Time to Try Something New!

Once again,  it had been a long time since I have blogged.   I like to wait until I have something fun or worthwhile to share. In this case,  I'm going back a few years, ok, a few times 10 to to my next story.   When a was a child, my sisters and I took items to our local County Fair. We enjoyed making many different things and competing with other exhibitors. As I mentioned in earlier blogs, I'm an empty-nester looking for new and different things to challenge me. So, this year, I decided to compete once again. I decided to exhibit at the Wisconsin State Fair. I reviewed the categories and decided to take 5 different items. I'm taking 2 photography entries, a set of three handmade greeting cards, a holiday item and a mason jar centerpiece. If you're anything like me, you run into a creative block when you first start a project. There are so many things to choose from and for me, I have to narrow down an idea or I waste a lot of time. LOL  I decided to visit our local flea market to secure some old looking mason jars. My first thought was I would put them in a wooden box and decorate around them. Success! I found 5 old mason jars and a nice and interesting wooden box. Now it's home to put things together.  After fighting with the wooden box and wire grating that was attached to it, I decided tetanus was something I didn't want to give the judges. I headed to my local Hobby Lobby in search of something to hold the multiple mason jars I needed for the challenge. Fortunately, I was able to find a wire set of stacked luggages. This turned out to be the perfect base for my centerpiece. I then spray-painted the jars with a copper paint followed by an extremely durable lacquer. The copper color took me in the direction of fall so I dug out some old fall pics, purchased some new copper ribbon and mini cream pumpkins. I went to Michaels to find some fall florals and I found a some in an interesting teal color. The teal color was a nice accent to the copper of the jars. Now you might be thinking that I'm in the home stretch but, oh no, my work has just begun. Without exaggeration I must have rearranged these items 27 times! The hardest part was figuring out how to attach the jars so that they would not move during transportation. I ended up using an extremely strong two-sided tape and E6000. Well it took me much longer than expected but I'm really excited happy  final product. Enjoy!