Tuesday, March 11, 2008

the girl who has scrapover

From the "What the hell was I thinking?" files:

Last night I continued work on my super secret project for a super special someone. I've been doing it in stages because the prep work involves several steps involving wet mediums, i.e. gesso, acrylic paint and mod podge, and I wanted to take it step by step with plenty of time in between so that things would adequately dry and not warp.

I reached the final mod podge stage last night. Ah, my old arch nemesis. You see, I have a love/hate affair with mod podge. I am not the type of girl to alter things. Really, I'm not. It's something that really keeps me from joining design teams. It seems they all want an altered project EVERY month. And that's just not me. I want to join a design team that allows me to do my own thing without having to do something I wouldn't normally do just so I can show you can use your scrappy supplies for something other than layouts. But once in awhile, I do like to get my alter on and I'd like to think I'm more or less successful. When I do get it in my head to alter something, mod podge is my medium of choice, but it took a bit of a learning curve to work with it.

My first efforts warped.

Alot.

The paper wrinkled, the finish was NOT smooth and, invariably, mod podged items would end up sticking to each other.

I think I've learned the trick of it now though. And it was no huge thing either. The trick is...be patient. Take it slow and let things dry in between coats.

See, I'm always in such a hurry to get to the "fun" part (the decorating) that as soon as the first coats are down and dry-ish to the touch, I start decorating.

Nope, you can't do that.

You have to apply your thin coat and let it dry. Then sand it ever so lightly, apply your second coat and let it dry.

That's a lot of time involved just to get something ready to go to town on.

But I was good and I took my time and I held myself under control.

Until last night.

I was finishing up the second coat of mod podge last night and had all my different elements drying neatly, so I took a break with the trusty ol' laptop and played endless rounds of Poppit (so addicting) until the low battery pop up, well, popped up.

At that time it was about midnight-ish, so I decided I'd call it a night.

I had the television on the local news (nice background noise) when I heard a reminder about the night launch of the shuttle.

Well, I've never seen a night launch and I have enough of a view from my backyard that I can see the flame trail going up. So I decided to stay up the extra two hours to see if I could catch the flames through the clouds.

So in the midst of putting up my project materials, I decided the project was dry enough that I could start on the fun part of decorating it.

I pulled EVERYTHING out and lost myself in artistic bliss, only to be interrupted by the shuttle launch.

I decided that I need to share this with one of the kiddos and went to go wake up Ian, and ended up accidentally waking Zacky instead. For that I felt a little remorse. You see, the FCAT started today and we had sent the boys to bed extra early so Zacky could get plenty of sleep. This kid was so pumped and excited about taking the FCAT (I'm sure the schools are really rah-rahing it) that he went to bed like a kid on Christmas Eve. Only MY child would be excited to take a test. Bless his little nerdling heart, I'm raising him right! So he was sleeping on pins and needles of anticipation.

So with the damage done, we set up a blanket outside in the backyard aimed at the sky and waited.

And waited.

and waited.

Didn't see a damn thing.

Apparently the clouds were too thick over here and we missed it. How anticlimactic.

So I shooed Zack back to bed with a promise I'd walk over to McDonald's with him in the morning and we'd have breakfast together, just the two of us, before school.

I went back to my project with the intention of cleaning up and going to bed, but ended up wanting to finish just one more thing. Which led to just one more little thing, which led to...well, we'll just say that when my eyes were burning and my head drooping and the project was 99.9% complete, I cleaned up and went to bed.

At 5:30.

Yeah, stupid huh?

And then at 7 o'clock the alarm rings and I grudgingly get up to take my eldest to his promised Mommy date.

When I get back, everyone else (except DH) is up so I round up breakfast for everyone and start to pick up around the house only to collapse on the couch in front of the Backyardigans and completely zone out. I swear, there was a vacant stare, glassy eyes and a teeny bit of drool leaking from the corner of my mouth. Somewhere after lunch and around "Maggie and the Ferocious Beast" I finished up the project, sent the boys off for their nap and finally went to bed for two hours.

So what do I have to show for it?

Something I think is purty darn spectacular. I can't wait to give it away and secretly hope she hates it so I can keep it for myself!

Would you like to see it?

Sorry, that will have to wait, lol. As much as I want to show it off to any and everyone, I want it to be a surprise.

But here is a sneaky peeky.

The bad part is that the recipient lives out of town, so I will have to mail it to her and I won't get to see her face.

But even though I will miss that reaction and I have had maybe four hours sleep total in the past 48 hours, I just know it was so worth it.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

did you get any more rest?


I WANT TO SEE IT!!!

Unknown said...

did you get any more rest?


I WANT TO SEE IT!!!