Sticking With Good Inspiration

My second season set of Road To Avonlea dvd's arrived yesterday and wow, I've gotten a heck of a lot of ironing done since then. 

I have to do something to justify watching all those hours of delightful episodes!

Anyway, this footstool reflects the Road To Avonlea influence--today I added that rather odd doily-thing because people in Avonlea have doilies on their furniture and it sometimes makes me crazy that, when you live in a Craftsman house like I do, you can only sometimes get away with using doilies. Usually, if you don't place them just right, it looks like you're pairing, say, Tinkerbell with the Hulk. Fragile lace with bulky wood-stained beams do not always sit beside each other companionably. Trust me, I've tried it and usually before the day is over, I've whisked away the doilies back into their drawer.

I like this footstool look, though. But then, it's upstairs in my dream room where I have painted all that heavy woodwork because it was painted when we moved in, and therefore, fair play. (Tom would freak out if I painted all the original oak trim stuff in the main part of the house. Seriously, he would.)

As for the footstool, the last time I re-covered it (there have been many times) I used the red velvet from a girl's dress which came from who-knows-where and ended up in my fabric box. I just cut up the skirt and stretched it over the footstool and stapled it on underneath. I needed just an inch, or so, more fabric (isn't that always the case?), so there's a gap of sorts, but I just keep that side of the footstool toward the wall.

That is the way I fix most things. This is the way I live. And while I'm at it I'll confess that I almost never read the instructions before I make any sort of craft project and if instructions come on a gallon of paint, well, I've never, ever read those, either.

And well, sometimes it makes Tom a little crazy (depending upon what it is). Other times it makes him laugh or even a little proud. But somewhere inside me there's a pioneer woman--she's always been there. She likes not having things too easy and she doesn't like having a lot of money to just go out and buy things. She'd rather make do.

For years and years I've had friends who have not understood this about me and some have walked away shaking their heads. But that's ok. Here online I've found so many kindred spirit pioneer women that I can't even keep up with them. Not with emails or with their own creative ideas which are way and beyond more inspiring than mine.

So I'll choose to be inspired by those people and by Road to Avonlea, too and I'll leave the shakers-of-heads--both in real life and online--to their own ways. (Too often I've allowed myself to be inspired to do what depresses me--and of course, been quite sorry, afterward.) 

And meanwhile, you can find me at my ironing board dreaming up my next project--happy as can be.



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