One Thing Leads to Another

Remember three weeks ago when I posted about needing motivation to complete a project?  Well, that was unsuccessful.  I was tired of rolling and taping paper into tubes, but the side door really needed a little Spring lift.  Sadly, my remedy didn't actually accomplish this.

Ahem.  

This is the view my neighbor has had for three weeks now.  That is indeed her house you see in the reflection of my before picture.  Bad photographer. 

Mr. Chadwick took a trip with some of his students last week, and although I was feeling miserable with ear infections, I wanted to get my craft on.  After staring at my boards on Pinterest for two-and-a-half days I found myself strangely still unmotivated but wanting to be motivated.  I think I probably just needed to get out of the house.  

Friday evening, 5:30 rolled around, and the inspiration struck!  I was going to make a square wreath taking ideas from  this one by Paper Wings and this one by Blue Sky Confections.  Obviously, I started by gathering my supplies.  I grabbed some yarn I had, a photo frame I had, and a paper frame some professional photos came in last fall.  So far, so free.

I measured two inches in from all four corners and marked this with a pencil.  I simply started wrapping yarn at one mark and ended at the next.

I opted to use two different colors (and types) of yarn because that's what I had on hand.  The wrapping took much more yarn than I had anticipated, so I had to go back to my yarn collection bag for more.

One of these days I'll grow up and quit using my phone to take pictures for the blog.  Until then, this is what ya get.

Originally, I was going to take this letter C that I cut from that paper frame and wrap in hemp.  It didn't take too long for me to see that was clearly not going to work.  Every now and then I'm a quick learner, so I decided right then and there to change my tactics.  I pulled inspiration from here (another pin) thinking I could embroider a letter C onto some cork.

An hour later it looked so bad that I didn't even bother taking a photo.  It would have been poorly lit anyway.

And then...and then.  And then I remembered that chalkboards are really cool and I have this super awesome chalkboard contact paper and that might be exactly what I want.  So I cut out a rectangle and stuck it on what was left of the paper frame I used for my letter C failure.

I also had five of these metal flowers that I bought in Berea, KY four years ago on vacation.  They actually go down into planters as lawn ornaments, but I've never used them for that purpose.

I used some of the red thread left from my embroidery disaster to hang my sign in the middle of my wreath.  I knew I wanted to hang the wreath on the door with ribbon, and since I didn't have any ribbon that matched this red thread, I took that out and used some of the leftover blue from the sides instead.

My apologies for yet another bad phone pic.  However, I think I was well within my rights to not be thinking clearly, because somewhere during the process of the wreath making I realized that no matter what I placed on that door, it was still going to have that ugly, wood-stained finish.  So I pulled out my oil-based primer and a can of paint and went to work.  The primer pretty much negates all ability to think well, but at least now my front and side doors match.

I installed this hook on the inside of the door so I could hang my ribbon across the top, preventing it from being seen on the outside.  

And then, it was done!  Here's what it looks like to my neighbor and anyone else going down the street.

Using my chalk pen, I wrote our address on the "chalkboard."  For reasons I think are pretty obvious, I blurred out the house number.

I'm pretty sure I LOVE IT!  It's almost enough to make me want to set up camp in the driveway for the day just so I can keep admiring it.  Over and over.  After seeing my handwriting in so many pictures, however, I'm thinking I may need to get my calligraphy-writing mother-in-law to rewrite this for me.

I'm also thinking the next outside project might need to be this lamp next to the door...

Anyone else find it creepy?

And for one last before and after...