Note: Another great guest blog from the creative genius of Aurora Street, Adriane DeVries:
Recently I picked up a small child’s bench at a thrift store for 30 cents. It was in sad shape, with a broken support beam in the back, a half-missing arm rest, and multiple peeling layers of paint. Repairing the support beam was easy (using wood glue and a long twist tie to hold it in place), as was the repainting, using free-from-the curb paint in a color I call Old Christmas Red. But the real challenge was how to fix—cheaply, of course—the missing half of that arm.
I was puttering in my basement studio and literally looked up from where I was bending over the bench, and the first thing my eyes fell on was a decrepit wooden folding chair squeezed into the small space beside our trash can. For months it has attempted to serve as a visual reminder to the man of the house to take it to the curb one of these Mondays for trash day, yet to the chagrin of the woman of the house, there it has remained, a clackety wooden skeleton that falls on me when I put groceries on the storage shelves behind it.
My eye fell on that chair in a new way. The wooden slats of the seat were literally falling out, and they just happened to be the exact length and width of the child bench’s arms. I reached over and plucked two slats from the chair, grabbed my trusty gorilla glue, and adhered one over the broken arm, and one on the other arm to match. After several coats of paint, the whole thing is now for sale for $35 in my antique booth, and 100% of the proceeds (that’s $35 minus 30 cents!) will go to my favorite ministry, Haiti Foundation Against Poverty, http://haitipoverty.org/. Everyone wins: I get to do crafty things with cheap used goods; shoppers find a new treasure for their home; and women and children in an impoverished land receive food, medical care, education and vocational training that will give them a hope and a future.
Every time I take a bit of trash to repurpose, I am reminded that God can use every circumstance of our lives, the good the bad and the ugly, to use for His glorious purposes. Scripture says, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purposes” (Rom. 8:28). We have a constant hope that He can make something beautiful from the bits and pieces of our lives, weaving a rich tapestry from the dark colors as well as the light.
He can make something out of nothing.
May you see and cherish the many ways He is making your life beautiful in 2012.
–Adriane DeVries
What projects have you salvaged from the trash? Me and Adi really want to know!
Most of us have sweaters that are A) ugly, or B) don’t fit, due to laundry accidents or too much time at the buffet. I think these were actually sewn, and not knit, on second thought. At any rate, I could see many unfashionable sweaters gaining a fashion forward second life as cozy, fetching mittens. You could give these as gifts, or even sell them at craft fairs or etsy.com.
Recent Comments
(8 weeks ago)
(9 weeks ago)
(9 weeks ago)
(9 weeks ago)
(9 weeks ago)