A cleaner, safer studio... !?!

David (my hubby) got home much earlier than usual last night because all the games around here were rained out (he's a sports reporter as well as about a hundred-ca-billion other things) and he got his pages done earlier than ever.

I was working like a dog in my little studio trying to quickly put together a 10-card line of birthday Hot Snots before I send out catalog requests from the NSS. He comes in and says something like, "well, you look happy out here surrounded by all your stuff." And I says, "what do you mean? I can't even get the dogs to stay out here with me. I'm mad at them." And he says, "I mean all your stuff. It's all around you."

Well, like every other woman on the planet, I was really offended. I said how dare he and stuff like that and said I needed help to clean up my studio because it was too crowded and I made a lot of nonsensical accusations.

This morning, I went back out to finish the first phase of my drawings and I had never seen such a mess in my life. Nothing had changed. I just hadn't looked at it. Every nook and cranny was piled with VERY IMPORTANT projects I had abandoned at one point or another. Even my sister's birthday present which I started about two years ago and never finished (it was just TOOO hard!) was still laying there. Good night America.

So, instead of working on my drawings and doing what I said I would do, I spent the morning and all afternoon cleaning and throwing away. I even threw away some of my big projects that I know I'll never complete. As my little friend Lynne knows, that is VERY hard for me to do... I always think I'm going to rescue some abandoned thing but I guess, unless it's a dadgum cat, I never do.


During the course of my cleaning, I decided to put a few little abandoned cards into little abandoned frames and I think I kind of like them. I'm going to take them to the shop and incorporate them into our display for Hot Snot cards.

We spent yesterday working on the layout for the display at the shop... and as usual, we made everything harder than it needed to be because we refuse to spend money on anything. We are making the display racks (I am NOT going to pay two- or three-hundred dollars for stupid display pieces from China!) and so now that will take me at least a week because everything has turned out to be harder than I bargained for. I get so sick of me I could vomit almost all the time.

Anyway, it was Erica's idea about how to do the birthday cards. Actually, she had a more elaborate concept than I am willing to bang out in time for the catalog, but she had the idea about the little birthday hats. All the Hot Snot dolls wear things on their heads so I didn't know what it would be like, but now that they are well on their way to being ready for drawing, I pretty much think they are cute. If they dry thoroughly this afternoon, I will try to finish one and post it to see what you think.

Lastly, I am really grateful to have everything I need, to do everything I need to do with my Snots. Many times in my life (and still many times now in other areas), I feel I struggle against not having the resources I need to adequately do what I want to do or need to do. When I was little, we had a series of Childcraft books and, as I have told my daughters to their eye-rolling laughter several times, BOOK NUMBER NINE was my favorite. Book Number Nine was the Craft book and BOY! Did I ever want to make EVERYTHING in that book! It all looked so premium.

Alas, I never had the supplies. We had the standard things a kid should have: notebook paper, glue, scissors, crayons, pencils. But that was it. I wanted real bad to make a cardboard hide-out like in the book out of big appliance boxes. But nobody ever brought big appliances in boxes to our house. And I REALLY wanted to make a pair of sandals for school. I did make them too. But notebook paper sandals that are glued together (we didn't have fancy tape to waste on our crap... that was for my mom!) won't even hold up all the way from one side of the living room to the other.

I would always plan out my projects in my head before I made them too. So, after looking in the Childcraft and seeing how good it all looked, I was always so surprised that MY sandals were pieces of crap when I was done with them. I just KNEW they were going to be beautiful leather sandals when I was done. But they never were. Not even once. I always lived with a series of letdowns. Nothing ever matched my imagination.

Thank you to my hubby and to my God for giving me what I need to make my pretties. Now, if only one or the other of you would help me kind of keep that stuff cleaned up, I would be mighty appreciative. After all, I can't do everything around here.

Love, d.