Secret Agent Josephine

I have this friend named Kate. Just like her name, she’s great. She’s that girl who always wears something classic and timeless yet incredibly creative like a cool silver bracelet with an otherwise ordinary outfit. How does she do that? She has amazing taste and she was born that way. She starts trends, she doesn’t follow them. I think she invented polka dots. She has the coolest house and the coolest clothes. Just about everything she does makes me stop and think, why didn’t I think of that?

When I stand next to her I often feel like the most backwards boring frump that ever was. I often think that I’m just not good enough for her because she is so artsy and put-together, a perfect combination of originality and timeless beauty. Meanwhile I’m the boring has-been who dressed herself in the dark from the dirty laundry I found on the floor. But then I remind myself that I get to be in her collection of friends. She picked me out like a bead in her beautiful friend necklace. I might be that weird wobbly orange bead that smells funny but she picked me out.

I think that about a lot of my friends actually. I wonder what they could ever see in me. But then I just tell myself that I add spice to an otherwise perfect life. They need me to mix things up. Everybody needs a quirky friend like me, right?

Kate likes to stay anonymous (mostly) on the internet so I haven’t really mentioned her much before. Even though she’s drop-dead gorgeous you’ll never see her picture here because she doesn’t like to be photographed. (Though she is in my wedding photos so if you’re sneaky you’ll know who I’m talking about.)

But my story isn’t really about her so much. It’s just that we were hanging out at her house today. We’ve been doing that every Wednesday. We both have kids nearly the same age and we’re trying to start up a regular Craft Day Wednesday sort of thing.

So far it’s going really great. We still have to work out the kinks, like timing and snack schedules. I need to work on bringing all the right supplies and having them ready before attention spans run out on me. But it’s working. Maybe someday we’ll invite friends and neighbors to come too. It’s a lofty dream but it could happen. Kate does have the perfect backyard for it, of course.

Today we decided to make foam stamps. I was trying to emulate this craft (via The Crafty Crow) but I wasn’t able to round up any plastic take-out containers or foam plates in time. Kate had some sticker-backed craft foam paper on hand so we tried that instead. Surprisingly it worked! It wasn’t perfect but it did work.

First we had the kids draw a little figure on the foam with a ball-point pen. Then Kate or I drew over their design with a dull colored pencil, making sure the line was thick and etched into the foam heavily. The sticker backing helped the pencil not go all the way through. Then we rolled on some paint, or let the kids dab on their own, and stamped away. It was loads of fun.

I think Kate and I could have stayed there all day stamping away. It’s funny how as a mom you do all these really neat crafts that you never would have thought of if you didn’t have kids, but since you do have kids you have a very small window of time in which to do them in. It’s the motherhood catch-22 I guess. But I’m not complaining.

At the end of the day we had quite the collection of cards. They’re a little bit sloppy and sometimes covered in fingerprints but I think they will work great for those times when I need to slip in a little note for a package or send off a simple “thinking of you” card.

Kid art is so sweet. I know we only have a short amount of time that they will want to share it with us. This is an easy way to make the art last a little longer. I don’t know how long these stamps will hold up but they do wash and they can be re-used. I’m sure they’ll make many more cards. It’s print-making at its crudest.

I can’t wait to see what we do next Wednesday! Long live Craft Day Wednesdays! Hopefully Kate lets me live that long. She’s going to kill me for writing this post about her.