A Perfect Match {Stem Cell Collection}

In this picture top left hand corner is my son, Jared's stem cells that are being collected from the machine to the right of him. 

After the 7 days of chemo starting on the 14^th of May, this bag of life giving cells will be used to restore, to reboot his whole immune system like back to a new born baby. The old immune system will be wiped out and in turn given the new {immature} blood stem cells. 

The day he gets these blood stem cells transplanted back into his body his immune system will be brand NEW…. it will be like being born again the nurses told us, he will have a new immune system, a new birthday........I chuckled and said, I think we will have a party & celebrate with a birthday cake that 

day!! 

After hearing that statement made by the nurse, I felt Papa God revealing things to me while I sat there with my son Jared watching this collection process unfold. As his mother & the love I have for him, I would take his place; I would give my life for his to take away all the pain, to give him life. 

This made me ponder back to the day when I gave my heart to Jesus. I was born again, reborn in my spirit into God's kingdom. I had a new life, hope and a new chance, a new BIRTHDAY!  Heaven threw a party!

You see a blood donor had been found, a Perfect Match. 

Jesus Christ is his name; 

he was willing to give his blood for me to save my life from the cancer of sin that was going to take my life away. 

I needed a donor and His blood was a rare find, it was spotless, perfect in every way. His DNA had not been tainted with the sin of this world, it was perfect for me, perfect for you.  

However, before Jesus sacrificed & gave his perfect blood for us he did not know if we would accept him as our donor.  Regardless, He loved us so much that he gave his blood, his life for us so we could live & not die from what had corrupted us since our birth.  

Without his sacrifice of blood, exchanging his life for ours there was no hope, for us to live. 

..............................We would die in our sin. 

Jesus calls to us giving us a choice to receive his life giving sacrifice. 

If we choose to accept his life giving blood we are born again.  

We get a transplant, a new heart, new blood, spiritual blood, we take on the DNA of our heavenly Father, his blood restores and reboots our whole life, it wipes away every sin from our past, we become like a baby and we get to grow up and mature in his glorious nature. 

We get the opportunity to LIVE again. 

Thank you Jesus for your sacrifice and for being my blood donor!  

I have received him with open arms, have you?

Transforming Life,

Digging Deeper.......{Practicing His Presence}

 Do any of you have worry and anxiety?   

I know I do in this life and our Papa God tells us NOT to worry.



So over the past few years he has really been teaching me not to worry, to TRUST HIM in all things.


                            
                                .......................Easier said than done right?



Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matt 6:34 NIV


Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken. Psalm 55:22 NIV

Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God.  Philippians 4:6

"We can mature to a place in God where it is impossible to worry. 


                            When we rest in Him completely, we frustrate the enemy. 


The kingdom of darkness cannot find us when we are in our secret place of rest in God.


 In the Psalms, David referred to God as his hiding place, 


                        ......................his fortress, and his strong tower. 



We can access that same place of protection. 



When we are wrapped up in Christ, the enemy’s ability to influence us is seriously diminished.         


                                       
                      ..................The secret place is where we overcome —

•  firstly ourselves; 

• secondly our circumstances and 

• finally, any opponent that is against us"    Graham Cooke's ~ Prophetic Wisdom

Transforming Life,

Beauty & The Beast " A Stained Art Sideboard Transformation"

So it begins,


A tale of Beauty & The Beast.


                         This once called the BEAST.............


Because it was a monster of a piece of furniture


It weighs Im guessing over 300lbs.....


A dear friend of mine saw it at a goodwill store and bought it for me to refinish.


She said this thing is big and ugly but I feel sure you can transform it.

     
      so I put on my thinking cap.............

Ugly it was and this is how she looked when I started stripping off the top layer of varnish.


She sat in my shop for a while while I decided what in the world to do with it.


I remembered seeing a creative blogger do some sort of stained art


.................................so I went on my search to find the picture to get some inspiration


Bingo The Inspired Room is where I had seen it.

                     I was in Awwwww

I was truly inspired, a great name for her blog.....Thank you Inspired Room!!!!



                        I am no artist, to say the least I was intimidated.


Could I do it?


Would I be able to make a beauty from this beast?


                I had to give it a try...................



determination burned within me like a runner trying to win a race



                  ..................blood, sweat and tears..............


I jumped in............ sink or swim.

After CitraStrip stripper worked it's magic this is what the top looked like

A beautiful piece of hardwood unveiled ..................


The whole piece is wood that is why it is so heavy

Since I am no artist, I began the transformation of the top by printing out a petal design with my cameo silhouette.

Then it took hours to draw out each petal of different sizes into the perfect place.

Excuse the ucky phone pics

I was too focused to run back to the house to get my real camera so I would shoot and move on

This was challenging to say the least, however I was determined so I push on with the staining

Sisters, I had absolutely NO CLUE what I was doing

But.............  I had a vision

So I started with dark stain and in the center of each petal and let it sit for a few mins

                                      .................OK, OK maybe seconds

and tried my best to make a gradient transformation from darker to light

                                  

I was so excited to watch each petal grow into a beautiful flower covering the top of the beast

                    Each day she transformed into this beautiful masterpiece.


