Monday, June 23, 2008

Super Secret Project Revealed

As mentioned yesterday my mom and dad celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary on June 14. My mom's dad was a printer -- one of the guys who, in the not-so-distant past, laid the type so that a newspaper could be printed. She had bought a type case years ago and had some little miniature "stuff" she'd collected to make a sort of shadowbox that was representative of everyone in the family.

She doesn't give herself credit enough for the creative things she does, but she gave up on this, feeling overwhelmed with all of it and not knowing what direction to take it.

So she left it at my house in January, with instructions to "do something with it." LOL

And I had no inspiration, no ideas. I wanted to do more with it -- I don't love all the miniatures, so I wanted to incorporate some of those and do something else, too. Only thing was I had no idea what.

And then, this showed up on Ali Edwards' blog. And a few days later, she posted this. So I got busy and came up with this:



That's my maiden name in the middle, blurred out. It's Dutch, and my mom collects a blue and white Dutch china called Delft so I printed some images off the web and mod podged the letters. That's my grandpa Don there in the bottom section. He was the printer and served in the Navy, as did my brother, whose kids are each pictured just below at about a year in a little sailor suit.

We'll be adding more later ... some more pictures, my dad's Vietnam Service Ribbon, and some other things. I love it because it has room for some extra stuff and it can grow and change as our family does. They have sure seen a lot of change in their 40 years together.

And I have been thinking about doing an altered canvas for my little brother lately. He just got divorced and is now a single dad to his 2 boys. Suffice it to say it has been a long, painful, ugly process but he and the boys have come out of it stronger, better, and happier. I just wanted something to reinforce the idea for them that families come in all shapes and sizes ... that maybe they aren't the traditional idea of family that the media loves to perpetuate (hello, Ward and June Cleaver!), but they are a family.



The colors are kind of funny ... it's actually several shades of brown and tan with a little sage green in the paisley on the right. The brads are copper and I think it has a nice masculine feel. Mom and Dad left this morning and are delivering it for me today. I hope he likes it.

So there are my completed projects. Now I must go work on another canvas and 18 Rolodex cards ....

2 comments:

  1. Very cool. And, happy blogiversary!

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  2. Well, this is great and I certainly didn't see it coming. I thought you were giving a clue by saying "I rock - seriously!" I was expecting a rocking chair!

    This is indeed very cool. You do ROCK!

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