31 Days of October: Day 11... My Not-So-Artsy Crafting

I like to do crafts.  This statement is far different than saying that I do crafts well.  It is very hard for me to be creative because my brain wants me to be orderly.  You know... a,b,a,b,a,b... I was brilliant at doing those patterns in grade school!  That is just how I was made.  I appreciate other peoples' artistic eye and often wish that I had been made with the ability to carry out a less patterned approach to projects.

I haven't done anything very crafty in awhile so I figured this was the perfect time to visit a craft supply store, shake the dust off my glue gun and get to work!  So on an impulse to make a couple fall wreaths, I headed to the store and the first thing I saw was fall florals on sale for 90% off.  I could see the sign from my parking spot and naturally assumed that these were the obviously fake flowers that haven't a smidgen of "real" about them.  Not so!  These were quite more natural looking than I had expected so I grabbed a few and headed inside.

To my great satisfaction, all of their fall decorations were 50% off.  Not as good as the discount outside but nothing to turn my nose up, either.  Nothing bugs me more (okay, that's not true but I'm using exaggeration as a literary device here) than to see something marked "Clearance" and it is a measly 10% off.  I figure a store isn't really serious about reducing their inventory until their clearance is at least 60% off.  I sometimes refuse to buy items marked "Clearance" if the discount isn't 60% off just on principle but since the 50% off sale was not advertised as "Clearance" I purchased a few more items and went home with my shopping integrity intact.

Before I share my craft store purchases with you, take a look at this...  These are plastic over-the-door hooks that I bought at the Dollar Tree.  My husband spray-painted them with high temp black paint (the kind you use to paint grills and such) and now they look very much like wrought iron!  They work perfectly to hang the wreaths.

 

My purchases (some of which went back to the store since I didn't need all of it):

Let me just warn you... STRAW WREATHS SHED!!!!


Some pictures of the process:

I had these old windows in the garage from the old farmhouse where we used to live.  I've kept them for years and only hung them up on the wall a year or so ago.  We backed the one in the center with mirror since some of its panes were missing anyway and gave all the windows a good cleaning before hanging them.  Again, notice there isn't a bit of artistic thought in the placement of them.  I even had an artsy friend come over and tell me how she'd hang them but I ended up with the a,b,a pattern. < lighthearted sigh>

 

 

There are no bows on the wreaths yet.  I simply ran out of time.  I'm not at all gifted in bow making anyway so I might have someone else make them for me.  I'm content with that!  Not everyone is gifted in the say way or to the same extent.

 

Have you ever heard the saying "Comparison is the thief of joy"?  It is the DESTROYER of joy!!  A friend of mine shared a quote with me a couple years back that I kinda tucked away in the back of my mind and am now so much more able to really understand it.  I don't recall where the quote is from but it goes something like this... "To compare yourself to anyone else, either for the better or for the worse, is to forget your true value in Jesus Christ."  Society's scale of value is always shifting, always changing, always unstable so there can be no true joy in chasing after its illusion.   It creates within us a fragile ego with an ever increasing need to be fed by temporary things that can only temporarily satisfy.  I wish I had embraced this understanding earlier in life but I can't let that hinder me from moving forward and I think I'm in pretty good company when I say that...  Paul, the apostle, said "No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us." Philippians 3:13-14