Sales, shots and serious issues

Prepare to be shocked!

I have a few weekend confessions to make.

First, I went to the semi-annual Paper Source warehouse sale with this gal. You can read more about the annual sale here. I won't go into details because, well, I didn't get into a cat fight over cardstock, and it's much more fun to pretend like I did. Anywho, that gal has a card company, which made our trip totally logical. I, however, already have a mammoth collection of stationery and scrapbook materials that I like to look at but rarely use. One day I'll figure out things to do with them, like origami furniture and thank yous for thank yous, but you all know I have to get through my first 12 to-do lists before I get to that stuff. And another one of my confessions is that I'm lazy. (Also, that I'm not gifted in Asian paper arts much to my chagrin.)

So I told myself I wouldn't buy much. I would only get a little something to make my journey worthwhile. But suddenly people were rushing around throwing paper, and I felt like I had to have some, too:

"Oooh, a huge stack of cardstock. Don't think I need it but that lady is buying some so maybe I do."

"Pre-made cute cards only slightly discounted? Well, I am too busy to make cards. I'll take six!"

"I don't know what this is, but I'm going to buy it. I'll use it to make cards."

"Rub-on letters? I don't really scrapbook, but if I did I would sooo use these. Must have!"

"Blank books! #48 on my seventh to-do list says buy more blank books to make more to-do lists. So I can't refuse, right?"

In the end, I spent more than that gal, and she has a card company. And apparently self control, which is something I clearly lack, especially when it comes to a bargain. I just can't get it into my head that lots of discounted items can still cost a lot of money. Also, I think that overspending is replacing overeating as my thrill addiction of choice. I obviously need a healthier outlet. Does anyone know a good bookie?

Finally, Miss Dub and I are off to her 9-month appointment, and I don't think I've adequately prepared her to get her shots. Laugh if you want, but I feel strongly that communication builds her trust and confidence. For example, I credit her quick cry-it-out skills to ... well, a lot of things including prayer, your encouragement and the sheer belatedness of it all ... but I also credit it to my pep talks: "Don't worry, sweetie, when you cry tonight I'm not going to interrupt you like I've been doing. I'm sure that was annoying you. Big girls hate to be interrupted."

Anyway, I haven't given her much encouragement or reverse psychology to get her prepared to be poked and prodded today. Of course, my best friend tells me that she also thought her first was a genius, full of deep thoughts as an infant, until he began to speak and said things like, "Ki-tty go bye-bye," and she realized he was indeed just a baby. Then again, he's now almost 7 and refers to himself as a "junior scientist," so maybe he was just pretending to be dumb.

But even though I know she's probably right, I have a strict policy to ignore other mothers' epiphanies so that I can have them myself one day and realize with amazement the same things they did. Because I like a good epiphany. Except when it involves me buying less, eating less or doing more with my existing supply of paper products.

Dang it.

She's (not) Crafty!

I’ll spare you the latest details of my sleep training soap opera because, well, there are no details. Miss Dub cried for one hour that fateful night and has been sleeping soundly without waking since. (At night that is – she hasn’t been sleeping nonstop since I wrote that post.) Sometimes she cries before going down for the night, but mostly she plays herself into a deep sleep. It does result in some bizarre sleeping positions, but I’ll take a pretzel baby in exchange for sleep any day.

So there. We did it, though lapses are to be expected since she is a baby. I’ll let you choose to congratulate or berate me as your emotions dictate. Of course, the latter will get you a severe blogger beating as one anonymous – hereby known as “Miss Rude-O-Pants” – learned the hard way. It’s not that I can’t handle a little criticism; it’s just that I have little tolerance for making my readers feel like crap. Also, being wo-MAN enough to use your real name helps because it’s a lot easier to take on some nameless face than Becky from Duluth. Also, I’m hoping that the comments section will get so intense that I will soon be able to sell tickets to read it on Pay-Per-View. Because, let’s face it, we’re all looking to get rich quick and this looks like my best chance.

But in other news, I’m a horrible crafter. Actually, I’m not a crafter. A crafter thinks of projects in the middle of the night not just for home improvement purposes. A crafter eats, sleeps and breathes ribbon. I, however, eat cereal.

