Out of Reach for Use, And That's a Good Thing...

This is my decopaged bedpan. Most people have never used a bedpan, nor do they own a bedpan, much less a decorated bedpan. What can I say, I've got all the luck...
Most of my readers already know that I had a big ole' accident in Italy a couple of years ago and I broke both of my legs. And you need to be able to move your legs to walk yourself to the bathroom, and thus, the bedpan comes into play. And the story goes on (and gets less bodily-fluid centric, I must add), when I asked my friends if they'd just do me one little favor, to show their solidarity for my poor crippled condition. You know how when one child in an elementary school class has cancer and looses all his/her hair in chemotherapy, how the other kids in the class shave their heads to show their support? Well, I asked my friends to use a bedpan while I used one. So, that didn't really pan out, but they showed their love by founding a facebook group dedicated to me and bedpans; taking pictures of themselves with adult diapers and bedpans; and ultimately, making me this bedpan.
And I'm presenting it to you as a favorite craft ever, even though I didn't make said craft. The credit for all the cutting and pasting goes to my bud Emily, up in Chicago. If you look closely, you can see both Lucy of "The Effects of This Good Lesson " and Katie of "How to Survive in Subtropical Paradise" up at the top of the bedpan, even if the glare on Lucy's face makes her all but unrecognizable.
The big question when one receives a decopaged bedpan as a gift is, where should I put it? Well... the bathroom is an obvious spot for such a treasure, but even then, it needs to be somewhere safe. I wouldn't want toothpaste or harsh cleaners to get near this one-of-a-kind item (I venture to guess it may be the only decopaged bedpan in the whole world, though I'd love to be proved wrong and see pictures of other decorated ones). So I mounted this thing above my shower. And it looks good. And every day I look at it and smile because seriously, who has better friends than me? A decorated bedpan... the gift that keeps on giving.

English Mount(ed)

In a time before I existed, my mother was a flight attendant for Braniff. That airline went out of business--quite dramatically, a few days before I was born. Call my mother if you want to hear the whole story. I digress though, because the point is my mother got to travel all over the world (and I'm a well-travelled fetus, too--making it to Europe, Nebraska, Brazil and Korea all pre-birth). Once when in London, she got a set of framed prints that were created to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II in 1977. I think that means that all of Great Britain was celebrating 25 years of QE2, but I'm not 100% on that fact. (On an unrelated note, my mother was always popping back and forth across the pond and got some really cool items celebrating the Charles/Diana wedding, though they are too valuable for any crafting updates...)

Unfortunately for my mother, the frames on the above prints were ugly and they languished in a closed drawer for the past three decades. The drab green frames really dated them as relics from the 1970s and didn't do anything to accentuate the colors in the prints, either. And olive green is hardly a royal color, nor is it suited my decorating tastes. So I splashed some super-metallic gold paint from Elliott's True Value Hardware all over those puppies and they are good to go! On Saturday, they broke their 31 year hiatus of living in various drawers and boxes and can now be spotted on the wall next to my desk.

Pictured above are two of the three prints. Getting a good photo of the "nook" area surrounding my desk was next to impossible, so I had to settle for just showing two of the frames. The print you are missing is of a boat sailing under London Bridge. The top print is the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben shown from across the Thames & the lower print is a royal procession approaching Buckingham Palace.


I love vintage finds, especially when you know the object's story and can relate to it personally. And seeing as these came straight from mom, how much more personal can I get?

Geez! Leave Me A Gnome!

People who know me know I love me some gnomes. And I got a new gnome! There's a beautiful German woman who works at my office with me and, in keeping with her German heritage, she finds my gnome fascination really humorous. So she got me this gnome for Christmas. When I unwrapped the package from her, I was bouncing off the walls of my cube. It's a great gnome. Ursula (my lovely German friend and coworker) and I agreed that it has the best qualities of a gnome, with oversized ears that aren't too pointy, a sufficiently aged face, a full and lush white beard, suggesting his wisdom. So I'm sharing my gnome with my blog audience because its such a great gnome and it makes me really, really happy.

Also, I kinda wanted to have a label "gnomes" after I saw that Katie has one over at Subtropical Paradise...

And lest you worry, this gnome is NOT lonely. He's in great gnome company in my cube... The "gnome on the range" cowboy western postcard is on one wall, and then there's the gnome lamp that really sets my cube apart from other people's. That's one of those things I bought at Urban Outfitters in my teenage days, thinking it was about as cool as cool gets. And yeah... it's still a light up gnome lamp... At least I'm not still a teenager. But it's a perfect cube accessory, because the entire concept of spending 9 hours a day in a little box is every bit as ridiculous as the gnome collection! Note that between the two gnomes is as award from the Maine Press Association. I like to mix my credentials with whimsical fictional woodland creatures.