Craftin' Pincushion

Boy, have I been at it! The erstwhile pincushion (I'm surprised there is any blood left in me) has actually completed two (yes TWO!) craft projects this week. That is a new world record! Usually I manage one every couple of years. Even my husband was excited for me. Just kidding. I did a mini album and an explosion box (pictures of box at left). I had to do a little original thinking (boy was the smoke rolling out of the house, I am sure the neighbors thought I was shooting bottle rockets at the cats!). I was following a pattern on a Mini Book class I missed and realized that they had skipped a letter (A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,K,--no J). Being the perfectionist that I am, I HAD to add the letter. I thought I was going to have a panic attack with the thought of having to come up with something of my own. I finally came up with something and felt like a pretty fart smeller (uh, pretty smart feller). Then, as I got ready to put on the last page, I realized I put in one too many pages. Lord have mercy, I had to come up with ANOTHER letter (L) and page design. I've moved up to smoke bombs by now. About the time I had the last idea, the DH starts up the riding lawn mower inside our "John Deere" room, which has a smoke alarm in it tied to the rest of the house,and yep, off they all went. I thought it was a message from the Lord, "I gave you one original thought, two is pushing it." Normally the DH doesn't start the mower in the JD room, but he said he was tired of pushing it out of the room through the double doors (aka, LAZY). Amazing how long alarms can go off when carbon dioxide is involved. He had to stand on a stool for about 15 minutes along with two fans and fan the alarm so it would stop. As soon as he would quit, they'd start all over again. Bet he doesn't do THAT again.

So, I finished the book and decided to go all in and do my explosion box kit. As usual, I had to make adjustments. One of the precut pieces was the wrong size. I actually had to use my math skills (OK, the calculator on my Mac) to figure out how much needed to come off. I only had a picture to go by, so there was a lot of winging it which almost cost me a bottle of valium. I decided I wanted the lid sides thinner, and the kit didn't come with the ribbon or the rub-on letters so I actually had to make more creative choices from my stash. The room was spinning. Cliff says it's not a stash, it's a store. Whatever. I pulled out some cute flower ribbon for the lid, some bubble letters and decided to put "kitty friends" on the top since the letters were a lot smaller than the rub-ons (it was supposed to be "friends"). Then, for my "coup de gras" (my hubby speaks French, those silly Canadians have to be bilingual) I used punched retro flowers covered with Mod Podge on the box sides. Too cute. Even the hubby liked it, and he wasn't lying this time, I don't think. It's so hard to read those British Canadians...