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Hello All,

I have a confession to make. I have been trying to post every week and even get ahead on projects so that I don’t miss a week of posting but invariably I gain ground and then lose it. There are ebbs and flows to creativity. It makes its own time, and the right brain part of me hates that. I am a list maker, I keep a detailed day planner, I like to check off the boxes of my accomplishments.

All the gurus of the blogging and youtube world preach the importance of a posting schedule, meaning having one and sticking to it. I am sure that they know what they are talking about and my right brain cheers on this orderliness. But as a one-person operation, it is tough to keep up with the demands of a weekly posting schedule and for this moment anyway, I find their advice wholeheartedly frustrating. And my left brain side, well, it is in full on rebellion.

I have finished my Upcycled Easter Mantel Display and for this weeks project, I made a colored stained Easter sign from some old pieces of fence. I am pleased with the project and even though “my posting schedule” has me posting this two days late I am here to share my completed project. But for the first time in many weeks, I do not have a plan for my next post. I have a couple of projects started but I have no particular interest in working on them let alone finishing them in time for my next scheduled post date. I am a little tired and discouraged that I don’t have the time or I don’t make the time to keep up with this better than I do.

Which brings us to Chapter 10 of the Artist Way. This weeks chapter title is “Recovering a sense of Self-Protection” and certain sections of this chapter are eerily apropos to my current situation particularly the section on what the author refers to as “Droughts.” If you are unfamiliar with The Artist Way it is a book written by Julia Cameron about how to be more creative. It is a twelve-week course and I am doing a brief recap of each chapter.

About droughts, she writes ” In any creative life there are dry seasons,” and I while I find some comfort in those words they do not solve the problem or fill the empty space. The “tool” that Julia recommends using, in these times of drought, is what she calls the morning pages. Briefly, the morning pages are handwritten, first thing in the morning, fast-paced brain dump, written without censoring. I confess that during my recap of these chapters I have not been writing the morning pages. My excuse? Well, I already don’t have enough time for the things I want and need to do. How can I squeeze out an hour every day for mindless brain dumping?

But maybe I could find the time today or tomorrow or once a week. I know that when I went through this book the first time, I wrote the morning pages every morning. Sometimes they just felt like self-indulgent whining and other times there were little gems of wisdom or pieces of self-discovery, like the time I realized it was ok to buy a keyboard and see if I remembered anything from my childhood piano lessons.

There is another quote from this chapter that I want to share as it has me contemplating what it means or maybe how to go about following this advice. Julia writes:

“Remember, treating yourself like a precious object will make you strong.”

This quote could mean so many things but for me, this week, it starts with letting it be Okay that I don’t know what project comes next. I hope I will have something to work on and share with you next week but if I don’t, then I don’t. And that is Okay.

So for now I will say I hope you have a good week or two or three.

I hope you have a beautiful and blessed Easter if you celebrate this holiday.

And now on with today’s project.

We had a blizzard here a few weeks ago and it knocked over a large section of our fence which left me with a lot of old and weathered wood pieces.

The first step was to cut, bleach and sand the wood pieces. This picture shows the wood before and after bleaching.

Next, I used some natural color stain and some oil-based paint to make some colored stains.

Then I tested my stain colors on a scrap piece of wood.

Once I had the colors I liked I stained each of the pieces of wood.

The next step was to cut out my custom stencils made from painters tape.

Apply the stencil to the wood piece and then paint with some acrylic craft paint.

Once the paint was dry I removed the stencil and applied a coat of minwax polycrylic.

You can see the whole project tutorial in this video.

And here is a quick shot of the finished Easter Mantel Display. The links to all of these projects are in the video comments section on Youtube.

You can catch up on the previous chapters of The Artist Way in the links below.

Week One – Recovering a sense of Safety – (With upcycled pie tins made into a twisted valentine tree)

Week Two – Recovering a sense of Identity – (With upcycled found objects candlesticks)

Week Three – Recovering a sense of Power – (With my trashy St Patrick’s Day House Tour)

Week Four – Recovering a sense of Integrity – (With St Patrick’s Day Plastic Bag Bouquet)

Week Five – Recovering a sense of Possibility – (With St Patrick’s Day Mantel Display Part 1)

Week Six – Recovering a sense of Abundance – (With St Patrick’s Day Mantel Nick Nack Crafts Part 2)

Week Seven – Recovering a sense of Connection – (With Easter Bunny Garland and Paper Mache Eggs)

Week Eight – Recovering a sense of Strength – (With Upcycled Easter Basket and Plastic Bag Chicks)

Week Nine – Recovering a sense of Compassion – (With Upcycled Eggshell Easter Bunny Art)

And of course,

Happy Upcycling,

Advertising Disclosure: Upcycle Design Lab may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website.

Following are supplies used for this project.