What Happens at the Perfect Church Service

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

This isn't my church (we don't have a cool, darkly draped stage) but I have been to churches like this.  I found this on the awesome if somewhat biting blog The Church of No People


I heard Tony Campolo in a workshop comment on contemporary worship songs as tending toward "Seven-Eleven Songs"--"The same eleven words repeated seven times" (or maybe it was vice-versa).  At any rate, at a recent church-approved book study, I stepped into a mud-hole of confusion by quoting from the old hymn, "Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past" and received blank looks from my fellow book study participants.  We haven't had hymnals in our sanctuary EVER--and we only sing our denomination's signature hymn, "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" (without the awesome pipe organ intro) on Reformation Sunday.

Yep, I'm Lutheran by worship.  Evangelical Lutheran Church of America Lutheran, to be specific, although my husband was born and raised Wisconsin Synod (and, yes, we have our doctrinal points of difference).
I was describing my multi-denominational upbringing to a good friend who is a Methodist pastor, explaining, "I was Disciple of Christ by family background, Presbyterian by birth, and Lutheran by marriage--"

Grinning, my friend added, "And now you're Methodist by the grace of God."  As time has gone by, I see he was pretty well on target.  I consider myself a Thinking Christian, and don't mind looking across the denominational board for my churchly sustenance. In addition to the Bible, I read stuff by Phyllis Tickle, C.S. Lewis and Dietrich Bonheoffer.  Google 'em if you aren't familiar with them.

My women's study group is reading "Counterfeit Gods:  The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters" by Timothy Keller.  I don't know yet if there's a chapter about making false idols out of our church communities, but there should be one.  Read this book, and check out his other title, "The Prodigal God"  Both will get you thinking!

Excitement Builds for Paper Cowgirl Retreat

The 2010 Paper Cowgirl Altered Art Retreat (June 24-27) is drawing closer, and my excitement is building.  I received a wonderful little packet from Ms. Lisa of Tarnished and Tattered--she's teaching a class on mixed media tag-making and she sent each of her students a letter with a handmade resin embellishment attached.  I feel like doing the "zoomies" (what my dogs do when they deliriously whirl around the house with joy)--I'm going to learn so much from her!

I've signed up for several swaps--and I'm working on all of them.  I'm saving cardboard TP rolls to transform into "baskets" to hold trims for the Vintage Trims swap.  I'm putting together my ATC design--I'll use the same design on all my cards because I have to make a bunch.  I've finished my "blossoms" and just need to add "leaves" to them.

And I'm exploring color palettes for my swap partner in the "I'm a Rodeo Queen, Now Where's My Sash?" swap.  My sash-partner loves aqua and pink, and this is a new color combo for me.  You can see a selection of trims I've gathered so far, including an awesome vintage horse show ribbon in soft, shabby pink.

To top it off, I created a swap--the "Faithful Horse" swap, using the templates provided so generously by Ann Wood, here.  I chose one from the three templates she offers, and enlarged it just a bit.  I'm cutting my horses out of file folders by Cavalini printed with a luscious image of vintage United States map.  Of course,  I'm making sure that Texas shows up on the horse's body!

If you're signed up for Paper Cowgirl, let me know!  If you haven't signed up, you have to HURRY--registration will be closing soon!  Want to see what PC is all about?  Click here.

Aloha Friday

 

Summer weather has arrived here in Houston, which makes me long for trade winds and the white sands  on the North Shore O'ahu beaches.

Enjoy this video of the official "It's Aloha Friday" song, which features historic photos of cane field workers from the old days in Hawai'i-Nei.

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Photos by C. Bruhn; Rocky Point Beach, Sunset Beach, O'ahu, Hawai'i; July 2007

Time Travel Thursday

 The Hula Girl at Hulaville, near Victorville, CA, circa 1986

Long, long ago, in a state far away (a state known as California), I took photos with a Minolta camera, using actual film!  Today, for your viewing pleasure, here are three scans of photos from the 1980s, altered a bit with the fabulous on-line program Picnik, to enhance their nostalgia.  These are scenes of things that no longer exist.  Enjoy.

  Queen's Motel with Dinosaur; Apple Valley, CA, circa 1984

And for those who appreciate vintage neon:

Artesia Blvd; Redondo Beach, CA; circa 1984

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Photos by C. Bruhn

Make Your Own Ribbon Lei

My husband’s job took our family to live on O’ahu, Hawai’i from 1998 through November 2001.  Local crafters create all sorts of handmade leis for gifts and for sale, using every substance imaginable, from the freshest island flowers (mmm!) to cut-up soda straws (a toddler’s first lei-stringing project) to ribbon, rick-rack, crochet thread and yarn.  One of my favorite lei materials is the ubiquitous “Spool ‘o’ Ribbon” brand by Offray, in 1/8- or ¼-inch double-face satin in a rainbow of colors.  These leis are plaited using what is sometimes called a “military braid”.

