Quilling

For some reason, I really want a button maker. It’s not a wild hair idea…I think I’ve wanted a button maker since I was six years old. All I got was a bunch of those crappy snap together buttons.

I want a Button Biz maker. They’re like $300 dollars. Yikes!

I think my current idea…is mood buttons. A few people make them…but I’m thinking more like mood announcement buttons. Depressed, Anxious for no particular reason, PMS, Sick, Tired…excessively perky. Need my dog. Need more coffee.

If only I could draw…or at least doodle. Maybe I can recruit a drawer. And there’s always the wonder of slogan buttons. I had one for a little bit that said “Medicated for your protection.” Came in handy.

Maybe the amount of quilling I’ve been doing lately has got me into a crafty mood. But I think it’s more of the need to be doing something I like…rather than feeling like poople all the time.

(Poople. I just made that up. It’s a combination of “poop” and “people.” Poople. But…I’m trying to avoid the whole getting an idea and then immediately plunking down cash thing. Though…my last couple of cash plunks seemed to do well…the Fujitsu scanner…is DREAMY. And I love my netbook.)

Anyway…quilling is an art of patience. Last night…while watching three episodes of Law and Order and I managed to make two poinsettias and started a rather complicated snowflake. I need to get into Mom’s Christmas decorations so I can dig out the ornaments that Aunt Darlene made…and see if they’re something I can copy. She had the mad quilling skillz.

And…though it’s a little more popular than it was in the 90’s…it’s still not wildly popular. I have to mail order supplies. Thank Jeebus for

I bought a few extra quilling boards and tools for our “Women’s Craft Event” here at work. It was really just a bunch of crazy women with wine and glue guns. Fun. I wasn’t expecting to actually have my own table or anything like that…and I had four women who were pretty interested in learning.

It was nice…the feeling of imparting something I know to someone else. Gave me one of those warm and fuzzy feelings inside.

I couldn’t count the number of times someone said, “But my snowflake doesn’t look as nice as YOUR snowflake does.” Well…no. For one, I learned how to quill when I was eight. That’s 30 years ago. What do you expect? I wasn’t that great the first time I got behind the wheel of a car either.

It’s not hard to master…but it’s tricky to get consistency when you’re first starting a project. If you need six teardrops for a flower…make eight and pick the best six. THAT’S why my stuff look as nice as it does. If I make a subpar circle…I toss it. But when I have one hour to impart the basics of an art that women used to learn in finishing school…and snowflakes STILL look passable…well, not a bad accomplishment.

But…I still have the urge to do something…and do it well. And in the crafty department…quilling is what I’m good at. Buttons? Not a skill or a craft…but maybe more of a need to express myself.

So…I’m filling out the paperwork to teach quilling at the Park District. We’ll see how that goes.