Have a very Merry Christmas!

Make Your Own Christmas Ornaments. . . from Gourds!

I just uploaded a video to my gourd art YouTube channel about making ornaments from small gourds. I show how I decorate them with melted crayon wax. You got to see it!

DIY Video Woodburning Project - Woodburn a colorful Sunflower, monogram, and favorite Bible verse on Wood

It sure has been quite some time since my last YouTube video! I finally was able to edit this particular project I completed last year as a Christmas gift for a friend of mine. She loves sunflowers (see the pattern I made for you to woodburn! http://bernadettesgarden.blogspot.com/p/woodburned-sunflower-with-monogram.html) so I decided to go have a sunflower as the focal point. I want to personalize it a bit more so I included the first initial of her last name. She is a good Christian friend so I thought she would appreciate the Bible verse, "As for me and my house we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15).

Delphinium Blue Lamp Makeover DIY Youtube Video

I recently completed a two-part video tutorial about how I took an old lamp from the basement and up-cycled it into a beautiful, elegant, and feminine desk lamp. This makeover was for my sister Rebekah's computer desk. She was looking for a blue lamp so I made sure to paint the whole base blue. I am especially taken with the base and am so happy with how it turned out after taking two broken vases and "texturizing" them with plaster. As for the lampshade, I added a little glamour by spray painting the whole shade in silver. I personalized the shade just for my sister with a silhouette border of her favorite flower, the delphinium. Then, I penned some of her favorite movie quotes in various fonts - just a way to make her smile each time she turns the light switch.

Pinteresting Tuesday: Leaves and Gourd Art

Mary Garden - Honoring the Blessed Mother with Flowers

 

Since I was born my parents have placed statues of Mary all around the property and house. Around the time I was born my parents bought life-size statues of Our Lady of Fatima and the three shepherd children and placed the set in front of our house facing a large lake. We also have a statue of Mary at the entrance of our long driveway, a statue of Mary in our apple orchard, and I have my own Mary garden located in a little clearing in the woods. I have always been drawn to honoring Mary in this way -- through flowers and plants and gardens. Mary gardens are certainly not a new thing; I've read that they began during the Middle Ages using flowers named by Christian botanists after Mary's life and virtues. This way of honoring Mary using specially named flowers intrigued me.

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Blessed Virgin Garden Outdoor Statue Restoration

I've been wanting to show you the restoration process of my family's Mary statue and thought today was a good as time as any. Perhaps you'll be inspired to restore one of your own garden statues. If you have any questions about the process just drop me a line. I'd love to see the before and after photos and post them on the blog for others to see.

This is the before shot of our statue. My parents bought it in 1989 after a large hail storm hit the orchard a year earlier. They placed the statue in the middle of the fruit orchard and built a garden around it. The statue has seen a lot of weather since then and it was time for a makeover. My sister Catherine and I took on the restoration project and we began by chipping away at the old paint with a steel brush.

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Quick and Simple Weekend Woodburning Project

Quotes or special words painted on the wall have always caught my interest, but because it is difficult to repaint when the time comes I never cared much for applying the word art myself. However, I recently realized a decorative wooden name plate would be a perfect substitute for directly applying the wall quote. So, after gathering a few supplies I was able to complete the whole project in about an hour as a gift for my sister.

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