So I should have known better than to take on some recent projects, like painting the cubbies of a small bookcase in Miss Dub’s room. FYE – Cheap, MFD-made, bought at Walmart (blasphemy!) bookcases do not take well to paint, even after a hearty sanding and heaping helping of primer. It will peel straight off, leaving you with a very distressed set of cubbies. And not the crafty kind of distressed. (Remember, I’m not a crafter.) I mean the distressed look that says, “Any good crafter knows that you cannot paint on fake wood.” Also, the kind of distressed look that says, “Any good Target lover knows that shopping at Walmart will bring nothing but misery to you and your home.”

So that was a huge mistake.

Then, I decided to put together a little frame wall in our hallway since we currently have two personal photos on display at our house, both excerpts from our engagement photo shoots FOUR years ago. And I really needed something to show for the 1,200 pics I’ve taken of Miss Dub over the last nine months. So I ordered a select 400 of them and bought a bunch of frames at our local Goodwill, which is one of the cleanest establishments I’ve ever seen, thus debunking my theory that all thrift stores have hanger dust. Then I decided to spray paint the wood frames a nice shade of silver. (Are there shades of silver? Or is it just silver?) But once again, my non-crafter status worked against me. Because apparently any good crafter knows that you should spray the back sides of frames first, as you’ll want any drips to fall to the back upon final spray. Also, don’t be so impatient to have them dry that you end up smudging them like I do my toenails every single time I paint them.

Maybe it’s not an issue of craftiness but of patience?

Whatever.

I will say that my quilt wall turned out excellent. But that’s because I received all the lap quilts from my Queen Quilter mother, who is a crafter, though she loves cereal even more than me.

I guess I’m just doomed to be the girl who wants to be crafty, but instead fills notebooks with ideas for novels rather than sketches of scrapbook pages.

And that’s OK. It’s just a little distressing.

But you will buy my books, won't you? 'Cause I'm looking to get rich quick.

Lest you think I don't recycle

"E"nstructions

So here’s the deets on the “E” that I decoupaged … which is funny since Miss Dub starts with an “M.”

1. Go to JoAnn’s. Somewhere in the store, they sell letters. Find the size and shape you like. I bought a mid-sized, carboard “E.” It was, like, a couple dollars or sumptin’.
2. Somewhere nearby, buy some mod podge. I like the matte finish but go glossy if you’re feeling fancy!
3. If you’re lacking in paper, stop by the scrapbooking section and pick up some. I went for mellow tones with a blend of patterns and styles.
4. Proceed to checkout.
5. Drive home safely.
6. Once home, cut the paper into strips of varying sizes. Try to roughly plan out where the papers will go to create a diverse pattern. Or, be impatient like me and pay the price when you have to put a paper twice in the same area.
7. Use mod podge to line the back of paper. Wrap around the letter, pulling tight as you do. This gets tricky on the corners (depending on the letter). Just be creative – as in, glue a paper around the ends first, then wrap paper as normal on top of it. (Does this make any sense? If not, just try your own method.)
8. After all the letter is covered in paper, apply mod podge over the entire letter.
9. Let dry.
10. Hang somewhere with poor lighting … that way if you made any mistakes no one will see them.
11. Never follow directions from Mrs. Dub again. She’s a kook!

Almost crafty

Oh what do you do in the springtime?
When all the Midwest is still cold?

You get a little crafty.

(Yeah, it doesn’t quite work with the tune, but did I mention for the quazillionth time that it’s MY blog?)

But not in a room with any resemblance to this one, which makes me salivate to look upon and reminds me of all of the projects I’m not even trained to perform:

Why, cruel fate, why?

And with results far less stunning than this little number:

¡Que bella!

And a little more along the lines of this:

Love me some mod podge!

And this:

You can never have enough ocean paintings. Just ask my house.

And this:

Fake flower arranging is an art, right?

Hey, it might be meager, but it was fun and didn’t require wearing a scarf, scraping the windshield or cursing the sky.

Is that what you do?
So do I.