OLD WINDOW WITH A NEW VIEW - A PERSONALIZED GIFT TO MY BEST FRIEND ON HER 50th BIRTHDAY

My best friend and love of my life, Angel, is turning fifty this week (APRIL 10). This is milestone birthday and deserves a little something extra to mark the occasion. If you've been a reader of my blogs you know hat when I give gifts I don't often buy, I prefer to give something of myself to make it more memorable. For this gift I not only put myself into it but got Angel's four children involved also. We created a beautiful, thoughtful memory that she absolutely loved using an old window, some paints, and imagination.

Let me give you a little bit of background here. There is only one thing in this world that Angel loves more than her trips to Disney World (she goes every other year), that is her children. I was trying to come up with an awesome gift for this birthday that would incorporate her favorite things. Then I remembered she saw something about using the old windows to make knick-knack shelves. That is where the idea began. I talked to each one of the kids about what I wanted to do and they were all in. Now all we had to do was bring it together.
My job was first. I had to chip most of the old paint off the face of the window and sand it down to give it a rustic look. Then I had to clean the glass and get it ready to paint. I taped off the back of the window and painted in the four background spaces. After it was dried I laid tinfoil over it so the space where the lines were would have the silver of the foil when viewed from the front. I cut a piece of cardboard to fit, pinned it in and now it was ready for the others to do their job.

Now as I mentioned Angel loves Disney. To be more specific, she loves Mickey Mouse. She has a room in the house dedicated to him, not to mention he stares at you from every corner of the bedroom while we sleep. It was decided at the beginning of this project that all of the art work would center on Mickey. Cort and Kenz are the artists in the family and since I knew their works would be most intensive they were up first. Cortney decided to go with Steamboat Willy Mickey and Mackenzie decided on pop-art Mickey.

Next Terra and Kobe painted in their corners. Terra loves Disney as much as her mother and her favorite character is stitch so she incorporated that into her picture using his colors and writing the word Ohana (family) into the head. Kobe went with a half and half devil/angel Mickey. He says one half (devil) is him and the other is, of course, Angel.

We cleared off the hutch in the living room and put the picture on top then waited for her to notice it when she came home. It didn't take long and her reaction was immediate tears. She was so happy and proud.

She hung the picture over the head of her bed. She absolutely loves it. With a lot of love and a little work we created a memorable, thoughtful gift that will always remind her of how much she is loved.

Buying gifts is nice but they are rarely cherished. A gift from the heart is forever.