Cynthia Hawkins
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    Day 198: Down the Lane
  • Photo on 12-24-13 at 2.40 PM #2 2

    Day 35: Mommie Dearest

Benefit Concert

Posted on September 1, 2016

This is my musician friend George Gaytan.

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I first met George about eight years ago when my daughter Hannah started taking guitar lessons from George.  Though her interests migrated to dance instead, George has remained my pal.

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He showed up with his guitar to play for me while I was recovering from a double mastectomy and tripped on my IV.  I told him he was like the guitarist in Airplane.

We share a sense of humor, a love of old Hollywood, Westerns, and The Beatles.  He played a lot of Beatles tunes for me, in fact, for every chemo session I had during the last round, to the delight of not just me but every patient in the chemo lounge.

So you get that George is a great guy, right?  And now he’s decided to help boost my sister’s Go Fund Me efforts by putting on a benefit concert with his friends — all for me!  I’m amazed and humbled and honored and grateful!  So now we have to call George — Saint George.  Scheduled to play on Sunday September 25 at Turner Street Productions on 8126 Broadway 78209 so far: George, Tish Hinojosa, and Audrey Gaytan.

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Doors will open at 5:30 and the concert ends at 9:30.  My sisters are planning refreshments and a silent auction to take place at the concert site beginning at 5:30 with results announced mid-way through the evening.  Here are some of the great auction items they’ve lined up so far:

Signed Danny Green Spurs Jersey, valued at $600.

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One night for two with breakfast at the Eilan Resort, valued at $400.

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Dallas Cowboys vs. Cincinnati Bengals, two tickets to a field suite ELS3.  Includes food and beverages.  Oct 9, 3:25 p.m., A T & T Stadium in Dallas. Valued at $1300.

 

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Dine out in style at FEAST restaurant in the King William District.  Valued at $60.

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Head to New Braunfels for some retro movie fun at the Stars and Stripes Drive-In.  Includes four family four-packs.

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Riverwalk dining at Biga on the Banks.  Dinner for two plus parking.  Valued at $150.

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More silent auction items to come!  Email me at cynthia@cynthiahawkins.net if you’d like to be added to the official invite list.  The concert hall only has a capacity of 150 people.  Would love to see you there for all the fun!

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Categories: Box of Monsters Blog

The Unfinished Picnic Table

Posted on August 6, 2016

The Videos:

Part I:
Part II:
Part III:
Finished:

Further Instructions:

Industrial Coffee Table

I used a traditional yellow pine picnic table that had been sitting in the back yard.  I simply took the top off of the supports, cleaned and lightly sanded the surface so some of the old paint layers were still there.  I checked with the manufacturer to ensure that this is untreated wood.  Treated wood would have arsenic in it and would not be environmentally safe furniture for indoors, let alone to eat on.  I gave it a final clean-off with Simple Green to cut through any remaining layers of grime from being stored outdoors so long.

My goal was to create a rustic “barn-wood” appearance out of the planks, so I lightly brushed on different colors of chalk paint I had handy, in blues and varying shades of grays, concentrating colors on separate planks (though a little blending adds to the barn-wood aesthetic — so if it happens, it happens).

After the newest paint layers dried, I used a rotary sander to reveal some patches and stretches of bare wood, particularly around the ends, corners, and edges — thinning the paint layers just a little in the center.  Chalk paint stands up pretty well to sanding, I’ve found, so have at it.

Next step for that cohesive barn-wood look: a water based stain.  I ended up using Minwax Natural, concentrating on the bare wood and wiping it off the paint quickly so the paint colors didn’t become too saturated with the golden hue.

Final touches.  You could easily skip these last steps, but I love obsessing over the minute details, the depth and shading.  I used a soft furniture wax all over and buffed it off. I could be persuaded that one is better than the next, but I’ve found all of the clear soft furniture waxes to be similar, so I tend to go for the cheapest.  The one I used came from Michael’s: ArtMinds Clear Wax.

After buffing, I applied Amy Howard’s Dark Antique Wax more strategically to corners, edges, and up and down the planks on which I wanted to bring out the darker colors to contrast with the lighter planks.  Howard’s is the first Dark Antique Wax I’ve tried.  A little pricey, but it goes a long way and is easy to control.  I also splurged on the Amy Howard waxing brush.

