Making on Mondays, A Little Late: My First Craft Project!

It is time.

Enough living in shame. Enough denial. It's time I admit something.

I have...a sickness. Perhaps affliction is a better word. And I thought I was the only one who had it. I thought I was all alone.

And then, by sheer happenstance, I discovered that others have this problem, too. These women were brave enough to admit it, and they gave me the courage to bring it out into the light. No more hiding. No more silence.

I...I have Craft ADD.

Char, over at Crap I've Made, came out of the craft closet about this sickness. Being all new to this crafty shit and all, I didn't realize that I would become so swamped, so quickly, by so many great exciting creative ideas. And not just about crafts, but art and writing, too. What's worse, I'm a Gemini, and so even if I were not predisposed to being fickle and inattentive, years of people saying "Oh! You fickle Geminis!" certainly rendered me thus. So for the past six weeks, my attention, time, and bank account have been pulled into about 35 different crafty creative directions. I felt frustrated and overwhelmed as much as I felt charged and excited. I thought, "Geez, how am I ever going to get any one project done? I'm an EPIC FAIL before I ever got started."

But Char acknowledges it--the inability to finish a project, the multiple projects she has going at once, and of course, the overwhelming compulsion to swing by the local craft store.

Thank god I'm not alone.

But I am going to make a concerted effort to nip this affliction in the bud. Which is why I present to you, Dear Reader, my first project, The Gimpy Crafter's Goal Board:




























(And my messy craft desk)

The idea is simple. The current creative projects are written down and clipped to the board. Evert time I finish a project, a space will become available. I will reach into my stash of ideas that I've written down, blindly grab an idea, and add it to the board. Every time I find a creative idea (or come up with one) that I want to try, I will write it down on a piece of paper and throw it into the stash. Until I pull it out, I will not allow myself to think about it again. I will only focus on the ones that are on the board.

This little project was essentially a small spin-off from the Menu Planning board project that I found on the All Things Beautiful blog. I basically zoomed out to the Dollar Store, picked up a whole bunch of their cheap corkboards, took some Modge Podge, acrylic paint, ribbon, scrapbook paper, decorative punches, and a couple of pretty stickers and went to town.

I used jewel tones (teal, purple, fuschia) because I absolutely love them and I don't care if they are a hideous combination because it's my durned goal board, kthxbye!















So, that's my first project! It got the creative juices flowing, and hopefully will help me curb my...compulsion...too!

Making on Mondays: Myself

Yesterday, at the end of a hellaciously busy weekend which may or may not have included a pomeranian, a burrow, a tempramental chef, and a little-too-gropey politician, I was ready to have a break from my weekend. I put on my jammies, ordered a pizza, wearily folded some laundry, and eagerly anticipated an episode of lost with Himself.

And then my phone rang.

It was my sister, Thing One, and one of three people in the world that I would delight in talking to. So of course I picked up, only to be greeted with her anxious voice asking, "Are you alright?"

"Uh, yeah, Thing One. Why?"

"Because you haven't blogged in two days. I thought you might be dead."

And there you go. I had every intention of going through the blogging process on both Saturday and Sunday, but the schedule was literally packed from Friday night to Sunday night. Thing One says that blogging should be done for pleasure, not to be regarded as something I have to do, because therein lies the way of resentment. She's wise, Thing One is, so I'll try to take it to heart. So here's a promise: don't resent me for not posting, and I won't resent you for...well, anything.

Anyway, what am I making this Monday? Myself. But first, a little vignette to extrapolate:

It had been a fun, exciting day so far. Himself and Sassy Kitten weren't normally the guided tour type, but they made an exception for the Cancun Jungle Tour. And they were glad they did--they were in the vehicle with the guide, with one other car behind them, and that was it. They had made their way through the ruins, fed a dozen skittish iguanas, and had proceeded deep into the heart of the jungle. The small group of people finally got out of their vehicles, stretched, and reluctantly crept towards the edge of the cliff. Far, far below, glittering in the intense Yucatan heat and humidity, a cenote beckoned.

They were all sweating profusely, and it looked so tantalizing. One of the tourists asked, "How far below is it?"

"Thirty feet." The guide glanced around, a mischevious smile on his face. "Who wants to be the first Mayan sacrifice?"

Unyielding silence from the group. And then, Himself spoke up, in some confusion. "Where's Sassy?"

Everyone looked at each other, alarmed. And then, from far below, they heard a faint splash.

That's right. I jumped off a cliff, falling thirty feet (it was a lot farther down than it sounded) into a pool of cool, 120-feet-deep water. It hurt like the dickens. I did it because I wanted to, I did it because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. And I could do it, and I did do it--not very well, I have to add. I bruised my tailbone pretty badly.

And then I went and did it again, for good measure.

The moral of this story? I've proven to myself, time and again, that I am perfectly capable of doing things that end up being bad for me. So let's turn this around on its head, shall we? I am going to now prove to myself that I am capable of doing things that are good for me. I am going to make myself. Whatever that means. Each month, I will set a goal and try to meet that goal once a day, to prove to myself that I can, and to see how I benefit from it.

So! The first month (or, I should say, 30-day-stretch) will begin tomorrow and go until July 15. And the first month's goal is to use my exercise bike every day. It can be for five minutes, or fifteen minutes, or fifty. Any of it is good for me. So! As of tomorrow, I jump off the cliff of bad decisions and hopefully plummet into the waters of Better Things.

In the meantime, I leave you with this image:

I won't be cliff-jumping again any time soon!