Broken Teapot = Love
Sometimes in life things go wrong. Sometimes you can turn the tragedy into something beautiful that reminds you of whatever the wonderful thing was but even better. And sometimes you can fix your broken teapot and make it into an even more beautiful picture frame to remember the people in the place from where it came.
My family travels to Russia every summer and works with partner churches there to lead VBS and other events in the local villages.
This is me and a sweet Russian baby a few years ago when I tagged along!
Well, my sweet mom collects teapots from Russia and she always brings home a really beautiful one. Well, a few years ago, thanks to the awesome baggage handlers, her teapot got broken....and therefore she was heart-broken. But, being the smart lady she is, she knew she could do something to fix it! So She kept all the pieces and we thought and thought and thought...
The teapot somehow broke perfectly into pieces that kept the spout, handle and lid perfectly in tact! So we decided to make it into a teapot, a teapot picture frame!!
This was quite a while ago (before we were smart and photographed the step-by-step process), so we only have finished pictures. So I will walk you through how we did it.
My dad, (yes he is a master carpenter, but you don't have to be) cut out, with a jig-saw, a piece of wood in the shape of a teapot (minus the spout, handle and lid-so mainly a square with round sides?) and painted it white. Then we traced the outline of a photo onto the wood, so would know where it would go in the end.
Then we took the broken pieces, put them in a towel and broke them some more (very carefully) with a hammer to get them to be the right size. Then we glued all the pieces randomly on the wood the way we liked them! Then we glued the spout to the side, the handle to the other side and the lid onto the top (which was also hand broken).
And last, we put the picture in place and propped it up with a photo/plate/anything holder! And Ta Da! Now it is such a beautiful and unique piece that is so very special. We still have some pieces left over and are trying to find something else really beautiful and fun to make, so let us know if you have any suggestions!
And in case your curious, the sweet little women in the picture are Babyshkas (pronounced: ba-boosh-ka), which means grandmother in Russian. They are sweet, sweet women from the church that cook us meals, make us tea, help us with Banya (another amazing Russian tradition) and love us so much! We are very lucky to have so many babyshka's in our life...