AND I splurged on Amy Howard’s Dust of Ages, which is basically a can of dust you pay for.  Using this makes me feel like a sucker, but, I have to say, it compliments the dark antique wax nicely, offsets the wax’s amber tint with a little gray, and brings out a lot of texture.

I’d found a schematic for an industrial coffee table base made out of pipes and pipe fittings that I passed on to Joe to adapt to my new coffee table top. Our top is a different size than the one used on the Sadler House blog, but it’s easy to make the adjustments to suit.  We used the flange fittings at the base of the legs instead of the end caps.

Industrial End Table

For the matching side table, we used the remaining bench-seat wood.  My dad dismantled and cut the bench wood in half and then squared the ends.  Unlike the picnic table top that was already useable once detached, dad had to brace the bench wood planks to join them into a single table top.  We wanted the side table to sit higher, so we modified the original industrial base schematic to accommodate a 33” square table top that would be 26” in height.  The refinishing of the wood was exactly the same process as it was for the coffee table.

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Categories: Box of Monsters Blog, Writer By Day

The Patchwork Ottoman

Posted on July 19, 2016

Instructions for Ottoman Cover

  • measure the width and length of the top of the ottoman
  • piece together enough remnant fabric to match that measurement plus 2″ added to both width and length for seam allowance — remember, in fact, to account for at least an inch seam for the fabric you’re piecing together as well
  • sew your pieced-together fabric with the right sides of materials together
  • measure the end your ottoman, then the side — height and width
  • for the ends and sides I over-shot the length by a good deal so I had some leeway when it came to staple-gunning the fabric in place on the underside — at least leave 5″ plus that 2″ seam allowance for where you will sew it to the “ottoman top” piece
  • once you have your ends and sides ready to go, pin, right side fabric together, to the coordinating sides of the “ottoman top” piece and sew
  • the finished result will look like that “collapsed box top”
  • cover the ottoman with it to test for accuracy of coverage
  • if all is well with the fit, sew the flaps together, edges of right-side fabric facing, to create the ottoman corners
  • slip the fabric “box” over the ottoman
  • if you do not want tufted buttons, turn your ottoman over, pull the fabric taut over the underside of the ottoman frame, and staple the fabric in place all around
  • I trimmed the excess fabric off of my ottoman after stapling fabric

Instructions for Tufted Buttons

  • you will need waxed upholstery thread, a covered button kit, and upholstery needles ( I purchased mine on Amazon, but they have these supplies at most craft and/or fabric stores)
  • determine how many buttons you want on the ottoman top
  • I went with 6 because I’d added decorative stitching intersecting the fabric strips, and I thought it’d look best to stick with the number of intersections created
  • you may want to mark the spot for button placement with chalk because you’ll be flipping your ottoman while working with each button
  • follow directions on your button covering kit (super easy!) to prep the buttons — tip: a thinner fabric works best
  • thread upholstery needle with a generous stretch of thread and insert needle into first button location
  • VERY IMPORTANT — hold one of the threads so you only pull the other thread through
  • poking the upholstery needle through faux leather, I had to use something to push the need through — I pressed it down with a hammer head
  • thread through the button
  • rethread the needle
  • send the needle through the same spot to secure the button
  • use a strip of cotton batting, muslin, or a 4″ X 2″ rectangle of remnant fabric to place underneath the first knot you tie in the wax thread on the underside of the ottoman — be sure to pull as hard as you can to sink the button on the surface
  • NOTE: if you want to deeply sink the button and produce that lovely puckered fabric effect, you’ll have to cut holes in the original top/foam the size of the button — some go all the way through the foam with those holes — on other projects, I’ve just created a dent about half of the depth of the foam
  • some upholsterers staple gun the threads on the underside to the wood frame on the underside — I’ve used both methods and, so far, haven’t seen a visible difference on the surface
  • tie the upholstery thread multiple times to secure
  • repeat for all buttons
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Categories: Box of Monsters Blog, Writer By Day

Close Shave

Posted on July 8, 2016

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Categories: Box of Monsters Blog

My Awesome Family

Posted on June 23, 2016

My first week of radiation treatment for brain metastasis, my sisters did something incredible, wondrous, moving, amazing for me, and then so many incredible, wondrous, moving, amazing people have followed suit.  They started a Go Fund Me:  Cynthia’s Battle With Cancer.  Our little family is astounded by this amazing outpouring of support.  Endless thanks to everyone!