If you’re a Texas-based reader, you’ve seen the braid on Texas-style Homecoming corsages, generally made out of edged ½ or 1-inch streamer ribbon—finished strips sell for a couple of bucks at the florists around October.

The basic Ribbon Lei technique is very popular in Hawai’i and is a standard choice when making leis in school colors for graduation or other special occasions.  It is easy to do on the go as it doesn’t require anything beyond two rolls of ribbon in your choice of colors and dexterous fingers.  It’s a good airplane craft.
 

I rarely made my own leis when I lived in Hawai’i, as it was easier to buy them premade from my friends or pick them up at craft shows or at thrift stores, where second-hand fabric, seed and shell leis are almost always available. The rainbow-hued lei pictured in the photo below is a custom-made lei I purchased for Easter from a vendor at the Kam Swap Meet in Pearl City, HI in 1999.

Lately, though, I decided to teach myself the technique.  I found a wonderful tutorial on the Internet, published by the Star-Bulletin, Hawai’i’s second-largest newspaper.  You can find the link to the tutorial, which is an archived piece from 1998 here.  I recommended you copy the text and photos and save them because who knows how long the information will remain in archives.

I have made several leis in the past few weeks—a blue-and-white one for an Alice in Wonderland themed necklace, one in red-and-green as a sample for Band Parents (I’m going to offer them for sale in the fall) and one made with two different ribbon types to honor my dog, Taco.

Using a ribbon with a pattern on one side is tricky—you have to make an extra fold and be careful you don’t shift the plaiting direction as it will add a twist to the finished lei.  I plan to try more complicated patterns, including braiding three 1/8-inch wide leis and plaiting them together like the sample below.

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Photos by C. Bruhn

Fun Finds

Yesterday, I received an Etsy order from the fabulous Magpie Ethel, whose blog by the same name is one of my daily must-sees.  I sigh over her photos of the amazing estate finds she snags and enjoy seeing how she recombines her treasures into remade items, all done in her chock-full (again, a sigh of faint envy) workshop.

When Magpie Ethel highlighted these awesome “medals” I just knew I needed a couple to pin onto my “Sugar Skull” Apron, also an Etsy find from Boojiboo.  I ordered one medal from Magpie Ethel and asked for a custom-made “Chatterbox” medal with purple and gold ribbon.  Aren’t they nifty?

This weekend, I went to the Montgomery Antiques Show, held in historic Montgomery, Texas.  I made a bee-line for the Garden Antiques display, hosted by Ms. Theresa, who has the best blog about Texas-style antiquin’ and junkin’ you’ll find this side of Lubbock.  We had a great chat.  I’m saving up for one of her vintage fish tanks.

I did spend a bit on some small items—I just can’t pass up bits of ephemera and little odds-n-ends, especially if they are $3.00 or less.  Here’s what I found.

 The neatest fun find for the day was this prison-art photo frame made from Camel cigarette package paper.  Although the dealer said she acquired it from a Houston-area dealer, it may well have been crafted by a Huntsville prison inmate to help pass the time.

 I also bought a table-top Coats Thread Display bin made out of metal with four sliding drawers.  My daughter has taken up sewing, and she'll be able to stash her threads, zippers, elastics and such in the drawers. Right now, her threads are rolling around in a plastic snap top box.

Cowgirl Photoshop Project

This is a page that began as a scan from a 1941 edition of a Lone Ranger coloring book published by Whitman Books, Racine, Wisconsin.  I love the original (featured below, before restoration) but wanted to have the line art available for other projects.

I started this on Thursday, the night my dog died, and there was something soothing about cloning and erasing, bit by little bit.  I worked on it Saturday and Sunday evening, and spent a large chunk of today finishing the work and adding the filters. I altered some parts of the drawing and created "solid" dust clouds.  I used my mouse for all the re-lining work (the cowgirl, her horse, tack and the dust clouds were all relined).  I have a Wacom tablet, but haven't used it for awhile, and wanted the familiarity of the mouse for this project.

All told, this is about 10 hours of work.  I was having a new A/C installed today, so I did the bulk of the work while the technicians were hauling equipment up and down stairs.  I still may tweak the line art--I think I'll move the horse's rear leg into the middle of the "dust cloud" and do a few other refinements.  However, it's a nice piece, as it is, since the drawing has that old-fashioned feel.  I feel like I know Billie Jeanne after working on her page so long!