The P word (or alternately titled: damn you pinterest)

I’ve never been able to draw. I always lost at Pictionary. And my students often laugh at my attempts to sketch anything on the board. But I have never let that try to stop my artistic expression or creative outlets.
In middle school I saved magazines pictures and made crazy collages. I covered my trapper keeper, walls, inside of my locker and mix tape covers.
In high school all of my artistic expression was focused on trying to figure out how to apply eyeliner without looking slutty ( I still haven’t figured this out) and deciding which cute boy’s last name looked best next to my first name.

In college we decorated our apartment with posters of James Dean and pretty much anything you could find at Hobby Lobby. I briefly and unsuccessfully attempted some mosaic and one very bad quilt about the size of a pillowcase.

And then I got married and moved and was all about playing house.

I watched Trading Spaces religiously. Because Ty was actually young and hot and not nearly as obnoxious back then. I sanded off all the paint on my boring dining room set and painted each piece a different crazy color. (On the Border was my motivation. And yes, I know I should be embarrased to admit that). I had even crazier ideas like wallpapering my bathroom with fortune cookie fortunes. And my husband tried to make little mini fountains. I blame Frank and Vern for these terrible ideas. When I first moved here I even took a stained glass class. And stain glass involves a soldering iron (hot) and lots of planning, precision, and attention to detail. I was a stained glass dropout with more than my share of burn blisters.

My friends started scrapbooking. And was a social crafter. I scrapped and cropped with the best of them. I even had a stampin up obsession. I’d scrounge ebay for stamps, bid my heart out and made more cards than I ever sent. (for the record, the last card I made involved giving my kid a marker and begging them please please not to draw on anything but the paper…and while they were at it…write happy birthday).  My most favorite of the crafting phases involved modge podge. And I can do some amazing things with modge podge and I love buying paper. But once I accidentally modge podged some of my student’s quizzes that I should have been grading to my brightly painted kitchen table and decided that was the end of that.

 And then, I had kids.

I hand made each of Owen’s birth announcements.
Made it through the first 4 months of a scrapbook and I havne’t cropped since.
I told my friend to sell some of those stamp sets on ebay.
And my modge podge is all dried out.

 I have several friends who are photographers, and one generously lent me (for the last 3 years) one of their cameras. And I shot my little heart out. I even took a few classes. But when they start talking ISO and appeture my eyes glaze over. I tried. I really did. And still think I take some decent pics. But they are so much better at, and I am more of a leave it in  auto kind of girl.

My crafty days are over. And I’m saving my artistic skills for things like helping my son make dioramas about Tigers in their natural habitat. (He of course, refused to let me help…and when I questioned him told me that Tigers live in Asia, so he was naming his project “Tiger – made in China”. I’m not sure he knows he is being funny. But either way I love that kid more than modge podge.)

And so, when I started reading stuff about Pinterest online last summer I checked it out. It was still pretty new and mostly just cool stuff people liked, quotes and decorate-y things. Within 10 minutes I had ordered 2 things I saw on someone’s board online and decided that maybe I should avoid the P word. Before someone repossessed my car.

Because I do not have this thing that most people have called self control. Or moderation. And I could have a phD in procrastination, so unlike most of friends I have stayed off pinterest. (just like I don’t do twitter or words with friends….because I’d never ever leave my couch if I did).

But Pinterest kept growing. And people were talking about all the cool recipes and artsy craftsy things they saw.  At lunch people would talk about how they learned how to make their own dryer sheets and other useless things like that or the cutest homemade valentines ever. (and seeing how my kids needed 20+ each, going to Target seemed like a lot of work to me….much less anything that involved scissors or glue and especially fingerpainting).  So still not pinterest for me. Although I will admitting to often clicking on people’s pins when they post stuff from their to facebook. But it often involves me trying a new recipe or feeling inadequate about the fact that I don’t make my own homemade breakfast cereal or the cutest dress from socks that have lost their mates. So I try to resist the temptation. To buy stuff. To feel inadequate. And to craft.

But today, I clicked. I couldn’t help myself. It was a kids arts and craftsy project from my favorite verse. Micah 6:8. It involved hand and foot prints and the other p-word. (paint!) and while I cooked up some new recipe that I probably also saw on pinterest I grabbed a marker, a camera and attempted to get my do-it-yourself-middle-aged-mom-artsy-craftsy-cutesy thing on.

 I kind of stunk at it. But mostly because I did it all in the time it took for the cheese to melt on our eggplant burgers.

 Dinner burned a little. My kids now think it is a great idea to write on themselves (ok, Tess has been doing this since she could hold a marker), and I now have a craving to modge podge something. Maybe all those papers I still haven’t graded.

(speaking of artsy-craftsy and drawing on yourself... check out this video. I did not find this on pinterest...but did see it on facebook......and there is a reason it has over 97 million views. I bought the song earlier this week before seeing this video and have been listening to it on repeat....but now i like it even more. maybe if i had a pinterest page I'd pin it!....)