crafting a name

Two posts back to back! Can you tell that I am feeling better? I even cooked a nice dinner before Matt went in to work today, and I got all of his stuff packed and ready to go for him. It feels like old times again. Could I finally be in that 2nd trimester "honeymoon" that I have heard wonderful things about but thought would never get here for me? Better late than never though.

Today has been a nice day. Nothing extraordinary, really, but sometimes that's what makes it all the better - just me and hubby going through life together. He met up with one of the guys from church today to run through some music for the Sunday morning service. Our main pastor and choir director are both on vacation this week, so the assistant pastor will be delivering the sermon while the guys take care of the music. Matt had a fun time practicing with Josh and getting to know him better (he just proposed this week to his girlfriend!).

After he got home, we ran out to the grocery store for a few things, particularly alfredo sauce so that I could make dinner. We are weirdos and actually enjoy grocery shopping and seeing what cool things they have. (Hey, at least it is free entertainment, even if it is just a grocery store!) Matt was surprised that I was feeling up to cooking an entire meal, but I have felt really good today. It seems a little silly, but I am so happy to have days where I feel like the pre-preggo Misty and can be a true helpmate to my husband.

And now I will stop rambling and get on to what I wanted to post about. One of our Natalie room projects is completed, and I am excited to share the results because I was pleased with how it turned out. Sometimes the ideas I have in my head don't quite translate out well when I try to craft something up, but this turned out pretty much the way I intended.

I wanted to put Natalie's name on one of her walls, even though it is no longer a unique idea since everyone seems to do this with their nurseries. I decided the best way to possibly give this typical decor idea a little individuality would be to decorate the letters with different patterns and colors of scrapbook paper, based on the theme colors of her room, and add some little details to each letter to give some extra pizazz.



These are most of the supplies I used, plus some acrylic paint, mod podge, and glue dots (a scrapbooker's best friend). In addition, I already had a cutting board, paint brush, and other decals/stickers in my craft supply. So the only supplies I bought in addition to what you see here is the paint. This made the project total around $15 because I hit up Hobby Lobby when they had all of the items in the picture 50% off.

First, I painted the edges around each side of the letter and a little around each edge on the top part. Like all Misty projects, I wasn't expecting this one to turn out perfectly (believe it or not!), so I thought painting the letter a similar color to the paper may help hide any flaws. After that, I used the cutting board to cut the appropriate shapes. (This was the most challenging part). Then, it is all easy after that! I used mod podge to glue the paper to the chipboard letter. This gives a good bond between the two without having to worry about the wrinkles caused by typical glue (just as long as you keep the layer thin).



Smooth any bubbles or wrinkles out and let dry!

Here is the N after it is all finished:

And here is the end result (you can click on the picture to see a larger version) after the details were added to each letter using glue dots. If you have a good eye for detail, you may notice that a few of the wooden shapes added to the letters are painted differently than they were in the original picture. I changed three of them up just a bit to make them fit in a little better with the color scheme I was going for.

Some of these colors may hint at her theme colors, but we will show more of that later once things start coming together! This was a really fun project and relatively easy. We have a few other projects we will soon be working on, so stay tuned to see if they are delightful or disasters!

time has told me she's a rare, rare find

Next week, Matt and I plan to head back to Tennessee for a brief trip, particularly to visit a very sweet lady who is near and dear to my heart - my grandmother.

She has been in the hospital now for a few weeks, and I have been anxious to make it back in town to visit her. I am hoping that God will keep blessing her with life and that she will get to meet Natalie in November. After all, Natalie needs to meet the person who she will receive her middle name after!

My grandmother, Elsie, started her life in Regensburg, Germany, where she was one of the daughters of a well-to-do hotel/restaurant/butcher shop owner named Hans Hausladen. Her family lost their small fortune during WWII, and her brother and father lost their lives.

After the war, in the early 50s, Elsie met an American soldier from Knoxville, Tennessee who was fluent in German and stationed overseas. They fell in love, married, and soon Elsie gave birth to a healthy baby boy, my father.

Here is Elsie and Roger on their wedding day. I think my father looks so much like her:



Elsie and her son flew to America on her son's first birthday to live in Knoxville with her husband. She spoke very broken English at the time but eventually taught herself the language. Today, almost 57 years later, she still has a German accent and is fun to listen to. Life wasn't easy for Elsie and her family. Having six children living with their parents all in a one-bedroom shack is hardly desirable conditions. However, they made do.

More important than any material wealth, Elsie truly has a heart of gold. She loves her family (all 6 children, 12 grandchildren, and a whole heap of great-grandchildren) and would do anything she could to help anyone out, even if it means she has to sacrifice. She enjoys watching Westerns and listening to Elvis Presley, and she has an amazing green thumb (but only indoors).

When her health was better, she loved cooking. She could cook a mean fried pork chop. And nothing could top her spaghetti with a particular key ingredient - brown sugar. She is well known (in our family at least) for her Alabama cake and potato salad. I have many fond memories of lazing around on a Sunday afternoon after church over at her place after a big meal.

I think back on all the times she kept my brother and me when we were kids, and my parents had somewhere they needed to be. Mom and dad always knew when we were bad while staying with Elsie because, when my parents asked, she would say that we were ''ok'' when we had really behaved horribly (such as the time my brother and me were shoving each other near the top of the stairs and he pushed me down them!). She would never say the truth of how bad we had acted trying to not get us into too much trouble!

My grandmother has always had various health problems, and to be quite honest, I never expected God to allow us so much time with her here on earth. Every day we have been blessed to keep her here has truly been a miracle. I was telling Matt the other day how, in our minds, our loved ones don't age. We forget that they aren't physically the people we remember them being during our childhood. Time does a number on us all. This we all know. I don't know how much time my grandmother has left here with us, but I do know that I will be thankful for every day, week, month, and/or year we have with her. Knowing and loving her has enriched my life because of her example of a kind-hearted, genuine life. And I will do my best to make sure her life and memory live on in her great-granddaughter, Natalie Elisabeth, long after she is gone.