I like to think of myself as a fairly crafty person. I am not really terribly good, but I enjoy getting creative and my creations please me very much.
It started many years ago when I made beautiful art with a dish of paint, a piece of paper and my fingers. Well, my mom liked them so much she put them on the refrigerator. I wasn’t totally pleased with them, because being right handed the right side of the paper had more detail than the left. Even if I were left handed, I don’t think it would have been any different since my left side and I don’t really get along. We tolerate each other but I would give my left arm for a good parking space.
I guess my next foray into crafts were in the hippie years. I tried my hand at quite a few different things with various levels of success. Candle making was very big and I had some friends that could make the most beautiful multi coloured candles of all shapes and sizes. Once my friend assessed my artistic skill I was put in charge of the dipped candles and the drip candles. For the dipped candles I would hold a wick in the middle and lower it into the wax and raise it and allowing it to cool. Do this a couple of hundred times and you have a nice candle. Do it in multiple colours and you are holding two rainbows in your hands. The drip candles were what you would give a severely mentally challenge person to do. You take a lit candle and drip it on the outside of a wine bottle. Do this with many different coloured candles and it looks like you have been burning candles in that bottle for years.
I also did tie-dye, although not very successfully. It turns out that it is desirable to have some kind of innate colour sense. Oh, it also is important to wear rubber gloves when you are doing it. Some things you have to find out the hard way I suppose. I made some leather crafts as well. There was the change purse sewn together with gimp, a tooled belt without any tooling and no buckle. I never use a change purse, I have always had pockets and the belt was really just a strip of leather. I did learn how to make a passable hash pipe with parts from the plumbing section of the hardware store. Still have it somewhere I think.
When we had kids I went into macaroni and glue pictures. Once when Brendan was away with Katimavic I wrote him a full page letter using alphabet macaroni on a plasticine base. It was pretty cool, but the best aspect was wondering what the rest of the kids would think. I always made birthday posters every year and I still paint a scene on the front window at Christmas.
Today, I do some wood working, mostly wood carving and wood turning but I am willing to try most things at least once. My rule is that if I nearly lose a finger or the house comes close to burning down, then perhaps I should rethink that particular activity.
I don’t know whether or not we made apple head dolls, but I remember them being kindly and happy, the kind of thing that brings a smile to your face. The last sleep over we had with Ewan he had taken two small bites out of an apple and had enough. Not being one to waste anything I thought it would be a good idea to carve this apple since I do have the carving skills. It took about two minutes to carve and has been drying ever since. My thought was that when it is ready I will give it to Ewan and he would treasure it as something his “Poppa” gave him when he was small. I’m not sure that I will give it to him.
Since it has dried I have been having nightmares and have been sleeping with large knife under my pillow and a baseball bat beside the bed.
Who would have thought that an apple could be evil?
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