For the Love of Crafting

I have a small confession to make.  I am seriously addicted to craft tutorials.  I am incredibly, insanely in love with all things crafty, tiny, shiny, bright, and beautiful.  In another life, I could very well have been a magpie (except I hope with prettier feathers).  I was looking through my list of craft blogs that I follow, (those posted here on the blogroll are unfortunately, only a very small portion of those that I am pseudo-addicted to), and they number almost 100 (yikes!).  On top of that, I have well over a thousand saved tutorials on everything from scherenschnitte, to pastry (which, yes, I count as a craft), to quilting, and yada, yada, yada, yada.  It's seriously pretty ridiculous here on my end.  I have so many projects that if I stopped today, I might, just *might* have a small possibility of actually finishing them all before I have grandchildren, *maybe.*  But, the best part is, is that when I have a spare half-hour due to wonderful magic of Disney, I can immerse myself in the wonderful world of possibility. 

There are literally hundreds of projects that I want to get done for my kiddos.  I have bought tons of crafting books on top of it, and literally probably have 100 more in my Amazon shopping cart under the "saved for later" category.  If I had all the time in the world, I would just sit and craft all day, both with my kiddos and without.  Unfortunately, I am lacking in the time department, and so I never seem to have enough prep time to get things put together to craft with my kiddos, and I seem to never have time alone to work on my own projects.  This is besides the point that I am seriously hampered when it comes to coming up with craft ideas for my own two small widgets, because I have no idea what they're really capable of doing.  If I hand my 21-month-old a pair of scissors and some construction paper, will I end up with a child masterpiece, or a seriously frustrated toddler?  If I give my three-year-old a glue stick, will she figure it out, or just make messy glue "pictures" on my kitchen table?  I don't know.  I'm working on it.  I love making things.  And I by no means count myself as one of the incredible creative people who help make our world a little more beautiful every day, so I kind of sit, lost, waiting for my kids to grow up enough for me to know how to have fun with them.  The only art projects I know of for right now are pipe cleaners, beads, play dough, markers / crayons, and finger paint.  All of which are unfortunately hiding in boxes somewhere in the general vicinity of the house, but until I get hubby to bring in my craft cabinet, I have no where to put them (seriously depressed me). 

The most terrible part of all of this is that crafting, even when what I do is absolutely ridiculous and juvenile, is such a huge lift to me.  So when I have incredibly gloomy, sad, miserable days like yesterday and today, all I want to do is craft.  So instead, I settled for some instant gratification via craftzine.  There are some absolutely fantabulous postings up within the last week or so, and since I hardly ever get a chance to check them out anymore (at least not on a daily basis), it was so fun to be able to get a hardy, concentrated dose of the crafty-goodness. 

Today I think I'll take my MIL to a fun little fabric store in Renton, I haven't been before, but I've heard good things.  I'll give you guys a review after we go.  I'm also hoping to hit up the garage sales up on Snoqualmie Ridge.  Their once-a-year sales are supposed to be incredible.  I'm hoping to find both a couple of lamps for the house, and a wedding present for my niece.  I'm actually hugely disappointed to find out that her wedding is no longer cowboy themed.  I even bought a fun (and expensive) cowboy hat from a fantastic store in downtown North Bend last night.  But I also found a fantastic book on edible plants, which I'll pretend is for my preparedness kit, and not just for fun reading.  Seriously though folks, I might just have to get a job if I ever go back in there again, because I will definitely carry out half of the store on my back given the option.

We're also hoping to hit the Seattle Aquarium this afternoon given the chance.  It is so much fun to go to with the kids.  I am madly in love with their tide pool / petting zoo exhibit.  I would take the In-Laws to the Zoo, which while tons of fun, isn't as big as the Denver Zoo, but it looks like it'll be another drizzly day in the Gray Town today.  (By the way, the squirrels at the zoo completely make up for whatever lack of exhibits there might be, and the brown bear, sea otter, and apiary exhibits are so much fun, I think we could spend an entire day just at those three displays.)  I have no idea if we'll have enough time to take the kiddos somewhere fun like that though, because we got a little sideswiped last night with the news that my nephew is running in a track meet a full 90 minutes away from here at some unknown time after 4 pm today.  So now I'm trying to readjust the schedule so that my kiddos still feel like they got time with Grandma and Grandpa before the wedding extravaganza this weekend, because G&G fly out early Monday morning.    It's so hard for little kids.  Ande especially has her expectations so high, and I'm honestly not sure if she can survive a fairly intensive car trip tonight on top of massive car trips both Saturday and Sunday.  I hate playing it by ear too.  Ande's whole little world is so fragile right now, and it absolutely destroys her when someone tells her that she gets to do something and then it's canceled.  I want her to have time with her grandparents, she needs them desperately right now, I don't think they even know how much she needs them.  They are really the sunshine in her life.  But I don't feel like they're very committed to us, or to our family, and that's a lot more difficult to explain to a three-year-old.