Like millions of people in this world I find myself on a journey of healing.  Both emotionally and physically.  It’s a bumpy ride of leaps forward and backward.   I’ll be starting physical therapy again as it turns out my back is unstable enough to be reinjured by putting my little nephew to bed, sneezing, and pulling up a handbrake in my car.  That’s not frustrating or anything.

I was finally, a couple of weeks ago, given meds to help manage the fibro.  I was told today it can take a couple of months to kick in but I’m keeping my fingers crossed it will help.  It has helped with depression and anxiety which is a major plus.  So I will keep going with it in the hopes that it will tick all the boxes.

Emotionally I made a breakthrough.  Several weeks ago something happened that was like ripping off a bandaid.  For years I was always in protective mode from being under attack but not realising where it was coming from.  Now I know.  It’s both heartbreaking and illuminating which makes it hard to process.  But for the first time I feel like I’m going to get to a place where I am healed.  I’m more relaxed in a lot of areas in my life now.  I can take deeper breaths.  And that translates into my family life as well.  I feel really positive.

Now if I can just get through the day without sneezing!

Given this is March, this is obviously a late post as it’s about a gift I made for Christmas.  Been working a lot of hours this tax season!  I wanted to make gifts this Christmas, one to save money, and two to give something personal.  It’s a way I show my love.  Because I am a slow knitter and stuff with yarn work I had to branch out and pick something new.  I decided it was high time to try Mod Podge.  I just didn’t want it to look cheesy.  Let’s just say some of the projects in the introductory book are a little over the top!

I thought making coasters would be a great way to use some of my favourite pictures of flowers I’ve taken over the years.  And it is relatively inexpensive to make once you buy the basic supplies.  I bought a bottle of matte mod podge, glossy mod podge, and acrylic spray.  For this project I bought white tiles and cork to go on the bottom on the tiles.

Print out on photo paper the pics you want.  Trim to size.  Because photo paper is heavy use craft glue to afix the pic to the tile and smooth to make sure there aren’t any bubbles.  Let that dry and set for a day.  Then paint the mod podge over the pic and the sides of the tile.  Don’t put it on thickly.  It will cloud the pic but it dries clear.  This requires 3 coats but it is very important to make sure each coat dries completely before doing another coat.

Glue the cork onto the bottom of the tile.  Now the first time I did the coasters this is the point I screwed up.  For some reason I stacked the tiles and weighted them down so the cork would stick.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.  The glue seeped through and ruined the integrity of the mod podge.  So I had to repeat the previous steps and start over.

To make the coasters waterproof do about three light coats of the acrylic spray, allowing it to dry completely between coats.

I also did up a project for each of the kids.  My son loves Minecraft so I printed out some images and arranged them in a creeper pattern on a canvas I painted green.  I used the glossy mod podge for this.  It’s a little trickier getting the photo paper to stick to canvas so I had to be really patient.

My daughter has done her room in greys so I printed out three pictures of our travels in black and white and mod podged them onto square canvases.   I used the matte mod podge without any sprays for this project.

All in all I like this technique and have a few ideas to try after tax season.  The only pain in the neck is trying to do it with pets.  You invariably find dog or cat hair in the mod podge after it dries.  Or as it is drying and trying to remove it is a delicate process!