stop it right now

this is for all you intrepid christmas crafters out there.

i'm begging you--stop making christmas stuff right now.

i'm not talking to you common-sense folks.  you're smart enough to know that buying christmas craft/sewing/knitting supplies at this time of year should be a recreational activity, designed to bring you pleasure in a pastime you love--not an enslaving enterprise requiring military precision and emergency provisions.

no, i'm talking to all you loving, tender, sensitive souls who are about to succumb (or have already succumbed) to the annual ritual of scouring the sunday newspaper ads to find the best deals on polar fleece, thinking, "this will be the year that everybody on my list will get a personalized, handmade snuggle blanket with a pair of coordinating slippers in their favorite colors with embroidered monogram". 

i'm talking to those of you who are thinking at this very minute, "if i start this afternoon, i can hand knit sweaters for every member of my family in their favorite colors and a coordinating pair of mittens with embroidered monogram."

and i'm talking to all of you who have already made lists of all the people in your neighborhood/office/church/child's classroom who you feel obligated to provide something "meaningful", "thoughtful", and "cheap".

all the while missing out on things like riding around looking at christmas lights--watching "rudolf the red-nosed reindeer"--or snuggling up under the christmas tree, singing christmas carols and dreaming of a white christmas.

why do you do this to yourself???  stop it right now.

you know how it always turns out.  you spend 5 hours in line at jo-anns on the morning after thanksgiving, holding all the stuff you want to buy in your arms because there were no available shopping carts when you got there at 6:05am, and you bring home half a dozen bags of supplies, and then you spend every evening until christmas eve sequestered in your craft room cursing the day you said you'd make a handmade anything, and swearing by all that is holy that you will NEVER. DO. THIS. AGAIN.

remember?

and you know that you will only have gotten half the supplies you need, but you won't discover which ones are missing until you are within minutes of finishing something, by which time it will be the fourth night in a row that you have spent up crafting/sewing/knitting till 1am, and when you wake up in the morning and get dressed to run out to get the rest of your supplies you will discover that you made a critical crafting/sewing/knitting mistake the night before because you are really not at your brightest at 1am.

remember?

and you know that no matter how much time, money, and attention you lavish on your gifts, at least one person will hurt your feelings by not going eye-poppingly insane over the fact that you made it by hand.

remember?

so--i propose a christmas crafting revolt.  that's right, i propose we all stop making christmas presents RIGHT NOW.

i'll do my part--this year, i'm NOT going to knit mittens for every child in my extended family, nor am i going to make custom-designed slippers for the adults.  i'm NOT going to make hand-quilted handbags for ella's school teachers.  and i'm not going to make "cute", "darling", or heaven-forbid "precious" little token gifts for any of my co-workers.

nope--i'm going to spend one morning this week SHOPPING for things for the kids--pre-made, store-bought, "things" which i will wrap with pre-made, store-bought paper, and i will get on with my life.  i can't tell you what i'm doing for the adults--because too many of them lurk on this blog.  :P

but i know how you crafters are--because i'm that way too--a complete crafting/sewing/knitting moratorium is akin to a death sentence.  so--if you absolutely, positively, must make gifts, please promise yourself that you'll only make things that you can start and finish THE SAME DAY.  things that you already have the supplies for.  things that, if the recipient doesn't faint from enchantment and promise to cherish it to the end of their days, your heart won't be broken, because it only took you an hour and you already had the stuff anyway and you spent the rest of your time baking cookies with your kids, or pouring over the target wish book.

i'll even help you keep this promise:  as often as possible between now and christmas eve, i'll share with you some simple ideas that i hope will help you get out of the craft room and back to your family .  the one i have today is something that literally took me 15 minutes--and it gets RAVES every time someone sees it.  it is this humble switch plate, which i made by drawing on it with hot glue, letting it dry (cool?  harden?  what exactly does hot glue do?), then painting it with some copper-colored paint left over from painting our dining room ceiling.

there, that's the entire tutorial.

feel free to adapt this to your own design.  perhaps you'd like to include jewels as you apply the hot glue--maybe you want to make yours more geometric--i'm thinking i will make one that has good luck charms in it, for a friend who is buying her first home.  whatever i end up doing, i promise you i will get it done in an hour or less and then i'll spend the rest of the afternoon collecting leaves with my little girl.

ok, it's your turn!   leave me a comment telling me what you're NOT going to make this christmas, and on wednesday i'll put all the names in a hat and have ella draw one out, the winner will get a piece of hand-dyed fabric that she and i are going to decorate this afternoon with rubbings from the leaves we collect. 

now get out there and stop crafting!