lesson #10: sometimes things suck

If we can remember from "lesson #3: stay busy," lately, I have been "crafting."

Yep.  What, at one point, had stressed me out to an unnatural degree is now an activity I willingly and deliberately participate in.  I mean, I have always considered myself a creative person.  I like art. I like to write.  I like to act.  What silly part of me had gotten overwhelmed by sitting with on the floor and gluing?  Decorating. Making something.  It's essentially exercising the same creative muscles, right. A fun, care-free hobby.  Certainly a more positive way to spend free time than eating or laying on the couch, my other hobbies.

That is until I started the "Felt Mat Project."

Felt Mat Project 


I first read about this project on http://blogs.babble.com/family-style/2010/12/29/wow-can-you-believe-this-rug-is-made-from-stripes-of-felt/.  Looks easy enough.  Hot glue felt together.  Door mat.  Totally manageable.  Oh, right.  Actually, this project sucks.

You'll need:
Felt squares of various colors
Hot Glue
Hot Glue Gun
Scissors

Step One:
The project starts with the materials.  Really, the felt.  The colors you choose and the amount you buy will be determined by the end goal.  What it should look like when it's finished.  I tend to get carried away with my pre-project expectations.  But this didn't seem all that hard.  I ended up with: 5 red, 5 orange, 3 yellow, 3 green.  Some of this was influenced by the selection available at Michaels, but I was going to make a rose.

Step Two:
Cut the felt into strips.  I'm bad with commitment, so I only cut about half the felt at first.

Step Three:
Well, you have to start somewhere.  A rose is red, so I started with red.  By adding a dab of hot glue to part of the strip, glue the felt to itself by folding that strip over.

Continue with the rest of the strip.

Step Four: 
Continue adding pieces of felt until a form starts to emerge.  After I used a few pieces of red, I added green.  Pretty soon, it was a rose.

Step Five:
Just keep adding on.

See, this is where it fell apart for me.  The concept itself is easy enough, but this takes FOREVER.  See, no one told me what I was signing up for.  Hot glue is hot.  And sometimes, it burns your fingers.  Sometimes, it gets on the floor.  These little stringy pieces of glue sometimes pull off of what your gluing and get stuck everywhere.  If you put on too much glue, it kind of oozes out and then cools into an ugly sort of wart on the edge of the felt and looks bad.  Oh, and did I mention it takes forever?

Step Six:
Finish it.

I don't know how someone manages to finish and entire door mat.  Mine is more the size of a hot pad...only, you can't use it as a hot pad.  I hear the glue gets gooey.  So, it's nothing.  But it is finished.

The "Felt Mat Project" sat in the corner of my living room for weeks.  Waiting.  Staring at me.  I found myself dreading this "craft." That same old stress I recognized from the sorority years.  The anxiety.  The frustration.  Loathing it, but for some reason needing to finish.  

The "frame" I had envisioned is crooked.  Glueing the last pieces together, the felt didn't smoosh* like I expected, therefore the bottom right is larger than any other corner.  There are glue warts all over the freaking thing, and I don't even know what it is.  But, it is finished.  For now.  I have an unpleasant understand that, some day, I will need to revisit the "Felt Mat."  Figure out what it actually is, but not now.  For now, the "Felt Mat Project" is finally finished!

*Told you, smoosh is totally a word.