the tale of a craft

ben and i made this wreath yesterday. toilet paper rolls painted with some leftover paint from another project. it was supposed to be a fun little easy, mindless project. supposed to be. so before you think, "oh mary, you're so creative and do such fun projects with your kids"( which is what smug internal dialogue mary told me when i came up with this idea), let me tell you what really happened.

while ben and max played with play-doh, i got the supplies out. hoping max would stay content with eating/playing with the play-doh, i called ben over. but of course, as soon as ben started painting, max lost it, wanting to paint too. not wanting to deal with a baby using acrylic paint, i tried to distract him with a paint brush and his own, very hard paper towel roll. he threw the paint brush down and hit me in the eye with the paper towel roll. max literally screamed the whole time ben painted the tp rolls that i would hold on my fingers. the first roll i helped him paint (annoyed that he wasn't painting the whole roll completely), after which i realized, i liked how it looked half painted/ben style much better. so with max screaming we persevered. ben got tired of painting them, so towards the end, i fake ben-style painted the last few rolls. but only after i cleaned off the table, where he had painted it after managing to push back the four layers of protective newspaper i had put down.

after letting the rolls dry (and calming max down) i strung them on to the jute twine, fully expecting them to make a perfect wreath circle, which i could then hang up and be done. instead, because the twine was just that-twine, it instead formed a pathetic, droopy oval. really, really annoyed and contemplating throwing the rolls into the wood burning stove, i went and found a wire hanger that i untwisted and made into a circle. after several wimpy attempts at twisting the hanger back together and unsuccessfully searching for ben's plastic pliers to aid me, i taped the ends of the hanger together with electrical tape. of course i had to unwind and re tape it three times because it still wasn't "circling" right. i finally just gave up/settled and called it good enough. i them hung it up and went to get ready for mass. a few minutes later while i was getting ready, ben was talking to me from the bottom of the stairs. when i came around the corner to hear him better, he was swinging my precious wreath around. although i didn't threaten to break his arms if he touched it again, i didn't exactly handle the moment with grace.

lessons i learned from this little easy, mindless project:

1. projects are never as simple as i think they are going to be. especially with the boys around. if it's something that i really care about the outcome, don't do it with the boys, or at least not with max around. maybe i should just stick to reading crafty blogs and be content.

2. don't be so dang smug internal dialogue mary. otherwise, real mary has to learn the humbling lessons that quiet you. when i'm tired and my brain is fried, i shouldn't try to pass the time with a multiple step art project. that's the time for some pbs and a mommy time-out.

3. learned from amykarol- if you don't like the final result of your project, leave it alone for a little while and when you come back to it, you'll be less critical of it/actually like the outcome.