Author: stephieminion

Forever learning what it is to be human

Cow That Bench.

I sometimes have visual ideas. I have so many ideas popping into my head all day long, I wish I could just record my internal thoughts like a DVR in real time and come back to them when I need to. Some of my ideas stick and most of them just leave my big, beautiful brain and I miss them, lol. So, for the ones that stick, I’ve begun to recreate them in a physical way.

One of my great ideas was to create a bench for my bedroom. We have a king-sized bed and there was a time when all four of us, myself, husband and two children, could fit in the bed comfortably. We evolved into a time when the kiddos had to go to the foot of the bed as a way to spread out and now, we’ve moved into a space where the kids are just too big to even be on the bed at the same time.

Screenshot
Screenshot

The bench needed to be a good size, stylish and cozy. I got inspired by an image of loafers. They just looked so good. What caught my eye were the fine hairs and splotchy spots. Beautiful browns and creamy cream. The soles of the loafers were the cherry on top of that Sunday, super structured, hard bottoms. I also peruse Etsy, often and I stumbled upon these really cool furniture legs. They made me thing, bubbles. We have a lot of clean lines throughout our home and it’s just time to switch things up. Its giving texture, its giving standalone piece that looks good in its place. I love it so much.

I took a trip to a leather goods store and found a spectacular cow hide similar to my muse. I ordered my legs and got down to business. I reached out to a local upholsterer and expressed my vision because I had never worked with leather and was a bit intimidated by the material. Side note, I mentioned making a tote bag in another post. I took the leftover material from the hide and made the tote out of that. I actually love working with leather more than any other material I’ve worked with and I plan to do more with it. I had a great experience with Jose but future projects I’ll be doing myself, for now. Jose did make my custom piece exactly the way I wanted it and I’m truly grateful for his expertise. The cushion came out perfect.

In my drawing the border had these lines and I needed to make it make sense in real life. So, to the hardware store I went. I found these thin, square, two ft long wooden sticks and I cut them down to just about in inch and a half, pieces that I then glued to the face of my precut plywood base of the bench. I eyeballed the spacing to give my hand crafted piece the imperfect look I’m always going for because what is perfect!? I then sanded, attached the legs and stained the base added the cushion and vwala, isn’t she pretty!?

I’m working on my picture taking skills. Believe me this is an improvement. I executed my vision superbly.

Stay tuned for more 🙂

You’re a Good Mother… Yikes

I don’t take compliments well. Being told I was a good mother has to be one I’ve heard a lot, and it would make me cringe. What was a good mother? I’ve accumulated parenting styles from all the mothers in my life from childhood through adulthood and became a compilation of them. Mostly the best parts, :). I must say that I have pretty incredible children. Both of them are kind, funny, smart and uniquely themselves. I am proud of the people they are becoming but I didn’t know what made me such a good mother. What measured those acts?

Some people said it because of how neat they looked or how well-mannered they were. Some people said it because my children were in a lot of extracurricular activities and made good grades. I hated to hear it. I just set out to make my children whole and the qualifications of a “Good Mother” seemed mediocre at best.

I want/wanted my children to do, well, everything! I didn’t get to do much of anything as a child. No sports. Not much hanging out with friends or even going outside. I also had no real grasp on parenting. I struggled with emotional intelligence, fifteen-year-old me is alive and well at times. I struggled with what I set out to do or the idea of a thing verses the reality of being in the trenches of everyday life, not knowing what the heck I was doing. All while trying to become a whole person myself.

I’ve apologized to my kiddos so much for the countless mistakes I’ve made as the person responsible for keeping them alive until they can do it themselves. I advocate for them. I love on them. I give constructive criticism. I celebrate them and their achievements. I listen. I inform.

I don’t photograph everything we do but what physical evidence I do have of them, is seemingly happy. Only time will tell if the most impactful job I’ll ever have will pay off in one form or another. Until then, I’ll continue to parent them to the best of my ability. I still don’t know about the good mother compliment, I do try to be a good human every day though.

Regular Steph

Daily writing prompt
What was the best compliment you’ve received?
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Towering Shelf

Oh, I couldn’t pass this prompt up!

I had this deep desire to create a bookshelf! Not just any shelf, I needed it to illuminate light. I’ve had dark and mysterious shelves and I just got bored with them. Books and nicknacks and dust, dust, dust! Gets trapped and forgotten in the dark corners of the traditional styled shelf, so I created a simple, yet statement piece that I get to enjoy seeing every single day!

Daily writing prompt
Describe the most ambitious DIY project you’ve ever taken on.
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It had to be towering to scale the room, 7.5ft tall is what I settled on. I push the envelope with everything I do so as big as we can go. Go bigger, lol!

I create imperfect pieces making things by hand, none of the shelves are the same size.

I hit a learning curve when ordering my custom glass shelves. One universal size would suffice.

Sanding everything down by hand and attaching the shelf rest was the most time consuming part of the process. The sanding between paint also sent me into a tizzy.

I used Joanna and Chips, Magnolia chalk spray paint from Lowe’s. 5 cans and this is the color black. It is not black at all. It definitely appears in the navy family of colors.

My shelves are perfectly aligned. 🙂 I impressed myself with the execution of this project! I put this thing together, ok! It came out really great!! Like I said earlier, I just enjoy looking at my shelf. I get a satisfying feeling adding new things to it. I’ve done a few more solo projects since this beauty and I’m looking forward to sharing those as well.

I can do whatever I set my mind to, 🙂

Sunday Fun Day

Good Morning 🙂

It’s a chilly start here in Texas! I’d like to get out today after staying in over this long weekend. The cold just might stop me. I’m writing because I need to produce to get back in the flow. Articulate myself, form complete thoughts.

I’ll run a few errands grab some tea and come home to relax. Gratitude is the focus today. When the winter blues kick in, gratefulness will be the distraction. Going through to get through and I’ll see you on the other side.

Till next time,

Be kind to Yourself.

Something About Stephanie

Hello, I’m Stephanie. I’d like it if the reader came along a journey with me as I put my pieces together, if you will. Parts of me are forming, this picture is coming together and I’m starting to really enjoy, well, everything.

It’s been something arriving in a space, mentally, of “the whole picture”. All the things matter. I really lived my live with this skewed focus of myself and of course it wasn’t good. I’d been hyper focused on others perception of me that I didn’t know know who I was. Lets just say that I have snapped out of those ways and removed “but” from my vocabulary, lol.

So yeah, I’m trying new things that end up bringing up old things that only seem to help my grounding even more. I had to realize that the person I’m becoming is the person I’ve always been! Crazy, right!

Local Art Exhibit

Lol, I’ll be fumbling around with creating a visually stunning site, build my Etsy shop because I am a creative and I make great things. I just completed a tote bag that I’ll be sharing with you in my next post! I’m also a mom and wife and I’ll share some of that sometimes too. I’m just gonna put it out there in the universe: I want to write articles for a local paper! There, I said it out loud.

If you like what you see, leave your favorite emoji in the comments section, lol I love emoji language, 🙂

Till next time,

Take Care of Yourself!