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Let’s Make Matchbox Valentines!
Who wants to make teeny tiny fastidious little matchbox Valentines with tiny bits of paper and tape and glue, paint and and Mod Podge! I do! I do! Nobody else does but that’s why you come here, right? To imagine what it would be like and vicariously live through me. Well, guess what? I love tiny tedious projects like this. The more mess the better. And this one was a doozy.
First, I painted the boxes. It’s a bit of a sticky mess trying to paint them while holding the box with your fingers and getting the paint smudged by your fingers and all over yourself. Of course I should just paint one side at a time and wait for it to dry before moving onto the next but WHO DOES THAT? Not me. I just smudge my way forward.
Most people would cuss and get frustrated at this process but I don’t. It’s like getting on the same freeway and cussing out the traffic everyday. Why bother? It’s the same traffic everyday. Nothing changes? Why not just pop in a podcast, accept that you are going to be staring at break lights for the next hour and just chill? That’s my motto. Pop in a podcast and chill.
It does get easier the more you do it.
Not that I’m an expert at painting but I don’t get that frustrated anymore. I do think my painting skills or choice of paintbrushes needs some work.
After I painted the boxes completely (and let it dry) and then painted flowers and decorations on top of that, I printed out some fiddly little valentine illustrations and got to work cutting them out.
Why, yes, I am quite insane. I love to fiddle! Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle. Sticky tape sticking everywhere and cutting it to small tiny pieces with my trust exacto knife! I need a new self-cutting mat. This one is well-used.
I second-guessed my color choices and didn’t cut everything out perfectly but that’s okay because I am NOT a perfectionist. Stick it and go with it!
I’m actually quite proud of these suckers. Now who to gift them to?
Leave a comment and I’ll pick five readers and send them out like old times via snail mail.
I can’t promise they’ll make it by Valentines’s Day but maybe you don’t mind. :)
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Paintings and Flowers
If you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to it’s been work. And of course I can’t talk about whatever I’m working on while I’m working on it so I never talk about work. But in between work I’ve been sneaking in a little painting.
A while back a friend bought me this huge canvas on sale and it’s been sleeping in my garage just waiting to be painted. Then the other day the kids were painting and they had big globs of paint leftover on their palettes after they were done. I hate wasting expensive paint so I just swathed the extra blobs onto the canvas that was wedged between our garage refrigerator and the washing machine. I didn’t put much effort into it because I love texture and I figured I’d paint over it eventually anyway.
Then it happened again, and again. And it got harder and harder to squeeze between the washer and the refrigerator to paint so I lugged it into the house and now it’s turned into a real painting on purpose. But still with half-hazard colors because I’m out of half my paints (thanks kids) and I like it this way. It’s almost like I can think in monochromatic tones and ignore the color all together and strangely it works. Pink face, blue hair? Don’t care!
I hope I can keep turning my brain off enough to turn it into something. But then I’ll have to sell it because I have no more room in my house for masterpieces. If you are looking for some big art send me a note. Maybe I’ll sell it to you.
I’ve also been working with fake flowers. These are also leftovers from other projects. I have so many leftover craft supplies from projects that I could start my own store. But I don’t. I squirrel them away in my busting-at-the-seams craft aisle of cabinets in the garage. It’s lovely and terrible at the same time. Konmarie methods don’t really work for me. But I am usually pretty organized so it stays somewhat under control.
Anyway, Bug has had me making flower crowns for her. I made one for her halloween costume and then one for her succulent-themed birthday party. We’ve decided that since they are so fun to make, I should make more and sell them in an Etsy shop. She also wants me to give her 10 percent for modeling and 20 percent if she sells them to her friends. I’m not so sure that’s a good deal for me since I spend about an hour on each one and she spends two minutes but whatever, it’s fun to do something together. Also she is very proud of her math skills when it comes to percentages so I’ll let her work out the math.
No Konmarie here!
I really enjoy making them. I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with fake flowers. I LOVE LOVE LOVE real flowers (thus the flower biz I was in back in the day) so using fake has always felt like betrayal BUT fake flowers last forever and don’t require as much care. No moldy smelly water vases to clean out. No mass clippings all over the kitchen floor (though there is still a bit of mess but it can be contained to a table and it doesn’t smell) and no expiration date!
Right now most of the crowns have turned into wreaths. Not sure why. Bug doesn’t really like them for wearing so I’m going to focus on smaller flowers and making them more dainty going forward. I figure no loss though, I can sell these as door wreaths! In fact I have one on my front door right now and it’s charming and cute!
I will definitely keep everyone (and their cousin) posted when we actually go live with a shop. It might be a while.
Now back to work!
