The Craft

"Let's do a craft, Mommy!"

As most of you know, if you’ve been following me at all, I have a general fear of crafts. My palms get sweaty, and I begin almost hyperventilating even at the thought of doing one; it’s pretty pathetic. Is there a craft phobia? Anyway, despite this craft dread, I still push myself, from time to time, to get on the craft wagon and pull something out of my sleeves, for my girls’ sake. Abby, especially, is incredibly drawn to any kind of craft, that and cooking (another not-so favorite of mine). So for her sake, mainly, I stretch myself. I feel like Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady,” quoting repetitiously, “I’m a good girl, I am.” I’m trying, really.

So prompted by a friend’s craft project, and seeing the endless seasonal possibilities in it, I dove into this particular project. Before beginning this little venture, I did no preparation for it, short of buying the materials. With little ones, I now realize that was my first mistake. It does take minimal preparation, but I unfortunately discovered this after I started. So as I’m trying to cut the Con-Tact paper, I set Abby to work on chopping up little pieces of tissue paper. She begins by holding the kid’s scissors upside-down, fiercely intent on trying to chop up that tissue into tiny shapes. Even after righting the scissors, she is making absolutely no headway at creating any significant amount of cuttings, but it keeps her busy while I frantically fight with the Con-Tact paper. It's very unwieldy, probably because I bought the rolled shelf-liner variety, which curls incessantly no matter how I try to pry it apart. Esther, meanwhile, is perched on the other side of me, voicing her discontent at having nothing to do, “Me too, Mom. Me too.”

The panic is beginning to elevate now. It becomes all too clear now why I loathe crafting. I think it has more to do with the age of my children and the fear of failing miserably at creating a pleasurable moment than for any other reason. Eric is sitting behind me on the couch, working on his lesson plans for the week, as I let out a feebly choked cry for help. I can feel my neck tensing up. “You’re going to need to do this with me, honey; I’m losing it.” He, thankfully, comes to my rescue.

With him safely at Esther’s side, keeping her distracted for a minute, and Abby relinquishing the job of tissue cutting to me now, a plan is forming. I think it might work. I finally manage to make the Con-Tact paper lie flat (the trick is to pull the backing off of it). Abby is then started on pressing the tissue paper against the sticky side, the first step in these mini stain-glass windows. She knows bedtime follows shortly, however, so she’s cleverly working at a snail’s pace. Esther is more interested in wadding up the tissue paper into little balls than she is in placing them on the Con-Tact paper; we try to dissuade her from this, but she will have none of it. When she’s wadded up every last tissue scrap in front of her, she looks at me and begins chanting her mantra, “More, Mom. More, Mom. More, Mom.” So Eric finishes her project for her; she couldn’t care less anyway. She's just as happy when we hand her more tissue paper scraps to wad.

When all is said and done, there is tissue paper absolutely everywhere. I actually decide to make one more sun-catcher just so that I can use the sticky side of the Con-Tact paper to pick up the cuttings all over the floor. The girls are pleased with their “leaves.” It was a delightful and relatively simple fall project, even if it almost killed me in the process.