Imperfect Dreams - Lilly illustration by Deborah A. Miller

I told you in an earlier post I enjoy being artistic. My life centers around thinking up creative things to do.

Last week, I took an old cork bulletin board, covered it with left over fabric we used to redo kitchen chairs then hung it behind our kitchen stove. It serves as a back-splash but it also adds color to our otherwise white walls. I took more of the same material and made a small valance for a kitchen window which ties into the back-splash.

I found an outdated calendar with pictures of flowers. I traced these flowers (above) onto the appropriate paper then painted them with acrylic paints. I will use this for a candy wrap or perhaps a candle applique.

In between creating paper face-plate covers, painting pictures, cleaning and caring for animals last week, I also began to experiment in making drink looking candles. They aren't perfect, the top of the chocolate drink candle is concave but who cares? I uploaded the picture to CraigsList and stated in the description that I am not a professional candle maker; I do it for fun. If someone purchases one, two, three or more, that bonus will be added to the fun I had creating them.

In the mean time, I will continue to create and building an inventory of everything I enjoy doing. I foresee a garage sale this summer in which much of the inventory will be priced and hopefully sold.

After all, the more people you show your stuff to the better chance you have of selling. Right?

Dreaming of Change

One of my pet peeves is switch plates on walls. They're an eye-sore in my opinion.

One day while allowing myself some free time to sit, imagine and dream I eyeballed the light switch plate on the wall next to our front door. It's made of off white plastic and looks cheap. It isn't that our house is a fine specimen of a house. It was built in the 40s and has been a rental house for a number of years. It has cracks in the ceilings, ugly linoleum in the kitchen, cheap carpet in the middle room and wood floors painted white which shows numerous scuff marks in the main living area. But I reside here and want it to be a reflection of me.

Above the switch plate is a Southwest sand painting with earth tones and fits nicely in our Western decor in that room. A portion of the painting illustrates a kokopelli (shown above). It occurred to me that I would neither have to purchase a new switch plate or paint it. It occurred to me the I could scan the painting, crop the kokopelli portion, print the kokopelli on plain white copy paper (after measuring the switch plate), cut it out and wrap the switch plate with the print. I did this after cutting out the holes for the switches. I didn't use glue or an adhesive of any kind. I simply wrapped the paper around the plate and screwed in the little screws that hold the plate to the wall. The plate tightly held to the wall holds the paper in place.

Now the light switch plate that hangs on the wall by the front door no longer looks like cheap plastic. It is uniquely designed and matches the sand painting above it.

Then I went back to work designing new candy wrappers satisfied that I had embellished the ugly plastic plate. See where a little dreaming will take you?