Best Laid Plans!

Just when you think you have it all figured out.... I think I last posted that I would be hosting Easter Saturday and daughter #3 would host our actual Easter day celebration. Due to some scheduling conflicts, it looks like I will be hosting both and then we will be moving over to my daughter's for the Easter afternoon wind down. That meant I had to do a bit more planning of menus, table settings, two birthdays that we want to squeeze in, serving pieces, etc. I made a list and a lot of that was going to happen today. But then, the rains came again last night. Although we had all kinds of severe thunderstorm with 60 mph wind warnings, all we got was a beautiful, pretty steady spring rain for a number of hours. Enough hours apparently to cause a leak in my sunroom.

I had noticed this leak about 10 days ago when we had just some minor showers and had called my roofer immediately the next day. He was supposed to get over here but was busy on another job and, as long as there was no rain, it was all good. Of course, after last night, he finally showed up today. There was some kind of an issue where the pitched roof feathers into the flat roof. Sounded simple enough to me but they have been working up there ALL day long, so we shall see.

In the mean time, I was getting called out every now and then and just had a hard time concentrating on my to-do list, so I decided to do something I would rather be doing and you know that lead me right back to my 4th of July inspirations.

I started with the wood tags. Because I had so much trouble hanging more than one together so that you could see them all, for the last few holidays, I have made just one. But, this time I wanted to make one with a star and one with stripes. And then, I had the idea to decoupage on some music paper. I didn't like the colors on the music paper but when I found the cover to the Star Spangled Banner sheet music, I was sold.

And so, I started by painting all three tags with white chalk paint.

Then I masked off some stripes and a star and painted them appropriately.

I decoupaged the paper onto one of the tags, sanded the edges on all a bit, glued on a washer that I had "grunged up" a bit and added the twine hangers. I am hoping that I can find a way to hang all three together because I like the color contrasts. This is usually where I add a bit of the antique gel as well but, for whatever reason, this time I wanted to keep the whites crisp.

And then, since there was still hammering going on, I decided to give my idea for the shelf sitter a try. I painted up some beads...I did red, white and blue.

Then, I made a tassel just like the ones I did on the bead garland and made a similar strand using just 9 beads and glued them along the top of the board. I had planned to make a beaded hanger but it just didn't look right and not everyone receiving one of these will want to hang it, so this was kind of the best of both worlds. And, I like that it adds something to the large expanse on the right.

So that is the end of my 4th of July ideas so far...but I am still looking and the "day" is young as they say. Lol Tomorrow I have to get to the store to shop for the holiday and I have a number of errands to run as well. It looks like I will have some company as my youngest grand daughter doesn't have school and her mom is booked all day so she is going to be my little helper. Should be fun...it might take twice as long but it will be fun. Lol Stay safe and stay tuned.