I want to be talented and creative, but despite a rather heavy gene pool when it comes to artistic tendencies, those genes skipped me completely. My great-aunt was an art major and very talented. My maternal grandma could duplicate a dress just by looking at it (no patterns needed). She also painted with oils and made up fabulous stories. My mother and aunt could, write, sew, draw, paint, whatever they wanted to do. Both could easily pick up anything they wanted to try and it usually came out well. My mother, in particular, always had some project going on, the leavings of which filled every spare corner of her house. My sisters were the same way, too, one having attended Penn State as a graphic design major.
It's no wonder that, with all that talent, the gene pool ran out of creative DNA when I finally arrived. There I was on the Monday following Thanksgiving, staring at bolts of fabric I knew nothing about and trying to decide what I needed (beyond "white") to turn my already-precious daughter into a precious angel.
Fortunately for me, I've always wanted to learn how to sew but I haven't had the time. One Christmas The Oracle heard my desires and purchased a rebuilt Singer for my birthday/Christmas gift. At least I had the equipment to do the job even if I didn't fully understand how to use it. I bought double what I thought I'd need in fabric to compensate for my ineptitude and set to work.
Overall, my efforts weren't half bad. Precious Daughter wasn't too pleased with the result, but I was so frustrated with the process that her complaints were summarily dismissed. By the time the wings were finished, she'd changed her mind.
The hardest part involved those wings. Shoot, I didn't know how to make wings. The only thing I knew I wanted was feathers, and I wasn't sure how to accomplish that. I even looked at my pictures from last year's pageant, but I couldn't glean anything useful from last year's angels.
As I dragged Precious Daughter through the aisles at Michaels Crafts, I was blessed with inspiration (thank you, Mom, Grandma, Aunt M., etc.). Two thin sheets of white craft foam, a glue gun, and two baggies of feathers later, and I was in business. Once I cut the wing shapes out, I actually had quite a bit of fun gluing the feathers on as the kids stared at Chicken Little for the umpteenth time and DEB kept asking what I was doing. I burned myself several times with the blasted glue, but we'll just ignore that.
I made her don this costume again on Christmas Day so her aunt and uncle/godfather could see it and also because my pageant pictures turned out with that creepy red eye. The kids all look possessed.
Precious Daughter was a bit irritated with me, so I threatened to send all her gifts back to the North Pole if she didn't comply. Was that a bit harsh?
Ain't she sweet?
No comments:
Post a Comment