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Categories: Box of Monsters Blog
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Hand Crafted

Posted on August 5, 2015

My late Grandpa Cole once stood with me in his study, straightening the glasses on his nose in the pause, and told me my Uncle Dickie had taught him something important about art. Art can’t be limited by what you think it should be, he said. It has to have room to breathe, to take shape, to be what it wants to be. That was the lesson.

Our semester at UTSA begins in just two weeks, and I’m all set to roll out the Creative Writing Program’s brand new core course: Introduction to the Creative Literary Arts.  One component of the class is exploring creativity itself, what it is, what sparks it, how it arches across the arts, what artists add to the community. This was pretty much one of my Ph.D field exam subjects as well, so I feel right at home with the class already. And in preparing for it, I’ve spent a good deal of the summer pondering the origins of my own creativity.

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Categories: Box of Monsters Blog
Firecracker On Wheels

You Can Leave Your Hat On

Posted on July 27, 2015

Oh the lure of the skating rink!  Firecracker had her birthday party here last weekend. Magenta-colored lights reflecting off the worn wax of the wooden floor, the steady, heavy whir of wheels, everything from Skrillex’s “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites” to the Sugar Hill Gang’s “Apache” reverberating off the cement-block walls with green diagonal stripes directing one’s eye to the spinning disco balls.

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Categories: Box of Monsters Blog
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Unicorn Magic, Update

Posted on June 17, 2015

You may remember my new friends in Thailand from the rescue shelter who drew unicorns to cheer me up.  Their packet of drawings finally arrived in person yesterday, and they couldn’t have come at a better time.  Yesterday, that second day after chemo infusion, was a bummer day.  There’s something about this particular chemo that, for just a few days after each treatment, messes with my zen thing.  I moved through the day on the verge of sobbing for no good reason, and when something that seemed like it could possibly, maybe suffice as a good reason materialized, I put %110 effort into bemoaning it: I’m dropping off my kid at Vacation Bible School and all the other moms look normal while I’m wearing a pirate scarf! or I pulled the number in the waiting line at the fabric store and it was thirty while they were on twenty-eight! or My candle wick broke off! or I ate a Twizzler! or I’m wearing flip-flops!  And it all amounts to, at the end of the day: Nobody loves me! Wah!  In other words, it’s a ridiculous kind of depression that has no reason to exist.  Have no fear, though.  It slowly wears off, and, in the interim, it’s fairly easy to drive away.  Like Joe guiding me back to reason: “You know it’s the chemo, right?  This happened about the same time last time.”  Or like receiving an envelope stuffed with hand drawn unicorns.  Even better, Jenni, their mama bear, sent me this picture:

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After seeing their drawings the first time, I’d enlisted the help of some friends to put together the Big Box of Art Supply Fun to send them as a thank you.  Inside: a scissor caddy, charcoal vines, pads of drawing paper, sketching pencils, erasers, sharpeners, colored pencils, markers, pastels, and a how-to draw flowers book.

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They were thrilled!  And I was thrilled.  My bummer day was entirely swallowed up by all the mutual good will you can still manage to find zigzagging across the globe like one of Indiana Jones’ planes trailing a red line across a map.  Special thanks to my Bad *$$ Unicorn crew for helping me spread some cheer (and art!): Dennis and Donna Bechhold, Alicia Van Buren, Pat Gavisk, R. Flowers Rivera, & Quenby Moone.

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Categories: Box of Monsters Blog
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Soaring

Posted on June 15, 2015

The first thing I thought about when told I’d have to go through chemo once more was the family vacation we’d already planned for the girls. I didn’t want to be the reason, yet again, that Hannah and Firecracker didn’t get to do something fun. And boy did they deserve something fun. In the past two years, I’ve often had to say “no” to play dates, sleepovers, trips to the mall, being a part of school functions, and most definitely going on vacations due to the toll of being on treatment. And just when we’d thought everything was over but the very last of the post-mastectomy revision surgeries, we’d planned to go to Florida. The girls were elated. Firecracker even wrote about it in her school journal:

Firecracker Journal

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Categories: Box of Monsters Blog
Mad Unicorn

Unicorn Magic

Posted on May 29, 2015

Note: On May 27, 2015 an amazing group of youths from an organization providing rescue and shelter for victims of human trafficking drew around 20 amazingly beautiful unicorn pictures for me, posted for me by team leader Jenni: “My tribe here are survivors of a different type, even still we wanted to send a little B.A. unicorn magic your way. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.” 

unicorn drawings

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Categories: Box of Monsters Blog

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