Wherever You GO, There You Are...

Be the Change...

A Fitting Earth Day Project

Here's another recycling solution story.
Two challenges. $1.25 and some ingenuity.
Our tale begins where we always leave off ...
with my hypersensitivity to my environment
and my little brain in overdrive.

It's just not me.

Imagine, if you will, one older mailbox.
Serviceable. Intact. A Little Small for Magazines.
No excuse to replace it.
But I'd rather be greeted back home
to MY home.

On Christmas day, courtesy of our Bear,
we received 3 wonderful magazine subscriptions.
{pretty exciting. It's been years.}
They just started arriving last month.
I did not like that they were folded in half
and crammed into this box.
Now I had another challenge.
So, I asked Evan to help me imagine a simple, thrifty solution.

Inspired by Zuda's handmade boxes,
I was going to construct a cardboard holder.
Easier said than done.
Not being as gifted as her,
this plan remained in the
mulling stages for a few weeks.




Destiny is a Happy Mystery

Then I misplaced my sunglasses.
When I went back to a thrift store to see if I'd left them
on their counter, I came away empty handed.
But as I was walking out
I spied this wire basket for .99.
I was thrilled.
A plan was forming.

Life is like a box of chocolates

A few days later, we walked to the new Walgreens
to buy one of Evan's birthday presents.

On the way home, we stopped by another thrift store
where I spied
this discarded & unlikely to find a home
{it was filled with crayon art}
perfect~for~my~recycled~art
vintage Little Golden Book for 25 cents.

I love cars, tucks, trains, planes & the 1950s era illustrations.
I did not connect the serendipity of
finding this book with
its use for my simmering project.

The trimmed piece

A few days later, I was de-cluttering my growing stash.
I flipped through this book and found this fabulous page.
Just the right size, too.

And can you believe the text?

My stamp collection

I decided to dress up the Magazine Rack Label Space
with a stamp ~ mail collage on
a coordinating piece of the same
safety envelope I used to frame the
mailbox illustration.

A True Mail Collage

Here it is before I laminated it.
It is setting on the reverse of the
mailbox piece.

I had only one TeXaS stamp.

Love it.

My Personalized Mail Center

I laminated both pieces and attached them
using simple rolled scotch tape.
Both the mailbox art and the
magazine rack can follow us
wherever we go
leaving no damage behind.
What will I do with them next?
We shall see.

ox joon

ps. My mailman told me this just gave him the biggest smile.
Putting a little bit of yourself out into the world
can make more of a difference
than you might think.

Fine Art for Pennies Conquers Modern Technology ~ A Dilemma Solved Tutorial

I found this wonderful Charles Prendergast quality print poster for $1 and have been transporting it and beautifying our prospective temporary homes for quite a few years. It's been through the packing and unpacking process and gained a bit of character but I saw some
Joseph's Little Overcoat of life still in it
when I was faced with this decorating challenge...

EEGADS!

This fuse box adorns a wall in our bedroom.
That's a new one on me. And, as most of you know,
I've lived in 30something+ residences now.
Try as we might, we just couldn't seem to match up
a proper artful disguise for this eyesore.

Idea

One day, I pulled out the poster.
It was exactly the proper height,
but since the fuse box did not offer a flat wall surface
we needed to add cardboard and a hanging device.
We did that, but it just wasn't sturdy enough
to maintain a steadfast cover.
Thinking cap once again...

The tools of the trade.

Then I had my AHA! moment.
And this is what happened next...

New Improved Idea

I turned my cardboard backed, beautiful poster scene into a triptyche.
And I solved the sturdy hanging challenge
with one of my favorite recycle friendly inventions ~
the ever simple and always perfect velcro dot.

Have I mentioned I am mad for velcro?

First, I attached the velcro squares, both halves of each,
to the fuse box corners.
Next, I peeled away the protective pieces
and centered the art work over the fuse box,
pressed and viola!

I am a Happy Woman

I now have two perfectly sized scenes to interchange at will
and one smaller one for another use.
Evan has had the unfortunate need to access the fuse box
one morning at 4 AM.
The lone cheery aspect of which, he reported at coffee time,
was his joy at how perfectly easy it was to remove and reattach
my ingenius box cover.
So there you have it.
$1 has never been better spent ~ even for me!

I hope this idea has helped you with one of your decor dilemmas.
Please comment, if so.
Leave me a link.
I'd love to see what you've done.

ox joon

ps. I've provided a link to a Charles Prendergast biography entry
for those of you who might like to read more about him.
He seems to need a WIKI entry.
His more renowned brother, Maurice, has one.
What's up with that?

Composition: Scout's Honor

Hope you'll visit my new treasury
honoring Scout & friends.
See it HERE

ox joon

ps. Scout's shop: http://EsperEzekiel.etsy.com

Hey Donkey. Say Hello To Your Mother For Me.

This has been a busy week.
Today we went to a garden shop with donkeys.
St. Francesca's donkey charm magic worked.

Scout with her new friend.
So sweet.

Earlier in the week,
I tried this no knead bread recipe from the
Dallas Junior League Cookbook.
I found the cookbook at recycled reads.
It was just $2.
It's lovely.

And so is this bread.
We were thrilled with the results.
Don't you love it when you find something new
and it lends a satisfying end?

We made B.L.T.s for dinner and
froze the second loaf.
Now we have that to look forward to
one night this coming week.
I also tried an amazing pasta sauce
made with fresh basil, parsley
and blue cheese, cream cheese, butter
and olive oil.
It was a hit.

Have you tried anything new lately?

ox joon

Recycled Improv & Lovely Salads

Scout made us salads for lunch recently.
Isn't this beautiful?

This is the pea salad I made for Kristoffer's birthday lunch.
He requested this. I hadn't made it in so long
that I had to make a second one a few days later!

Scout sold an ACEO and I made a protective pocket for it.
She added the quick illustration.

I made it out of our gas bill envelope. :)
ox joon