Prescription for Full Recovery

Believe it or not, I do not spend every waking moment dragging junk home from curbside trash piles.

Occasionally, I get my "creative" on and work on a project or two. 

This week called for a little creativity. 

My dear friend Lynn was having surgery. 

Such an event called for something to take along when visiting her post surgery.

Since she's a nurse and at present also a patient, she was sure to appreciate something with a red cross theme.

While trying to come up with something extra special for the inside of my card, I got off track when I discovered this image online as I searched for a nurse's cap picture:

Source

I ran headlong in a new direction, deciding it would be fun to put me and my friend Lynette's faces to this girl's hair and use us as part of the gift, especially since Dr. Kildare hasn't been available for caregiving in oh, say almost half a century. 

Calling Dr. Kildare! Calling Dr. Kildare!

 The inside of my card said in part that one of the prescriptions for a full recovery was a caring nursing staff. This way Lynette and I could look the part, complete with nurses caps when we went to visit Lynn post surgery, even if just on paper.

It took a few printings of both this lovely lady and pictures I dug up of Lynette and I, in order to make sure our faces would be the right size to work within the coif.

A little nip here, a little tuck there. 

With the care and precision of a surgeon, I proceeded with face/hair/neck alignment.

Tedious yes, but I seem to thrive on tedious.

I headed to Goodwill to search for a little white caddy like the one that got the Milk and Cream Co. treatment recently. There were no caddies like that one, but I did stumble upon something else much bigger and altogether different while at Goodwill. I'll show you that later this week when I have a chance.

There is another Goodwill nearby, so the search for a caddy continued there, but to no avail. However, two items came home with me as contenders for the job because I couldn't decide quickly which to get. The little oblong metal container with handles won out, lending itself best to the paint treatment that was planned. A plant was going in too, so this was better than a caddy would have been anyway. 

The metal planter received a coat of homemade chalk paint, with a little paint rubbed off here and there. I forgot to take a picture of the tin before, but imagine it brown and you'll get the idea.

While attempting to transfer the red cross design from paper to the container, the red ink bled all over the white paint (how appropriate!) so the tin was repainted, and the design reprinted on paper. It was then cut out and painted red, and the red cross was glued to the tin. 

Nurse Lizzie. 

What do you think of my new brunette flip-do? 

It's an instant fountain of youth...

...or something.

I ate two popcicles for the cause (we do what we must!), and after soaking the sticks in bleach water, ended up painting them red as well and affixing the caring nurses to the red sticks. I was going to put goodies like Gummie Bears, etc. in the tin as well, but once I placed the plant inside and decided to use gauze for filler fluff, the caring nurses were a sufficient addition. The whole project morphed as I went. I'm pretty pleased with the gauze idea. It added a very nursey vibe that was duly noted by its recipient.

 I had a few plants to choose from, but this one's color worked best with the red cross color scheme. That's me on the left and Lynette on the right, Lynn's caring nursing staff.

These nursing pins were a yard sale find some months back. I knew they'd come in handy one day. I didn't actually present them like this as part of the planter gift. Lynette and I actually each donned three of them when we went to see Lynn.

The pins said things like "We Care" and "Nursing Assistant". So appropriate.

Thanks to Lynette, I have the few pictures of this red cross planter that I do. I was about to leave my house with the planter in hand when she asked if I'd taken a picture yet.

Yikes, I would have forgotten! 

The gift was well received. 

My only regret was not finding a photo of Lynn's chihuahua

and making him into one of the caring nurses. 

He would have looked great in a flip-do and nurses cap.

Get better soon, Lynn!

Hope you'll stop by and visit these lovely blogs this week:

  

   

What We Accomplished Wednesdays @ Green Willow Pond

The Weekly Thrift @ Young Heart Old Soul