Christmas Craft

About 7 years ago or so, my church renovated and the workers threw an old Sunday School bulletin board on the trash heap.  It must have weighed 40 pounds at least, being solid wood with no cork board in the middle.  Across the top is some lovely carved molding.

The bulletin board was pitted and scarred from hundreds of staples and push pins holding announcements of the Youth Shrove Tuesday pancake and sausage dinner, Christmas pageants during the Second World War, Easter Egg hunts in the garden, and Lenten soup lunches during the Depression.

I couldn't bear to leave it in the dumpster, so I pulled it out.  The venerable bulletin board then sat in my detached garage for 7 years.  Then I had an idea.

First, I painted it bright red:

I wanted to do some type of stenciling or lettering on it and came up with the shortest number of letters to convey Christmas:  Noel.  I though simply "Joy" was just a little TOO economical on letters.

While at Lowes shopping for something else, I came across this cool nylon rope which reminded me of candy canes:

I got the quilt on the table from Goodwill for $3.00.  I love it.

I wrote out "Noel" in chalk and Bruce used the rope to trace the letters.  He had the lighter for our gas grill and melted the ends of the nylon rope so they wouldn't fray.

The letters are attached by these little nails which have white "hoops" on them.  Bruce found them in a drawer and tells me that they are designed to run cabling to the the TV along the baseboards.  We had EXACTLY enough to finish the project.

Bruce attached very sturdy hooks to the top and hung the bulletin board out front:

I bought that skinny little tree from a garage sale.  I used it inside last year, but thought it would be fun to put it out in the old tin pail with another Goodwill quilt around it.  It is decorated with red lights and vintage cookie cutters.  The gingerbread man cutter is the the topper, instead of a star.

That's my front hall you see leading to the living room on the left, stairs to the right, dining room to the left, then the bathroom to the right, and the kitchen straight ahead, where you can see the back door.

It took me quite some time to find the right setting for the old bulletin board, but I am so happy that it turned out like this.

Colors of the Season

My niece, Piper gave me the idea for photographing cranberries.  I think hers were a little better. This series of pics are all from Fresh Market, my favorite grocery store in the whole, wide world.  There's a new Fresh Market only 3.5 miles from my house, which I consider to be quite neighborly of them.