Arts and Crafts | Operation Home

As some of you may already know, my brother Alex lost his life in Afghanistan in November. And I have to say that I’ve never been so grateful for this little blog as I was during that awful time. This outlet of mine gave me a place to write about him and honor him in the only way I knew how. And I’m convinced that this was the most therapeutic action I could’ve taken. I wrote the majority of Alex’s Post the night we found out and I go back and read it periodically, along with the very sweet comments that people were kind enough to leave. It helps somehow. It makes me feel closer to him every time I read it.

I think I’ve been in some sort of avoidance/denial mode for the majority of the last few months (and probably still am to some extent). But, I’ve finally gotten to a point where I’ve been able to handle going through my stuff and the things given to me in his honor to figure out what to display.

I’m not sure if anybody has noticed, but I’ve never been one to cover our home in family photos. We have our living room photo collage, and a random wedding picture as part of our hallway collage, but that’s pretty much it. I’m one of those people who has a few select favorite personal photos that I cherish and then aside from that, I like to display things with meaning associated with them that may not be blatantly obvious to the general public. Things given to us or purchased at memorable events. Things handed down, or that remind us of someone special, etc.

I remember the first time Alex visited our house. His response was “Where’s me??”. I just laughed and told him to not take offense. I pointed out that we barely have pictures of US displayed (meaning Joey and I). Most are of Lucas, of course. But we did have a Green Beret bear displayed for him in Lucas’s room.

The funny thing is, I would’ve loved to have displayed a shot of him somewhere. I just never got around to getting one printed and framed (which in hindsight, is pretty sad). I mean, it’s not like I had to grind the wood pulp to produce the photo paper or anything to make that happen.

Anyways, as I began to go through stuff over the past weeks to decide what to use, I also had to decide how I wanted to display them. I immediately ruled out hanging everything in one place. I’m not sure I could handle that. Emotional overload, if you ask me. So, I decided to start with three items to display in a few subtle places. So that we can see them often and think of him, but not have them be totally smack-you-in-your-face, tear-up-every-time-I-see-them out there.

The first item I chose, was this picture…

I took it in my parents garage in the summer of 2012. It’s my favorite picture of the two of them. It’s the exact copy that I framed and gave to Alex for Christmas that year. It was returned to us after we lost him. I couldn’t bear to change the frame for this reason. So, I took it as is and hung it on our hallway collage wall…

I also hung his dog tags next to his photo….

I thought about framing them as well, but simply hanging them on a nail seemed more him. More casual. For the man who used Tupperware as furniture. 🙂

So, our frame wall looks like this now…

Lastly, I chose his rubiks cube. It came back with him from Afghanistan. His teammate told us that Alex had found it in his barrack (is that the right term? I always get the language confused) when he first arrived in Kandahar and he played with it constantly after that. It’s the way he left it. I love it because it’s random. Just like Alex.

So, I decided to mount it in a display box of some sort. I found this tray from a Melissa and Doug modeling clay set in Lucas’s room and decided that it was perfect…

I painted the back of the tray the same Jungle Thicket green that I painted behind Lucas’s Expedit shelves. Then, I drilled four holes through the middle of the tray and threaded some floral wire through the rubiks cube and through the tray…

I didn’t want to glue it or do anything that might ruin the rubiks cube in case I ever wanted to change it. I figured that Alex would be proud of the blue side that he’d completed, so I kept that side in front. And I hung it in Lucas’s room…

For some reason, I felt like Lucas’s bedside was the best place for it. Like added protection for the little man or something. Plus, it represents Alex’s playful nature… And he sure loved playing with Lucas.

I think the rubiks cube art affects me more than even his picture does (hence the exorbitant number of pics). I’m not sure why it has this effect. It just reminds me of my brother so much. So anyways, I’m not promising that this will be the last art for Alex, but it’s definitely a good start. And I hope that wherever he is, he can see it and approves.

I dare you to say THAT three times fast. Even better, do it in front of a mirror. I tried. I failed. I laughed. Yes, this is what I do in my spare time.

Anyhoo, I’ve been searching for a new nightstand for Lucas’s room for some time now, but never quite found what I was looking for. I wanted something that was light colored, or able to be painted a light color, with storage. His current night stand, as seen here…

…was too dark in my opinion and was falling apart. The bamboo pieces around the edges were falling off, and we’d lost the door handle. Normally, this wouldn’t bother me. I’d just fix it, replace the hardware, paint it and move on. What did bother me was that these pieces were basically stapled on. And when they come loose, there were sharp staples just waiting for Lucas to hurt himself on. And there was no telling which area would come loose. Lucas would just walk out of his room carrying yet another broken piece. So, it needed to go.

The other day I attempted to sift through No Man’s Land (our spare room/resident dumping ground for those who don’t know) and I came across a hand-me-down Ikea Lack table that was given to us a while back. I’d kept him (and his twin brother) with the thought of turning them into a headboard for Lucas’s bed. This plan never came to fruition because I didn’t like the scale of the tables with the bed, so they’ve just been taking up space in decorating purgatory ever since.

It’s funny how leaving an item alone for a while and then coming back to it later can give you a fresh, new perspective. Upon rediscovering the table, I realized that at least a temporary solution to the nightstand dilemma was waiting for me for free in our spare room this whole time. As I continued to organize our junk, I found a map that we’d used to find our way to Eureka Springs for our honeymoon years ago… And the thoughts connected.

Lucas’s transportation themed room + Map = YESSSSS!!!!!!!

So, I busted out my materials…

I started by cutting off the mustard trim on the edge of the map, as I wanted to finish off the table with it later.

Then, I unscrewed the legs a smidge to make it easier to trim out the top….

I thoroughly cleaned the table and used a liquid deglosser to rough up the surface. Then, I applied a coat of Mod Podge, which the little man helped with….

I applied the map over top and did my best to smooth it out….

Then, I trimmed the corners (sorry for the blurry pic. This is what happens when I multitask) …

Applied Mod Podge to the sides and folded over the edges….

Once I was through with this, I carefully lined up my border and applied it all around the edge….

And followed it up with three coats of Mod Podge over top. I did have an issue with air bubbles. On the bad ones I simply sliced a small hole in the paper and filled it with Mod Podge to allow it to seep under the paper, then I smoothed it with my finger. I probably should’ve applied a thicker coat of Mod Podge to the table before applying my map, but ya live, ya learn.

Here’s the final result….

It’s definitely not perfect. It has creases and air bubbles, but I actually like it that way. It looks leathery and weathered. I was actually thinking of tinting some Mod Podge and going over it again to give it more of an aged look. For now though, I’m gonna leave it as is.

I added a basket underneath that was also living an unfulfilled life in No Man’s Land to fill my storage requirement. It now holds the books that were in Lucas’s old night stand. I like that Lucas can always pull over his rocking chair and use this table to read or color or whatever. It has enough table surface to serve more than one purpose for sure.

I’m still going to keep an eye out for a more permanent solution as I feel like this table is a bit low for a nightstand, but for a completely free (and more importantly… SAFE) alternative to his old nightstand I think it’s a pretty darn good option. 🙂