September 2014 - Page 2 of 2 - Yearning to Create

How to Make a Chalkboard from a Cupboard Door

Before my daughters wedding, I was scrounging around in the garage, looking for stuff that we might be able to up-cycle into something wedding worthy. Well, I found a cupboard door!

I painted the outside edge in my leftover laundry room paint (Grey Morning by Behr), which happened to match her wedding colours perfectly! I sanded the edges a little and distressed them with my tube of Burnt Umber Oil Colour (best and easiest way to distress anything!)

The middle part I painted with chalkboard paint – two coats. Super easy!

The result was a chalkboard!!!

This was the perfect way to greet our wedding guests as they came through the doors. And it was perfect for pointing out which way they should go.

This was our practice set-up at home in our unfinished basement. Looking at it now, I realize it was quite the recycling project – old cupboard door, old chair, old topiary, old spindles – all up-cycled to become . . .

. . . the perfect wedding entryway!

Now my plan is to either hang it horizontally above a window or door in my house, or vertically on a narrow wall. Since it’s a chalkboard, I can make it say anything I want! And I can take it down and use it again as a welcome sign. It’s already had “Welcome to New Beginnings” written on it. It also fits very well in a small easel – the kind you would use to hold a 12 x 12 tile – which is how we propped the chalkboard up for New Beginnings.

I think this old cupboard door is loving it’s new life!!!

Missionary Christmas Stocking

The most exciting thing happened!!! My second daughter decided to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

She was called to serve in the Mexico Mexico City Southeast Mission for a year and a half. For the first six weeks of her mission, she was in Provo Utah at the Missionary Training Center (MTC), where she learned how to teach the gospel, and began learning how to speak Spanish. We took her to Utah on December 11, so she was going to be spending her first Christmas away from home in the MTC. It was an awesome experience for her!

Once I realized she’d be gone for Christmas, I started thinking about the first package we’d send her – a Christmas one. I wanted to make her a memorable stocking, yet a humble stocking, and this is what I came up with.

It actually turned out super cute and now I want to make one for everyone in my family, with different quotes/scriptures on them.

First step was to choose what I wanted it to say. For a missionary “Called to Serve” was a pretty good choice! But I was also debating using her favourite scripture “Trust in the Lord” (Proverbs 3:5).

I got my artistic daughter to write out the words and I copied them in pencil on to the drop cloth. Yes, the stocking is made from a drop cloth (what you throw on the ground to protect your floor while painting!). That’s pretty humble fabric!

Then it was simple embroidery in dark brown floss over the letters.

I lined my stocking with the green plaid fabric because I didn’t want the embroidery floss to get snagged when Santa stuffed the stocking.

I lined up my fabrics and sewed them together, overlapping the green over the front of the stocking at the top.

Then with the right sides together, I sewed my stocking together.

I added some gathered eyelet ribbon and a piece of jute string to hang it with.

The final touch was this light brown ribbon/lace trim.

Love how it turned out – and it didn’t cost me a cent. Made it all from stuff I already had.

Santa stuffed it full before shipping it off to her.

Our missionary unpacking her Christmas package – it got to her before Christmas!

Next Christmas her companion is going to have to fill it!

Our missionary’s first Christmas, with a Charlie Brown tree.

Perfect for one who has been Called to Serve the Lord!

Flat Missionary Advent Calendar

My daughter Min is serving as an LDS missionary in Mexico City for 18 months. I wanted to send her an advent calendar to help her enjoy the Christmas season. Shipping to Mexico isn’t the easiest thing, so I wanted an advent calendar that would fit nicely into a large envelope, rather than a package. Another brilliant missionary momma (Teri) had this great idea to make one out of baseball card holders. So I borrowed her idea of the card holder to make my version of an advent calendar.

Mac holding the finished product.

These are the three separate page protectors for baseball cards. Each page has nine slots. I just cut Christmas scrapbook paper into the right sizes and copied a scripture advent calendar on each one. This advent calendar is based on one that was printed in the New Era magazine in December 1989 called Come, Let us Adore Him: A Live Advent Calendar. I just copied the scripture reference and the hymn. If you click on the picture, it should enlarge it enough to be easily read.

This is the advent calendar we do at home every Christmas, so I thought it would be nice if our missionary was reading the same thing as us each day.

The back side isn’t looking to fancy to start with . . .

Also in each little pocket I included a gospel picture. Where possible, they correlated to the scripture of the day. So the idea is that she puts the gospel picture in the front of the pocket of each day once she’s read the scripture.

By the time Christmas arrives, she’ll have a page of lovely pictures of the Savior and other gospel items that she can have up in her apartment all year (or at least until June when she comes home!)

I tied jute string at the top. But the knots were a little bulky and made my package bigger. If I was doing it again, I’d use a smaller string, or ribbon or yarn that wouldn’t make the postal workers need to measure my envelope!

To attach the three pages to each other, I simply used clear packing tape and taped across the back side of the pages. Worked great – holds it tight and is still easy to fold up to pack into that envelope, and later, into her suitcase!!!

I also tucked a little Christmas quote or story for her to read in each day too. I was planning to put a balloon in some of them too, with Christmas messages for her to blow up and get, but forgot to do it when the family was all together. We’ll save that for another package.