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Friday, May 20, 2016

Micah 6:8 A Nap Time Project

A little over 2 years ago, we returned to Indonesia with a four month old baby. I had tried to prepare a room for our little one before we left. The walls were painted, but that was it.

Here's a known fact about me: I am not crafty. It takes me *forever* to borrow someone else's idea and actually do it. By "forever" I mean my craft plans usually never pan out. 

Before our return, Josh dropped me off at a Joann's fabric store. I experienced instant culture shock. After almost running out of the store due to the mere selection of fabric, I regained my composure and noticed the pre-cut fat quarter squares tucked neatly away. Those pre-cut squares probably kept the employees from having to hold the hand of a pregnant, emotional woman who had no clue what she was doing. 

I'm happy to say all those squares were put to use only a few months after we returned...thanks to my craft-loving friend Michelle. I decided that we should keep Kate and get her settled in her room.


About the same time, I decided to buy four blank paint canvases and tubes of white and a rose color paint. No paintbrushes... what was I thinking? Finger painting? 

Today on May 20, 2016- two + years after buying *four* paint canvases, a project was COMPLETED! 

The project itself has been in the works for at least 3 months or more. It started out as this:

Cute, right? Super ambitious. Even looking at it now, I'm wondering how I thought I could do something like that after not having many experiences with paintbrushes. 

So, after 3 (or more) months, I adapted my idea to this: 

Only SIX words rather than 50 million. Now the only problem was the font- How do you make a beautiful font on a canvas with no craft/art talent? Easy. You look it up on Google. 

Choose your font... Wait. Microsoft Word doesn't have super cutsie fonts like that. So you have to go to these font websites and sift through millions of fonts that eventually all start to look the same! Then you have to add them to MS Word. 

Save your document.... as a PDF. This helps keep the fonts the same even if the computer that's opening the document doesn't have the fonts. Lesson learned- that cost me 2 trips to the printer. 

Print the document using the "mirror" setting on the printer. This prints your document backwards, so when it's laid flat on the canvas it reads correctly. 

Paint the canvas.



Trace the words with playground chalk. Lay the document flat and then trace the words with the tip (the non-brush side) of a paintbrush. This will leave the outline of the words on your canvas.

Mirror printing results

Fonts laid flat

Trace printed side with sidewalk chalk

Lay chalk side down and trace with point of paintbrush 

Traced words 


Next paint the traced words on the canvas.

Paint traced words

The final product:


I have never done anything like this before. While painting the words, I thought this looks terrible or maybe the paintbrush is the wrong size... Eventually I fell into a "groove" and finished. I love it. These words from Micah 6:8 are reminders of how God wants *me* to live. 

One day this will be hung in Kate's room. 

It may take another 2 (or more) years before my next project. 

Thanks to Kelli and Karen for letting me borrow paintbrushes. Thanks to Josh for buying me four paint canvases two years ago, knowing that a project may or may not ever be completed. Thanks to Kate for sleeping so I had some "work time". Thanks to Nickel Creek and Southern Gospel Radio channels on Pandora for providing music that kept me in a happy place while expressing myself creatively. 

Now... on to those picture frames that I bought at the same time... 

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