Something I Did As a Child That I Will Always Remember

OK! Here I go again. I wrote this blog post yesterday and none of it saved. I refreshed the page because it was messed up and I lost it ALL. So frustrating!

So it's time again for EtsyBloggers' blog carnival. One of the topics is "Something You Did When A Child That You Will Always Remember."

I did a lot of things as a child. I remember a lot of them, although there are probably a lot more things that I don't remember or shouldn't remember. For this blog carnival I decided to pick a story that is craft-related. Sounds boring but it's not. It's a story about craft, child labor, stubbornness and once again craft.

Here it goes. Enjoy!

When I was eleven years old I was taking private art classes. My teacher had me doing all sorts of things. In class I would paint, draw, sculpt, sew, make Russian babushka dolls, make cards and more. I really loved it all. I had taken art classes my whole life, starting from pre-school and finger painting, but this class was the best. I got to do a little bit of everything and try things I would have never thought of. One of the things I really took to was making cards. My teacher had me do all kinds of crazy things with them. I was no longer confined to a piece of construction paper folded in half and box of crayons or markers. I moved past red hearts with arrows through them, balloons and flowers. My teacher had me making cards Hallmark deemed too complicated. I was the eleven year card-maker and I loved it! Until... my mother found out.

It was a few months before my twelfth birthday and my mom and I were planning my Bat Mitzvah. There are a lot of things that go into this great big party, one of them - invitations. Bad timing for my mother to find out I knew how to make incredible cards! When she saw the wonderful three-dimensional cards I was making in class, ... LIGHT BULB ... she came up with the most fabulous idea. Fabulous for an adult about to shove out a lot of money! My mother decided that it would be so special if I designed AND made my own Bat Mitzvah invitations. Not such a great idea for an eleven year old girl! A hundred or more people were being invited and I could think of a hundred or more things I would have preferred to do than sit home and hand make each invitation. I loved making cards but at that moment I would have much rather been doing a weeks worth of homework.

My mother and I argued about it. We fought. I cried. We fought some more and then she won. I was to make the invitations. I sat down to the drawing board and with my art teachers help I came up with a great invitation design - great, but complex!

The invitation mock-up was really cool. I airbrushed the cardstock blue and pasted a handmade cut out of a white dove on the front. When you opened the invitation a Star of David popped out from the center with the event date in the middle of it. On the left hand side of the card I pasted a handmade airmail envelope (with the red and blue lines all along the sides). In the envelope was another little white dove carrying a note. The note read "I hope you can attend." The rest of the card was used for the event details which I hand wrote in gold ink. As I said before, the invitation was complex.

I had fun making the first one. The second one not as much and the third hardly at all. By the fourth and fifth, I was totally over it. You could see it in my work. My invitations were beginning to become sloppy. I didn't want to make anymore. I told my mother and of course, what did she say? "Too bad!" Well, not in those words but that was the point. I made one more invitation and then I stopped. I told her I wasn't going to make anymore. She got angry. We argued. We fought. I cried. We fought some more. Finally, she compromised. We agreed that I only had to hand make invitations for my immediate family and close friends. We placed an order for the remainder of the invitations. I thought I would be okay with making approximately ten invitations but after making three more I was sick of it again. I really didn't want to do it. After all, why was I making invitations for my own party? For all I know, she was probably thinking I should make the party favors too. Once again, I refused to make more. Once again, we argued. We fought. I cried. This time I put my foot down. I was not making another card. The silly part was I only had one card left to make, but I refused anyway. My mother was mad, actually - furious. There was nothing she could do though. I wasn't going to make it. We were one invitation short and we decided we were going to send them to everyone but my grandfather. My mother made me promise that once I got over my stubbornness and lack of desire to make invitations, I would make one for my grandfather. Of course that time never came. I never made him one and he came to my Bat Mitzvah anyway - uninvited.

From that point on, I never made a card again. I was so turned off. It became a pleasure to go to the local stationary store and spend an hour looking for a card with the perfect cheesy saying. I loved Hallmark.

A few months ago I started realizing all the cards on Etsy. There are so many incredible ones. I started marking many as favorites and tried finding reasons to buy them. After looking at so many cards, I thought to myself, "I can make cool ones myself." THAT'S WHEN I NEW I GREW UP! I started looking at paper and embellishments, die cuts and other fun stuff. I started buying supplies. Now I am soon to start making cards again. I'm all grown up now.