It's a Great Day to be Alive

Seriously, It Is! Every Day!

I was diagnosed with breast cancer 11 days before my 36th birthday.

My best friend and I kind of have a tradition of gifting each other simple little things for our birthdays, and for my birthday this year she had filled a gift bag with little happy goodies - cute little things to make me smile, like a bag of Skittles and a bottle of Mountain Dew, to remind me of our "crazy" younger days when we would take road trips to nowhere, driving around, listening to music and fueling up on sugar and washing it down with sugar. 😄 

They were simpler times, and simple gifts, like the Skittles are always a fun reminder of these carefree days.  So, when I was diagnosed with cancer less than two weeks before my birthday, the happy little goodies in this particular gift bag became an even more special reminder of our youth and how precious the gift of life, and friendship is.

In the gift bag that year was a little solar powered dancing flower.  It had a plastic wrapper around the base, that later came off and that happy little flower was placed on my windowsill in my bedroom in hopes that it would bring a smile to my face when I was home resting after a chemotherapy treatment.  No matter how bad I was feeling on any given day, when the sun came out, that little flower would dance away to remind me how happy and vibrant it was just to be looking out my window at the world around us.

When I finished my treatments and was no longer spending days at home, the flower came with me to work, to sit on the windowsill in my office, again to remind me of how happy it was just to be there.  If ever I was feeling "a case of the Mondays" that flower would be staring at me, smiling and swaying away to some silent music that only it could hear.

I realized that that flower had a better perspective on life than most people I know.  

It didn't matter where it was or what was happening around it.  It was fueled by the 

start of each day.  All it needed was a new sunrise to keep it happy and dancing.

I decided that I wanted to put that flower somewhere different, somewhere it was sure to soak up the most sunlight possible and somewhere that I would be sure to see it every day, to remind me to be grateful for the new day I was blessed with, no matter what else was going on.  I have always loved the song "It's a Great Day to be Alive" by Travis Tritt and I imagine that is one of the songs this little flower is happily dancing along with, all alone, every day, because:

It's a great day to be alive
I know the sun's still shining
When I close my eyes
There's some hard times in the neighborhood
But why can't every day be just this good

I knew that I wanted to see this flower and this reminder, every day, no matter where I was headed or what I had going on.  And I thought, there's no better place than the dashboard of my car. The first thing I had to figure out was how to get it to stay on there without permanently affixing it, or using superglue directly on my dashboard.
Enter Scotch Fastener Tape.  I have used this tape successfully for so many projects in the past.  It is strong and sturdy, but the grip on it makes it easy to unattach and reattach whenever you need to.  I simply cut two circles out of one fastener, making sure they were small enough in diameter to fit inside the bottom indent of the flower.

I found that a nickel fit perfectly in the indent in the bottom of the flower base, but it was deep enough that I would need to stack two nickels and the Scotch fastener just to make the bottom flat enough to be secured to my dashboard.  I used the nickel as my template to cut the circles out of the fastener tape and I also cut a couple of cardboard circles the same size.

Once I had all my materials ready, I used my glue, the two cardboard circles and 
the two nickels to make the insert for the flower base.  I did it in this order:

Glue the first nickel into the bottom of the base; glue one of your 
cardboard circles onto the nickel; glue the other cardboard circle on 
to make a thicker, sturdier cardboard buffer between the two nickels; 
glue the other nickel on; attach one of your Scotch fastener circles 
to the bottom of your nickel/cardboard/nickel insert.

You should now have a flower that has a flush bottom for mounting it on to your dashboard, or wherever you choose to mount it.  Affix your other Scotch fastener circle to wherever that is and attach, or continue to unnecessarily bling out your flower first, like I did. 😏

The next step I did was to take the flower base apart.  It is actually just two plastic pieces that are clipped together around the base.  I removed them and got some spray paint ready.

Then, I brought the two pieces of the base outside and gave them a couple coats of spray paint in a pretty champagne color to complement the inside of my car.

When the spray paint had dried, I put the two pieces back together 
on the base and got ready for my next step.

Again, you could stop here as the flower looks pretty darn cute with just the spray paint on it, but I really wanted my flower to deliver my message, and a little bling.  I found this pack of stickers and the self-adhesive gems at Walmart for like $1 each and I figured they were perfect for my project.  Because the base was small and the letters were pretty big, comparatively speaking, I ended up having to use my label maker to print out a couple of the words that needed a little less attention in my message.  I did my best to make everything written out evenly, but I ended up with a little extra space on the right hand side that was kind of driving me a little batty, so I used the gems to make the flower to fill in the space.  
I also used a couple gems to make the flower's eyes sparkle, but again, not necessary.
All in all, I think she came out pretty darn cute.  She has been firmly affixed to my dashboard for a couple months now and she does not move, unless I remove her for some reason.  The stickers have also stayed put amazingly well and look handwritten.  The gems are the only thing that has not worked out as perfectly as I'd hoped.  While they are still all on the flower, on really hot, sunny days, the adhesive on the back of them tends to get a little melted and the gems do slide around a bit.  I haven't actually had one fall off, or even shift so much that it's noticeable to anyone but me, but I will definitely have to keep my eye on it as the weather gets hotter around here.  Overall, I love the way it came out and now I have a meaningful little daily reminder to be grateful for each day with me wherever I go.

-Kay