Week 8: Part "Greencraft," Part "Create With Me."

A coffee can, a corn can, and the bucket that my neighbor gave me tomatoes in last year. :)

I'd been using these old containers for my art supplies for about a year.  I just decided to dress them up a bit. I'd thought about sending them into "GreenCraft" magazine (and I still might) when something interesting happened:



"This is *my* "Kelly Rae Roberts" heart. Mommy can't have it. Daddy can't have it. My sister can't have it..."



My two-year-old seriously thinks that the best time of the day is when she gets to cut paper with Mommy.  Scissors are new and fascinating. Mommy's studio is old and fascinating. Paper is freaking awesome.  The problem is when she gets ahold of the *wrong* paper:



This paper was okay to cut.

I wasn't sure how, but last week the little monkey got ahold of the WRONG paper!  It was lying in carefully cut shreds next to my smiling sweetie, who said, "I made a heart!"  I smiled back and said, "Oh, that's a nice heart, honey!"  But what I was thinking INSIDE was: "Oh no! Not my Misty-Mawn-Sommerset-Studio-Insert-Birdsong-Themed-paper-that-I-was-saving-for-something-special!" 

I put it in a collage background and wept a little bit. ;-)

The next time it happened, I found out how: the little sweetie figured out how to use a stool to get to Mommy's paper stash, while Mommy was switching out the laundry. 

See? There's a lesson here: don't mix art and laundry.

That time, I was finishing my "GreenCraft" cans up, and quickly figured how to use two-year-old, reclaimed shredded paper that was close to my heart:

Lovingly made with the little one's paper pieces.

This is the very first craft we made "together."  Sort of together.  Hopefully there will be more. :)

More updates to come tomorrow.

Just had that "moment."

I just sent off some tags and ephemera, and had that "moment."  I love that "moment."   I remember when I first read a novel and realized I could write just as well.  I remember when I first heard a song that sounded just like one I'd written.  (that has happened over and over again, lol! I love it even more when my husband calls me and says, "This song on the radio is just like one you wrote 5 years ago!")

 Today, that moment happened when I realized I'd made some crafts that I would actually have paid money for.  It felt good. :) It banishes the enemy's lies that say, "You're not good enough, and this is not worth your time.  This is useless, and you'll never gain anything from it." 

I had another moment today with the oldest princess. 

I was wrestling her tights over her toes, and she said, "It must be a hard job being a mommy." 
I laughed out loud and said, "Yes, but I like it better than any other job I've had."
"Really?" She looked up at me with shocked eyes. "Even better than working at the ring store?"
"Yes, DEFINITELY better than working at the ring store.  Better than singing.  Better than being an artist."
"Wow!" she said. "Daddy, Mommy likes being Mommy better than being an ARTIST!"

Yes, I do, baby.  I really do. 

At one time, I truly regretted turning away from the singer-songwriter lifestyle. It broke my heart that I couldn't do everything I loved to do, and that suddenly there was nothing I could do well.  Everything about motherhood, from the housekeeping to the cooking, the organizing to the sanitizing, was foreign to me.  Prior to motherhood, I made up for my organizational failures by being loving at home and being a people-person at work.  However, when babies came, I did everything wrong, and every day there was something I should have done differently. (Heh, and when I voiced this feeling, people told me it was "wrong" to feel that way, lol! So even my emotions were wrong!  I couldn't even "feel" the right way!)  For too many years of my life, I felt like a constant failure. 

Now, several things have come into play that helped.  For one, I realize that, if I hadn't had a family, and if I'd become that singer-songwriter, I'd be sitting in a cafe' somewhere on the road, writing deep songs about wanting a family.  Seriously.  When I'm 80 years old, no one will care about the songs I sang.  I wouldn't want them to.  I would not want someone to have attached themselves *that* deeply to something I create. When I'm 80, I would much rather have a husband who still loves me for who I am, and a bundle of children, spiritual children, and grandchildren that said, "You fed my soul, mind, and body with love and joy."  That's what I want. It took a while to realize that, and to mourn the dream that was gone.  Only when I let it go did I realize I had something so much better.

Another thing that helped is realizing that, until Jesus comes again, new days keep dawning.  There's another day to work on it.  I've never failed at anything I've put my hand to do, and God willing, I won't fail at this.  I'm never going to be Martha Stewart.  Thank God.  (I can't stand the Martha Stewart Book of Crafts anyway.) I am going to be a creative, joyous influence on my kids, and a refreshing, loving wife for my husband. 

Anyway, my 2-year-old princess insists that monsters are upstairs in her room, and I have to go scare them away.  I told her that monsters are scared of Mommy.  Mommy's going to go get rid of those monsters.  Grrrr.....

Week 6-7: Beautiful joyous craziness.

This is only the stuff from last week! I'm going to have to blog more often, just to keep up!

I sent off my very first accepted piece to Green Craft magazine on Monday! I think I floated at least an inch off the ground the entire day.

 I looked at an earlier version, and ached for more detail in the journal.  I added the cute little girl and the tags almost as an afterthought, but it just made the whole piece look  much happier and brighter.  The tags are made from recycled cereal boxes, then distressed, and the little girl was printed on recycled paper, so it was still green enough. Sort of.  ;) 

I wasn't sure if it would fit in better with their spring or autumn editions, so I flipped the cover over and....

 ...did a little more.  Again, I just felt like there wasn't enough detail in the journal, so I found this adorable little vintage girl, and made her my dream-gardener. 

We were running out the door to Columbus, and I couldn't change the lenses on my camera, so neither of the pics are as focused as I'd hoped. BUT it felt so wonderfully wonderful to have this finished, sent off, and never to worry about it again.

So I made some crayons. :)

Target had an awesome $2.50 silicone cupcake-mold during Valentine's day.  I should have bought four.  I made a couple of dozen heart-shaped, rainbow crayons from broken ones laying around the house (and a few extra boxes I picked up at Dollar General, once I got excited about it).

The girls had a blast helping me with these. The two-year-old kept saying, "I'm peeling crayons with mommy! Oh, she lets me break crayons!" (yikes!) For the next two days, every time she found a crayon, she would say, "Here, Mommy, put it in the oven!"  As soon as they got "their very own heart," as they called it, they ran around the house acting like I'd given them a gold-plated hummer. 

So simple.  Yet it gave them so much joy.

My goal has been to blog once a week.  However, I'm doing *so much crafting* that I'm losing track of blogging in the process.  That's not a bad thing!  It's just that I want the community and accountability that posting my work brings.  So, I've decided to blog at least twice a week through the rest of this challenge, because otherwise I won't  remember to!

Princess Kate Engle will get a bookmark in the mail next week. :)