Archives for 2012

Project Playroom: The Market Awning

January 16, 2012 by Ashley Hackshaw

I’ll call this series of posts Project Playroom because it is a work in progress, the making of a DIY Play Market staring with the awning. Lots of little projects leading up to one big reveal. I just have to pace myself and work on things as I feel up to it! We took the old LBB office and cleared it all out into a much bigger office. It was going to be the nursery but those plans are on hold for a bit until I am cancer-free and we figure out how we want to add to our family. So now it’s my new “writing room” and Boo’s new playroom….we needed a room just for that almost-four-foot-tall Barbie dream house she got for Christmas.

Boo loves her kitchen and she’s always wanted a market/grocery store to go along with it…..so I thought I’d devote one small corner to just that. Brett found this old awning that someone had tossed out:

I took off the existing awning to reveal the frame and Brett got out the power tools to make it a tad smaller. He’s always so great when I ask him to do little projects….you know I love my power tools, but I’m not feeling quite as strong as I used to so I don’t trust myself with the saws right now….I’d like to keep all my fingers and limbs if I can:

I used my seam ripper to take apart the existing awning cover. This is the easiest way to make a new pattern! Just take apart something old, trace it onto new fabric, and then put it back together the same way! That’s how even the biggest of companies do it!

I bought some bright yellow canvas, bias tape, and thread:

I traced all my awning pieces onto the new canvas:

I sewed the pieces together and tested the fit of the awning on the frame. Looks good!

I made a little template so that I could cut the bottom into a scalloped edge:

I stitched white bias tape all around the raw scalloped edges:

The finished edges!

I used a simple freezer paper stencil to add the word “MARKET” to the front. The letters could be cut out by hand but my Silhouette machine cut them out in under a minute. You can see more about freezer paper stenciling here in my beanbag tutorial.

I used a sponge to dab white fabric paint onto my letters:

While the letters were still slightly damp, I carefully peeled off my freezer paper stencil and touched up the letters with a small paint brush:

Brett hung the market awning up in the playroom. Now I’ve got to create the actual market and stock it with lots of goodies!

I just ordered this antique milk scale off of Ebay the other day to hang in her market! Isn’t it cool? It will be the perfect addition.

Click here to check out Project Playroom for all of our related projects!

A “Cool” Feeling

January 15, 2012 by Ashley Hackshaw

Oh my gosh….the craziest thing happened: I woke up this morning bald.

And my teeth are bigger. My sister Perry and I joke that we have horse teeth, it takes work to close our mouths. My teeth grew even more with the absence of hair.

I slept in a ski hat last night. It was awesome.

My head feels like it has mint or wintergreen on it…..you know that “cool” feeling?

Diesel (our dog) never even noticed my hair was gone. Dogs are awesome.

I took a shower last night and still used shampoo and conditioner. I don’t like rubbing my head against the grain of the hair…..so I could only wash it in one direction. I’ll get used to it. I didn’t have to put a towel on my head afterwards. I just pat my head dry!

I watched the video from yesterday this morning with Boo and it got to the point where she’s staring at me and I asked her what she was thinking at this moment. She said: I was thinking “are you sure about this?”

All of your comments and messages about the rite of passage video and the cancer chronicles are so overwhelming. And so appreciated. I am completely humbled. I don’t think of myself as an inspiration. I mean, why should my simple little life be at all inspiring? I don’t know…..someone said yesterday that I have a lot of readers and maybe that this is why I was chosen to have cancer. Maybe? I know everything can have meaning behind it….and I don’t want to waste it.

Here’s the honest truth: I do choose joy everyday. There is rarely a moment that I am not upbeat and positive. I’ve been questioned countless times through email: there’s no way you could be this upbeat, it’s not normal, it’s too exhausting, it’s weird. Maybe it’s not normal, maybe it is weird. But it takes less energy. Life is terminal….I’m going to die. That’s the only thing I know for sure. I could be worried about paying medical bills….but I know we’ll figure it out. I could get angry at an incorrect order at a restaurant….but I’d only ruin the waiter’s day. I could be self conscious about what I’m wearing but everyone else is probably self conscious too….and it sounds ridiculous for all of us to be in a group being self conscious about ourselves. We aren’t living in the movie Heathers. With any inconvenience I try to tell myself: This too shall pass. And I know it will. The hardest part is realizing it before anger and frustration set in. I remember one day when I couldn’t find Boo’s lunch tickets for school…..all prepaid. Brett was out of town and I was feeling overwhelmed. I got so flustered and frustrated and we were late for school and I took everything from the counter……and literally threw it all very dramatically all over the kitchen floor yelling “NOW let’s see if I can find the @#$@#$ ticket!” Papers, magazines, pencils, snacks…..everywhere. Boo just stood there in horror. She probably thought she was next. The second we walked in the school office Boo said “Ooooh, Mommy made the biggest mess. She threw stuff all over the kitchen. She was so mad. And she said a bad word.” All I could say was “yep, I need a chill pill. pronto.” It was just a stupid lunch ticket. I probably lost a year off my life with that little rager. I probably lost another year cleaning up the huge mess. And it breaks my heart to think about how horribly Boo’s day started out. It wasn’t worth it.

Anyway, it is just impossible for me to respond to all your comments from yesterday, and if you’ve been around a while you know I like to respond. So I wanted to say thank you. You took precious time out of your day to comment and I want you to know that I appreciate it. I read every comment.

A Rite of Passage (A Video)

January 14, 2012 by Ashley Hackshaw

A rite of passage is a ceremony that marks a milestone event. Hair loss just means that the chemotherapy is doing it’s job….it’s killing the bad cells in my body…..it just happens to be killing my poor hair cells at the same time. They’ll get over it. It’s just a milestone. It’s just hair. We filmed today to make a little movie. The biggest thing for me is that now I LOOK like I have cancer. It will be a social study over the next few weeks for me. Anyways, I wanted to cut my hair off before it all fell out…..I’d already lost a ton of it. We plan to donate the ponytail…..but Boo couldn’t part with it just yet. We let her keep it as a “pet” for just a bit and then we’ll turn it over to my friend Tara to send off to someone who can use it.

If you missed my last post, my mom shaved her head so I wouldn’t have to go first. It lessened the blow for Boo as well. Thank you Mom. I love you. You are always so selfless and giving. I’m sorry Boo cried at your hair. You are the most beautiful bald woman I’ve ever seen. Now Boo wants us bald all the time and doesn’t like when we wear anything on my head…..go figure. My sweet friend Aileen said my head would get cold….and I didn’t believe her. She was right.

Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one. -Dr. Seuss