"Stenciled" Dresser

In an effort to consolidate our stuff, I bought a new dresser. Might sound backward but we had the "his and her" dressers and I thought that we should have only one. But I wanted to find a dresser that was "big" enough to hold both of our stuff..so something along a 6-8 drawer one but not one that was this huge item in our room. I also wanted to make the room look bigger.

So on Kijiji, I found a 8-drawer dresser for $20! It was that dark brown veneer color that someone heavily painted on. But for the price, and the fact that it was a bit smaller, I bought it.

And I went red with it!

Initially, I was going to do a blue and red theme. And something crafty for the top. But this is what my creative mind came up with.

And it has an eco-friendly, upcycled vein in its body. For the stencil, is actually a plastic bag.

I cut out the flower and just Elmer-glued it on. The stencil went on very nicely. I had the thought that it would look so obviously bad -- like I had cut a plastic bag and just glued it on. Go figure, right?

For the drawer handles, I found some fabric in my stash and glued it on. It was a dark blue and white French toile pattern.

Pretty happy with it. And the best part is that my husband likes it as well. At first, when I said a) I was going to get rid of his 5-drawer dresser and b) now he had to share an 8-drawer with me c) that I was going to paint the dresser RED and stencil on a flower....obviously he wasn't all that enthusiastic but he was pleased at the end of the day.


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Domestically Speaking

My entry into Domestically Speaking’s Power of Paint Party is sponsored by Appliances Online and the Bosch Washing Machines.

Diva Planter

With my 5 month old, Jed, nursing more frequently again, I can't stop eating. So my thinking is: "I'm up (again, munching on something). Might as well, do some crafting".
Makes complete and total sense, right? :)

I recently purchased an aloe plant in planter from some friends who were selling everything for their upcoming missions trip.

I really liked how the aloe plant was sitting on its side. But as with most things that cross my path, I have to make it stand out somewhat.

It turned out to be a quick craft. I gave it a base coat (just in case there was show-through) and then hot glued on my green, blue and white glass beads. I forgot to count how may beads I used, so we can't play *that* game :)

Yes, I gave it a quick blow-dry afterwards (to melt all the hot glue strands, silly) and yes, I burned my fingers plenty.of.times.
But it's all for the better decor good.

What do you think? I kind of feel it needs something more....

**hah, I just realized the irony of me burning my fingers for a craft on an aloe plant.....get it? People usually have an aloe plant as a home remedy for BURNS....

Linked to:
Raising Homemakers
Between Naps on the Porch
Making the World Cuter
DIY Showoff
The Girl Creative
Sumo's Sweet Stuff
Made By You
Today's Creative Blog
Blue Cricket Designs
Fireflies and JellyBeans
Tales from Bloggeritaville
Somewhat Simple
The Shabby Creek Cottage
Beyond the Picket Fence
Sweet Little Gals
remodelahoilic
finding fabulous
romantic home
fingerprints on the fridge
kojo designs
Sugar Bee Crafts
Topsy Turvy
Funky Polkadot Crafts
Let Birds Fly
Kitchen Fun with my 3 Sons
Tea Rose Home

My entry into Strut your Stuff sponsored by Appliances Online and the Bosch Washing Machines

Respectable

I thought this post "Respectable" from Large Family Mothering was just so well written and so important that I am reposting it here. I definitely think society has biblical roles and feminism upside down!

Happy reading!

Respectable
My prince has come!
Classic television is enlightening. It reveals a little of our cultural values of the past.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E was a series my husband enjoyed as a boy. He endured the show that came before, "Please Don't Eat the Daisies", just because he knew Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin would soon appear on the screen.

We bought a portion of this series to enjoy with our own children. During one of the episodes, Napoleon asks the villain, "Is this the way you show your respect of women?". Later in the same episode the villain says of women, "They are noble creatures; they will give everything to preserve the ones they love". Later the villain asserts, "I told you never to lay a hand on a woman!"

Funny, but these lines were written before the women's movement became widely accepted, before respect was being demanded.

Flash forward to our current age, and just watch a little bit of TV on any given evening.

Women are not respected in our culture because they are not respectable. On the small screen, they are hard, capable, shameless and mean. They leave nothing to the imagination, and they sleep around like the horrid males women complained about in the 60's. They are no longer "noble", because they are all for one--"self" is more important than baby or husband or anyone else.

I grew up in a culture on the cusp of great "change". I was told that what came before didn't matter; that things were always bad, that we shouldn't hope for anything better, that it wasn't possible. Nuclear war was inevitable, old-fashioned methodologies and values were passe', there was something new coming, something better. I didn't know any different; I was a child and looked up to those at school and in the main-stream media. The generations before had somehow lost the ability to articulate, inculcate and transfer the values that made our society free and great, so my parents and grandparents did not retain the reasons for and benefits of keeping these mores and were regretfully among those who decided to scrap the whole thing and start all over.

Hemlines went up, necklines went down. P*rnography went main-stream and there was even a special variety produced exclusively for women. The pill made it possible for women to fornicate without having to worry about getting pregnant--and so it was the beginning of the end for propriety, virtue and common decency at least within the culture at large.

But what the feminist movement promised, that women would be more "respected" and have better and happier lives, has yet to manifest itself.

From where I sit, women have become more slaves to more demands than ever. Duped into believing we can "have it all", we sign up for government education loans by the millions. Then, after the sheepskin is obtained, we realize our fore-mothers traded in one ball-and-chain for another, and a much less-fulfilling one, for that matter.

And men do not care for women or defend, protect and provide for them as they did in former times. Men don't mind that women are "liberated"; it keeps them from having to grow up. Men have become "Peter-Pans". They don't have to get married in order to have their physical needs met, and even if they do marry, they can sit back and enjoy staying juveniles, with their wives as the responsible "mothers", for the rest of their lives. Therefore, children have become a noisy, messy, and costly nuisance to them.

After you, my dear.
Instead of men stepping up to the bar to take care of an expectant mother and her baby, men and women alike cry, "Why didn't she use protection?" Everyone expects that women will sleep around, in and out of marriage. This is not considered irresponsible, unless she does not use contraception, and only then does she experience social sanctioning. Marriage is no longer the holy union meant to last a lifetime where two unique people become "one-flesh" together.

But in the heart of every man there is a yearning for virtue, a yearning to find a woman "spotless and unblemished". In fact, I believe there is an unmet need for virtuous womanhood among men at large, but they have lost hope of ever finding their noble and highly regarded life-companion.

Women have become notorious for complaining there are no "heroes" left, but heroes need to have damsels in order to display their knightly characteristics. If the damsels are all out slaying their own dragons, the knights would just as soon return to the castle and down a few frothy beers. If the damsels are just as filthy, unkempt and uncaring as the local scoundrel, why do they merit saving?

My husband informs me that a lot of older men miss those days and resist the temptation to forgo these more romantic and polite ways of ministering to women.

Alas, it seems forever gone are the days when a man would open a door or relieve a woman of her burden in order to serve and cherish her.