TreasuresInTerraCotta

The Nesting Place:  It Doesn't Have to be Perfect to be Beautiful by Myquillyn Smith Myquillyn Smith of  Nesting Place has been blogging for over six years and her first book just hit the shelves of our library.  She has been featured in several magazines, many other blogs and is wildly popular.  I have to admit, however, that I have never really followed her.  I just don't love her style.  Perhaps, because of that, I felt like she had nothing to contribute to my life or home.  In fact, I almost didn't read this book. But I must recommend: Read this book.  It is way more than a Do-It-Yourself guide to decorating and thrifting and painting.  It is not Design 101.  Rather, she gently and graciously reminds us to focus on gratitude and joy and love.  She gives permission to live in and love the place we're in right now.  She hit the nail on the head...

I have had this craft in the works for months and it is finally compleated.  Adorable Emily over at Jones Design Company showed me how to make a book page canvas in one of her many tutorials .  Her finished product looked something like this, with pages from many different sizes and colors of books, which I plan to copy some day. I started with an inexpensive canvas from the craft store, a Bible bought at the thrift store and a large V for my monogram printed from Word. I had Mod Podge, black acrylic paint and brushes on hand. Then I started to disassemble the Bible (please don't think me irrevrent!) and cut up the pages (eeekk!) and arrange them on my canvas.  I used some pages from 1 Thessalonians that contain our family verses, but I also added some other favorite and encouraging verses from Philippinas and Ephesians and elsewhere. I cut some small and some large and filled in the gaps and did some overlaping.  Then I used Mod Podge to glu...