After I completed all the gradient petal staining I went back with an artist brush with darker stain and a soft cloth

                     
                                 

                        Yeah I know Im no artist but I had to try,  I had a vision remember


I would dip the brush in some stain and draw some lines and then diffuse it with my cloth


I was in love with the look.


Once all the petals were as good as it was gonna get,


            I lightly stained over the rest of the top and added a low sheen poly to protect her petal glory


The top was finished.......

And boy did that take a long time

...........cuz I am picky, picky picky

I can say it was not perfect, it was a learning curve

the more petals I did the better they looked ..........I felt a little sorry for the first ones I did ...snicker

However that is the beauty of life nothing is perfect so I accepted her imperfectly beautiful imperfections and moved on.

Next up was the body of the beast now transforming into a beauty

She was boring and plain and heavy.....what to do

I painted it with a creamy off white and lightly layer a color wash over it called cappuccino 

Her doors were boring and plain so I went to hobby lobby and picked up some oh so cute

cast iron door pulls and added them for easy access.

                         
               Along with some molding from Lowe's to trim out the fronts of the doors for a designer look

Lastly I had to add feet to this piece and get her up off the floor.

So another trip to Lowes for some pretty bun feet and she is a PRIZE

   

so beast here

To Beauty 

So do tell me what you think?


Have you tried your hand at stained art?  if so Im dying to hear from you and see pics



If you have enjoyed this transformation would you consider liking us on Facebook and follow along with google friend connect on my Side Bar


You're the best and thanks for visiting............


parting at

My 1929 Charmer

Transforming Life,

Dresser Transformation, Give me some ideas????

Good-day my friends!


It is starting to get warm....


Spring is in the air and flowers are blooming

Isn't God's creation magnificent?

The warmer weather has got me in the mood to get busy on some DIY projects

I found this awesome dresser on Craigslist a while back and she has been calling my name to fancy her up.

I just love this little dresser.

As you can see the second drawer from the bottom is broken

I have a few questions for ya!


Would you fix the drawer....more work involved

or remove it move all the drawers down and add a shelf for pretty baskets?

Lastly I would like you DIY'ers to give me some ideas on how to transform her

all ideas are welcome.........

what color?

stain/paint?

embellishments?

knobs, leave em or change them out?

You guys are awesome with all your creative ideas and I want to hear them all.




Until next time,

Before & After Thrift Find

Meet Mary Jane!

One Saturday a good friend of mine Kaye and I set off to Goodwill to find some thrifty finds for her brand new house that she had built and just moved into. 

She had ask me to help her decorate her place and I was super excited to accept the challenge. 

I laid my eyes on this Shabby piece for 12.00

When I saw it I said, wow...My friend Kaye said ......UH~REALLY (with  a look of horror) what are we going to do with that?

I laughed :)  because all she saw was this ugly piece of furniture with runny gold paint and no top.

I said ............oh this will be awesome, trust me.

She said ........OK.......(sigh) .......I trust you .......let's get it.!

She had no top as you can see above but she did have doors ...............................

I was so excited about the redo that I forgot to take pictures before I took the doors off.

The great thing is this piece was solid wood, however she was in rough shape and needed a good sanding to remove some gold spray paint that someone had attempted to spray on.

Kaye and I took to our project sanding off all the mess.

Oh I forgot to mention Mary Jane had these old gold caster wheels which we removed.

Like any good DIY'er I saved those casters for another project down the road.

I had Mr. CIS to cut me some pallet boards to make a top for this piece, I had a vision and was hoping that it would all come together in the end.

I ask her what color she wanted on Mary Jane

.................. she said what do you think?

so their I stood trying to figure out the perfect color for her new thrift find.

She had a multi color rug in her foryer and it had one of the colors I thought would be perfect.

This turquoise has been one of my favorite go to colors this year.

So we painted Mary Jane and immediately she had new life in her.

I told my friend, now we need to distress her a little and age her with some glaze.

At this point before the distressing and glazing my friend was falling in love with her now found thrift find.  :)

We stained the top boards before they were attached......

we stained the center board for contrast as well as the inside shelf.

Oh did I mention Mary Jane had STORAGE!!

Once we finished the glazing and distressing we spray painted the hardware with oil brushed bronze and put her all back together.

Now she was all dressed up and perfectly ready for her new found home.

Into the Foryer she went......

The pretty wood tulips sitting here we picked up at goodwill that day as well.

what do ya think of our Mirror we found the same day at goodwill?

Oh my our heart went pitter-patter when we saw this.

I knew it would be a great match to hang over Mary Jane in the foryer.

So what do you think of Mary Jane?  My friend loves, loves her new thrift find sitting in her new found home.

Until next time,

Linking up at: funkyjunkinteriors.net    diyshowoff.com   my1929charmer.com