleford post office, which is run by the Post Mistress Dorcas.

However, Dorcas is far more than just the Post Mistress of Candleford.....

Now, this is where I will quit with details because I do not want to spoil it for you, should you decide to watch it yourself.

It is all done beautifully; the set and the wardrobe.

But it's greatest asset is the wonderful acting of all of the characters and  Bill Gallagher's writing adaptation of Flora Thompson's books.

I really enjoyed the "Cranford" series, but I couldn't relate to the issues of the characters in the same way I do those of "Larksrise to Candleford"

Well, I've bent your ear long enough!

With any luck I'll be back tomorrow with a few photos to share with you.

Romans 8:28

 

 

I want to share with you a very surprising thing that happened to me on this Christmas Eve.

 

Now it may not seem like a big deal to those of you who do not follow my post regularly.

 

But to those of you who do, you will remember the long drawn out story concerning my laptop and the not so nice dealings I was having with the company where I had bought it and had purchased a warranty.

 

A short version of it is this:

Somehow (please don't ask how, because I don't know) I managed to lose everything on my computer;

all files, documents, pictures, programs.

 You name it-I lost it!

But, by sheer luck, I somehow was able to reset the laptop and continue using it and adding new pictures, files, etc. 

However, I still could not retrieve anything from the last year and a half that was lost.

 

I called the company and they agreed to see if they could restore everything I'd lost if I would drive the five hours South of here to get it to them.

I did.

They estimated it would take two weeks.

After four weeks I called, and called, and called to find out what was going on and when I would get my laptop back.

I was finally contacted and told at that time that all that I had managed to lose was indeed lost and gone forever...

I was greatly disappointed, but I knew there was a good chance that this was a possibility.

However, in two days when my laptop arrived, there was nothing on it!

There was no Internet or any programs uploaded Nothing.

And all of the new photos and documents were also inaccessible now.

I couldn't believe it!
 

I had paid almost two hundred dollars for the warranties and this was the service I received in return.

 I started all over again calling a new customer service person and being told they would call me back.

Then after never hearing back from that man I would call another one.

Instead of being apologetic to me they first informed me that it wasn't possible that they could have done anything  to my laptop!

After all, they where all experts.

 

What were they insinuating? That I purposely sabotaged by own computer? Sure I wanted to spend many frustrated hours and days on the phone talking to one person and then another.

Did they really think that I was that lonely?
Or that I for some unknown reason just wanted to give there company a bad name?
 

One of the customer service fellows even wanted me to be informed that the service they had performed on my laptop was specially reserved for their business customers only and the cost was over a thousand dollars, so I shouldn't be complaining.
 

Somehow all of these stories just didn't jive!
 

Experts, thousand dollar services, yet I get a laptop returned to me that is not even usable.

~PLEASE~
 

Honestly, I know this short version seems really, really long and I'm no where near done yet.

So if you need to warm up that coffee or tea, now is a good time to do so.
 

Yes, this is the short version!

I'm leaving out the petty insults and other details that just aren't worth rehashing.

Coffee warmed?
 

Good, now back to my story (true story).

Because I was persistent they finally agreed that they would look again at my laptop if I wanted to drive the five hours one-way South again to bring it  in.

This, my friends was the middle of December.

I live above the North shores of Lake Superior and at this time of the year Winter snow squalls often come up on the lake causing Hwy. 17 North to be closed to all traffic!
 

In fact my Blogger friend, Laurie, who lives in the Soo was keeping me informed as to whether it was safe to travel and whether the highway would be opened again or not.

Now this is where I'm going to shorten the story.
Before I went I called ahead and talked to a FEMALE  Dept. Manager who was the only kind, professional, and helpful person I had spoken to in this store. 
 I believe to this day that she is the only reason that my situation was FINALLY resolved.

We safely made it to the store. The technician who was supposed to be there to look at my laptop wasn't, so I ended up leaving it again.
This was Dec.13th.

NOW IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE READ THIS.
IT IS THE CRUX OF THE STORY!!

On the eve of Dec.24th the local delivery lady knocked on my door and handed me the box containing the long awaited laptop.

It had been in the back of the cold truck so Tim suggested that I should let it warm before turning it on.
I don't think I can even begin to describe to you the level of emotions that I was experiencing when the time came to push that power button, ladies.

It. Was. Christmas Eve. After. All.

If I turned it on and they still hadn't managed to fix it I knew I would most likely be filled with some very un-nice thoughts!
I almost didn't bother......

But, with bated breath I bravely pushed the power button.
And this is what is the miracle of it all.....

~EVERYTHING WAS RESTORED~

The whole year and a half of files, photos, etc. that they said the THOUSAND DOLLAR EXPERTS could not restore was all there again in it's original state!

I don't know how this happened....
I know it had to be done at the local level.
But to me it was truly a Christmas miracle.
I now have all the photos of my children and grandchildren restored!
My youngest sons wedding photos restored!
Our last trip to the Yukon, also, restored!
I could just go on and on.....

I don't know why I had to go through this two month ordeal of frustration and all the headache that came with it; especially trying to maintain my blog on Tim's out-dated computer this whole time!
 
 It has really given me cause to stop and consider God's purpose for it all as I move forward into the new year.
I feel like I was living Genesis 50:20
As for you, you want evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result.....
Now I just wonder what this result will be?
I only hope and pray that I can somehow use this crazy thing called the Internet to bring glory to our Saviour!