Frame 1

My frame with my sketched design, all ready to go.

When I first made this Our Lady of Guadalupe drawing, someone told me that it was a mistake to draw it on cardboard.  They said it just made the drawing look as though it ought to be cheap, when in fact, it took no less time than had I done the drawing on expensive paper.  So, having thought about how I could make the best of it, I realized that needed a frame to match: cheap materials (pine wood), expensive design.
I was originally going to just buy some frame supplies from the store, but when my husband found out it would cost at least $40, he told me to buy some brushes instead, and set out to work in his woodshop.  My carpenter built me a sturdy pine frame, simple, and with the rustic look in keeping with natural wood imperfections, just as I wanted it.  It is, of course, far better than what I could have bought in the store.

The frame with the design sketched on it in pencil.

The first of the wood burning.

I'd had the design already in my mind for several weeks, so it was only a matter of drawing the design and burning the wood.  My husband then advised me in finding the right kind of stain for the flowers (I settled on acrylic mixed with an aging medium).  My caring spouse provided me with a mask and some water-based wood finish, and offered to mount the picture in the frame when I finished. 

Staining the wood, side design.

As I finished the frame, it was an obvious contemplation to acknowledge how lucky I am to have such a man: knowledgeable, caring, helpful, willing to spend his own time to make sure I have the very best.  It is not as though my art is my living.  It assists me to enjoy and love life, certainly, but it is not a necessity to my life, as say, a job that provides bread and milk for our growing family.  Come to think of it, this very same husband sat with me an hour last week helping me figure out how to make sugar lanterns for our daughter's third birthday Rapunzel cake.  Seriously, how many dads can give their wives pointers on working fondant?

Staining the wood, corner design.

But then again, going back six years, before I was even dating my husband, I remember kneeling in my icon corner for a full nine nights, praying a special novena to St. Joseph with this intention: "Please, PLEASE, help Sean to fall in love with me and marry me, but only if it is God's will, and if he is like St. Joseph."  I discovered within a few days that he was actually dating someone else - a lovely, good, Catholic girl - hopeless, right?  I cried a little.  For about ten minutes that is.  Because I knew that if it were meant to be, Sean would marry me some day.  We are now a month from our fourth anniversary.

In my lovely breathing mask, filtering out any possible fumes from the safest water-based finish possible.  No baby in utero could be better cared for!

But that St. Joseph part of my prayer...sometimes Sean is a bit too much like St. Joseph.  A carpenter (by hobby! Pilot by trade.), sure.  A hard worker, absolutely.  Adept at most house and yard stuff, guns, car technology, and all the things that modern society deems what constitutes a "real man."  But what I mean is that Sean is a righteous man.  Sometimes he makes it hard to be an emotional, near-crazy, sinner of a woman.  He just doesn't react to my fits, or at least, doesn't react as I want him to.  Growing up, if I was grumpy, by golly, everyone had better get out of my way.  Sean just doesn't seem to get it.  And that's part of what makes him perfect for me. Another man would stone me, or turn me over to the authorities.  But not Sean.
Of course, Sean isn't perfect.  Unlike St. Joseph, he has sinners for a wife and children, and so comes a multitude of worries and frustrations: besides being the main bread winner, he has to worry about how to discipline a one year old, and how not to let a tantrum throwing three year old get to his nerves, and how to be patient with a crazy wife (not to mention absent-minded.  Seriously, I stuck my finger in the blender last month, and now I'm trying hard to remember to water the yard during Sean and the rain's five day absence this week.  Wouldn't be the first time he comes home to find the grass and garden dead). 
Can you tell that I love my St. Joseph?  Among so many other things, it is only because of him that I have the chance to make beautiful things, such as this frame to honor our Lady.  God bless good husbands and fathers.

The finished product.