Crafty Christmas

I decided to make Christmas cards to send friends and loved ones this year, completely forgetting that cat-hair gravitates towards pritt-stick like docile iron-filings obeying a stern magnet. It seemed such a good idea at the time…

I have a rather sizable collection of art and craft materials – mainly from my time studying illustration and discovering the delights of a cheap University shop. But my hoarding started way before then – somewhere in my cupboards I have vicious smelling bottles of ancient poster paint, painted pebbles and shells from random holidays, and scrap-books full of cut-out cards. One day all my collection will be in one place and I will be able to throw manky bits away, sigh happily and create wonder with the rest of it. At least that is the fond hope. In the meantime, I keep a selection of useful bits easily accessible, things like tissue paper, card, beads, and shiny material, basically stuff I can play with should I feel inspired.

Did I tell you I used to sell hand-made cards? I left a job after two years, sick of not being creative, and decided that I would make cards and sell paintings. I threw myself enthusiastically into this idea, and although I made some foolish mistakes (never buy cardboard frames and then put them somewhere they will warp), I did have a shop selling my designs, and I had a stall on a farmer’s market. It was fun, but not a way to make a living - at least not how I did it!

Anyway, I decided that I had all the ingredients to make Christmas cards this year, so to speak, and it was silly to buy a new packet when I had everything to hand. Of course though, I had to buy more Pritt-stick, as my old ones had dried to a crisp, and then I had to buy blank cards and envelopes, as the ones I had were tiny. And then there is actually sitting down to make them... so far I have spent £3.50 on this venture, and it has taken me a whole day to produce ten cards.
Maybe not so economical in the long run, come to think about it. I more than likely could buy a box set of cards from Woolworths for about ten pence, given their sad state of affairs. But will they have bonus cat hair? I think not.

These are my main designs so far (I generally create a few designs I like, and then repeat them, occasionally switching the colours around). The sheet music on the top card is from one of my favourite songs (hymn?) The Holly and The Ivy, and the empty tag on the second card will be for the person's name. The candles on the next cards are made from beads. I have another ten to make, and then that is it for this year - no more! Anything I do at the moment that is not a) job-hunting or b) editing makes me feel guilty and worried, but card-making today was a lovely distraction!

Interview!

Hooray – one of my hugely long application forms cast out into the world has netted me an interview next week! I am really pleased, firstly as I didn’t think this would happen until next year, and secondly as the job itself sounds really interesting. I shall have to do a ton of research between now and then, but already I can feel my confidence return in bubbling rushes, like the fizz sparkling through newly-opened champagne. Phew – considering much of that was fast pouring down the plug hole, it is brilliant to feel happy again.

When being asked about my availability, I would love to answer in excited gushing bursts, like below:

‘Yes! Of course I am available! What date suits me? Whenever is best for you! Six in the morning, eight in the evening, anytime! I can jog alongside you reciting successes while you are in the gym, I can shout my CV over a bathroom partition, I can serve you tea and pass my portfolio along with the biscuits! Anytime, I don’t mind!’

But of course that didn’t happen. Instead I consult an imaginary calendar, (as am very-imaginary-important) and we settle on a date / time in a grown up and adult manner. It is only when I am off the phone do I yell ‘yippee’, caper around the living room and phone J to excitedly gabber down the phone at him. He excitedly gabbers back. Woohoo!

And even if I don’t get this job, it is all good experience at the end of the day, so it really is a win/win situation. I have shortlisted a few more jobs to apply for this week as well... but all of a sudden I feel inspired to edit the novel instead. Confidence and happiness work wonders!

Let me show you my shower…

When you stay overnight with friends, there will come a moment where they will feel compelled to explain how their shower works, as if only yesterday the invention stopped us all sluicing in puddles.

The explanation will nearly always involve a demonstration, at which point we will both troop into the bathroom so the host can point at the shower while they speak, and show me the taps. My response to such wonders will be to nod gravely in the manner of a visiting expert, possibly the Antiques Roadshow Shower Specialist (with a forte in 1980’s stainless steel).

All showers, enthuse their owners, are a little temperamental. You have to coax the hot tap and caress the cold until you get water that won’t scald or freeze off your assets. Every person I stay with has a different technique – I am waiting for the one that says the shower will only work if you knock three times on each tap before serenading the thing with songs from MGM musicals. It’s the bathroom equivalent of OCD – soon I will have to touch everything shiny in the room just to be allowed to get some water out of its annoying, sprinkly head.

And that’s if the shower is a straight-forward affair, god forbid if it has a lever to switch it between shower or bath, or a switch to turn on before you step in, or basically anything. Some showers I have been introduced to are like an assembling puzzle on the Krypton Factor.

‘So switch this on before you enter the bathroom, and then stamp on the dodgy floorboard, and then feel up both radiators just because everyone always feels up radiators, and then turn that switch, move that lever and then the dial behind controls the temperature so keep an eye on that as it creeps, turn on the taps and off you go! Oh but if you forget the exact order of what I have just said then you’ll turn on the neighbour’s bath instead, cause a flood and drown his cute kittens. Enjoy!’

It’s a shower, I want to say, how hard can it be? Yet I am never puzzled or amused by the demonstration of the shower, it’s an expected ritual when staying somewhere overnight. If the host does not mention the shower, I will be compelled to ask about it, and whether it is ‘easy to use’. What am I expecting, the Einstein of showers? Some sort of MC=Shower to complete before I get in? But just as I am never puzzled to be shown a shower, despite my thirty-odd years of experience with such watery things, so the host will never be curious as to why I have asked.

And no matter how many explanations or demonstrations, I always without fail will turn the bath on first, but at least no cute kittens have come a cropper. Yet.

Bendy working practices

‘You should have a very flexible approach to work…’ says the form – my problem is I just read this as ‘bendy’. I have a very bendy approach to work. A very wiggly advance on employment.

Yes – I am still bobbing along (bobbing along) at the bottom of the beautiful briny sea of application forms. The places I am applying for all interview in January, but I really didn’t expect to get somewhere before Christmas, considering the various crunchy state of my chosen industry. I think they are all waiting to see what Santa brings them (Santa being the Financial Director of course).

The only problem with bobbing along (bobbing along) is that I should be full-speed ahead on the book, but every job application not only takes me ages, but takes my thought-process miles away from being creative. It’s all formal and grown up ways of expression, and although my book is not written in the style of lolcats (I can has novel?), it’s not written in the style of application forms either.

Oh well, the end is in sight with the current form so if I just stop thinking ‘wiggly’ when I see the word ‘flexible’ I shall get there. Let's end the post on a giggle...