God, I am so crap at arts-n-crafts. I try not to be, but I am ultimately hamstrung by my unwillingness to buy supplies and my general hamfistedness. Thus I regularly am struck by some sort of artistic vision or seasonal hallucination and get Big Ideas about making something lovely, but what happens falls far, far short of the glorious images my mind had conjured.
Today, I was out walking Joseph up and down the alley in order to reset one of his spells of fractiousness. Most generally a little jaunt out into the fresh air sorts him out. While we were moseying down the alley, a clump of wild millet that I’d been admiring since midsummer caught my eye. I thought, “those seed heads would make a cool looking wreath, I bet.” And before I could remember how artistically incompetent I am, I’d gone and picked the lot of them. I proceeded to braid them into a wonky garland. It was there that I started to recognise the shortcomings in my planning. I thought I’d just kind of freehand form the garland into a ring and then decorate it, but the problem was that the garland is very lightweight and floppy. I’d wrapped it around my forearm, like you’d do an electrical cord. When I removed my arm, it collapsed itself into a fuzzy figure-eight. Eventually, I scavenged the inner section of a broken embroidery hoop and secured the garland to the hoop with hemp ties. It looked pretty naked, so I added in some of the millet leaves to bulk it out. Still looked kind of sad, so I started gathering fallen leaves and poking them in around the inside of the hoop, to cover the wood and ties. Better. It’s lopsided and a bit crap, but it’s about as good as I can reasonably be relied upon to produce.
Until we get the woodstove hooked up, it, along with the pumpkins I have yet to bake will serve as some sort of festive decor.
Speaking of festive decor, I’m going to be making some attempt at Christmas decoration for the first time in my adult life. I’m sure I will be fighting a pitched but losing battle to keep the cats from destroying it, but I thought, “how sad would it be to have no Christmas Tree present in the photos from Joseph’s first Christmas.” And the answer was, “very sad, indeed.” So, there we go. Now, on to find a decent re-usable tree.
I like your garland wreath! I am not good at arts and crafts too, but I love to do them. I am in no way etsy-worthy… but when one of my projects actually turns out nice, it is such a great surprise, I jump up and down! So don’t give up… its really a lot of trial and error.
I think if I were more committed to arts-n-crafts things would go better. If I had proper supplies and tools for each project and actually planned my work. If I approached making decorative oddments the way that I approach sewing, it would surely turn out better, but for whatever reason, I fail to give just enough of a rats in regards crafts. I reckon I might have it in me, but I suspect my failure comes in on the attitude side!
I bought a spool of green floral wire and I love it. It’s good for wrapping things around other things, wreathishly. Also works for making braids that stick out like Pippi Longstocking’s. Sometimes there is nothing so satisfying as a teeny art project.