Share-A-Craft: Carved Wooden Frame with Dried Flower Heart

Share-A-Craft is just as much fun as a tilt-a-whirl, but with less stomach upset and possible vomiting. Every Monday, I post a project of any type that I've recently or not so recently done. We'd love to see what you've been making too. Send me an email with your name and a link to your project at karah99 @ gmail.com and you might end up featured.

Tutorial for this project can be found here.

David and I met in July of 2001. We were married October 19, 2001, exactly 90 days after the day we met. It's a very crazy story, one I'm very attached to (naturally). I know I've told it quite a few times, but I'm not sure I ever have directly on my blog.

I went up to BYU-Idaho from Orem, UT in July. I arrived on a Saturday. BYU-Idaho used to be Ricks College and it was a two-year school. It had quite a reputation for marriages. I used to joke it was worse than BYU, because you only had two years. Right as I went up, it was changing to a four year university. I told my mom as she dropped me off that if I hadn't met my husband in a week, I was coming home. I had taken a year off after high school, and I was 19. This is very, very young, but LDS people, we have a thing for marrying young. I had no idea that God was going to take me so seriously.

I spent that week hanging out with my roommates, getting to know the school and taking my first classes. One of my roommates was Jessica and she was from Tetonia, a small town about 30 minutes away from Rexburg and in the shadows of the beautiful Teton mountains, where her family had a ranch. Jackson Hole is on the other side of the mountains you can see from her house. It's a beautiful setting.

That Saturday, we had a party there. It was close to Pioneer Day, so we got a lot of fireworks, some food, and had a party out there. David was in town with his friends, as they were spending the summer down in the Salt Lake area, and they knew my roommates, so they were invited out to the party too. I got there early with Jessica to help her set up and make some food. I remember making Suddenly Salad for the first time then (I still like them a lot). There was another guy who had expressed some interest in me and he was at the party too. We got the call that David's car was having a bit of trouble finding the turn off to the ranch, so I was dispatched to meet them at the crossroads. The other guy came along with me.

They found us and David was driving. Now, I didn't think much of it at the time, because David looked like this:

Which is pretty much the antitheses of everything I find attractive. He struck up a conversation with me and I was wondering why in the world this guy was talking to me. I have no idea what we talked about, probably the basics, names and home towns.

He kept flirting with me though and I started flirting back. He had the most amazing hazel eyes, all light green around the edges with brown in the centers and framed with long lashes that were so beautiful to almost be obscene on a man (all of our children got those lashes--they are so lucky!). And I noticed he had a nice mouth underneath that beard, plus he was tall and outgoing and lots of fun to be around. We sat down to eat and we talked. It wasn't anything earth shattering, but he was easy to talk to. I felt I could be myself around him. He had been on a mission, was a business major, came from a large family, all good things. He suggested we take a ride together on the four wheeler, which was one of the party activities.

This was a fateful ride (I can almost say that with a straight face, since it was a pretty important point in our relationship). He stopped in a view of the Tetons and it was so pretty. He says he wasn't thinking of kissing me right that second--although he admits the plan was to get me alone so he could kiss--but that he just turned around to talk to me and that I was right there, begging to be kissed (I object--I knew he wanted to kiss me and I wasn't opposed). He kissed me. That was the second I fell in love with him, although it took me a bit longer to realize that was what I was feeling. I asked him, "When are you coming up here again?" and that's when he realized he liked me more than just a passing flirtation at a party.

We got to know each other more that night, then the next day he asked me to take a drive. We went here, to the sand dunes near Rexburg, and sat in the trees and talked. It's actually a lot prettier than in the pictures, almost like a beach in the middle of Idaho, without the water, of course.

We talked about our goals, what we wanted out of life, our spiritual lives, and as we talked, I knew. I just knew that he was going to be my husband. At this point, we'd known each other about 24 hours, but I knew, without a doubt. And that knowledge has never left me. I think that's one of the things that makes us such a strong couple; I know that we are supposed to be together, that God had a hand in bringing us together, and that makes the hard experiences and the crappy things that happen in life, it makes them pull us together instead of drive us apart. Now, I think there are probably other people I could have been happy with, but I don't think I would have experienced the kind of growth and the deep love that I've experienced with David.

After that Sunday, he had to go back to Utah. During that week, he had a rose delivered to my apartment. Just a simple, single rose. I'm not a huge flowers person (I mean, I obviously love flowers and floral prints of all types, but I'd much rather have chocolate than flowers for a present), but that rose was special. So, of course I dried it. I couldn't really think of something good to do with it, so I stuck it under this dome, and I meant to make it pretty around the bottom somehow, someday, but never did think of a good idea.

Pretty ugly, eh?

So, in thinking about the new house and how I want it, I realized that I mostly want to fill it with things that are beautiful, unique and have meaning to me. The rose was up for an overhaul.

I thought I'd paint a cool design on the frame, but then that seemed like a lot precision work, plus I couldn't think of a good way to get the pattern traced onto the frame, without buying something (like transfer paper) or using a craft knife to cut out the pattern (which sounded like a lot of boring work). So, I knew I had some Tattered Angels Screens around, and came up with carving the frame (tutorial with all the details coming on Thursday). It was a ton of work to do it this way, but it was forgiving of mistakes, since I was going for a distressed look.

After gluing the petals into a heart shape, I popped it into my finished frame and this is the end result.

It is so beautiful and rich in person, and so personally significant. It makes me smile every time I see it.