Creating satisfies in so many ways

In the last 4 or 5 years, I have come to love being more creative. Creating fun birthday's for my boys, diving into new recipes for dinner or baking up amazing and delicious delights.  I have dabbled in sewing, I can't follow a clothing pattern to save my life yet, but I have made some fun baby gifts and gifts for family members.  I even completed a denim quilt that took YEARS to do.  It is immensely satisfying!  Having a son tell me he had the BEST birthday ever, the most AMAZING cake or dinner, I just love it.

So what happens when the money that funded all that creativity is suddenly frozen.  LITTERALLY.  The house in Dayton is coming along.  We have seen some of the pictures of the family room and it has a wall separating the room and the garage again!!! It's wonderful.  That disaster has given me the time to become even more cunning with the way I can create now.  Looking into the stashed away collections of ribbon, material and paper.  Finishing off projects that I put aside for later. Seriously planning out menu's and filling them with new recipes to keep me feeling like I can still do creative things. Here are a few examples.....

This little project is a little embarrassing to tell about. I signed up to make the matching game thinking that my ward was doing it for a fun group craft.  I was totally crashing another group's "Super Saturday" leave it to me. I emailed the coordinator and told her my mistake, but that I still wanted what I paid for. Silly, silly Kresta.  I made this game for 2 of my darling nieces and then decided that the game MUST have a bag to carry it in.  I busted out a cute Fat Quarter and got a pattern off one of my Pinterest boards, and BAM!!! totally cute results.  Embarrassment aside, I loved the outcome.



This is a "summer-y" banner that I made simply because.  Cooper had a rather big Revolutionary War project he threw together this week using this patterned paper because it seemed rather patriotic to him. I agree.  Well, the leftover stack looked like it needed a purpose. It needed one right away.  Taa-da! A summer time banner is born.  I can't decide if it needs anything added to it, or if it will be left simply as is. 

And she shall be called Petunia.

With 4 boys under our roof, you have to expect and be prepared for rather odd situations.  Things like yarn strung all over the house to climb over, under and through...like a sneaky spy.  Try doing that in a skirt, on the way out the door to a church meeting!  Or maybe all the bedroom doors are tied shut with rope.  Perhaps with the occupants still inside.

Sometimes the strange comes to us. We didn't even have to bring it upon ourselves, the postal worker delivered it to us. 

Why, you might ask would this be strange? Well, it was a Trader Joe's bulb kit that came in the form of a Christmas gift.  We all know I kill things that get planted in the ground!  Nevertheless, I accepted the challenge. This bulb would grow and we named it "Petunia". Do I even know what variety of plant this is, no. But look for your self, it is ALIVE!! We called that triangular shoot, her shark fin.

 

 Petunia sat on the table, I moved her (yes we referred to the plant as a she) throughout the day to get good sun. On less frigid days, we put her outside to get the goodness of the outdoors.

 

 

 The shark fin got BIGGER. I have to reiterate the fact that at no time have we grown anything, but children.  I was getting excited as were the boys that Petunia was a fighter and had a chance!

 

 

 

 A few weeks passed and we were thrilled that she looked to  have a bloom in the works and 2 more shoots coming up.  I was pondering if we needed to re-pot our Petunia.  It was all going so well. A living plant in our house, who would have ever thought?! Well, her story does not end well, one day she got left outside.  The next morning she was FROZEN. FROZEN!!!! We killed her. Stone cold dead. Moral of the story, send us a book, mixed nuts or a gift card. Let the bulbs go to a home that will not freeze them.

 

Adieu Petunia.