the fans

while sorting through the boxes of the things the hobag was willing to send, i found some handheld fans that heidi (my friend whose grandparents lived across the street from mine) and i used to play with when we were younger. i had always kept them in my bedside drawer and would take them out to look at probably every summer and reminisce. there are 5 fans and some look african while others look more asian and i know they were picked up somewhere during the various travels my grandparents did. in looking at them, i realized they would make beautiful artwork and i decided i wanted to have them framed.

it took awhile, but i headed to michael's (50% off coupon!) and worked with the custom framer there. since they are not completely flat, i'd need to do shadow boxes which greatly limited the frame choices, but i think i ended up finding the perfect ones. it took me forever to decide on the mats and the background colors, but when i picked them up i knew immediately that they were perfect and exactly how i'd envisioned.

i got them home and set about hanging them up. what a process! i'd done 3 different frames - 2 frames with 2 each hanging vertical and 1 frame with 1 fan hanging horizontal and i wanted them on the wall above my dresser in the bedroom. since i am terrible at hanging things, i seriously thought about waiting for my dad's next visit as he's my pro-hanger upper. but, i didn't want to wait and so i set about it myself. out came the hooks, hammer, measuring tape, and step stool... it took several attempts to get them hanging where i wanted and evenly spaced (and even now it's probably not perfect, but close enough!). there are many holes behind those frames, but hey - you can't see them!





i'd also bought a ready made frame for a watercolor i'd found in the boxes as well. my nana liked to paint and sculpt as i've mentioned many times before and this is just one of hers that she'd done. so i hung that up too. it was a little easier since it didn't have to line up with anything else, but still... you'll find a bunch of holes behind that picture too!



it's a little funny... i wrote this awhile ago, but i wrote several other posts today that i'll publish over the next several days/weeks - but they were all about my nana and some of her things that i'm lucky enough to have or have done with her. i was telling my mom about something i'd written in an email and she replied with 'you know this would have been her 84th birthday'. funny how i just happened to be thinking of her and writing about her on her birthday...