Super Fatty Crafter

I'm a teacher by trade, fairly new at it, but I completely embrace some aspects with enthusiasm and excitement, other aspects I cuddle like a drunken relative that I would really rather avoid.

One of the aspects I adore is the requirement to have stationary. Lots and lots of stationary. Since being little I've always felt the need to buy stationary and every new start of term was a wonderful excuse to buy a new pencil case, all the contents and whatever novelty rubber set that was popular at the time. So when I was given a stationary catalogue and told I could make a list I nearly imploded trying to maintain my professional demeanour whilst secretly wanting to wee myself with excitement. For the record I haven't wee'd myself with excitement for a long time but you get the picture at how thrilled I was now.

The stationary arrived but then the conundrum, how to display such goodies?

Decopatch was clearly the only sane way to go.

Ladies and gents (I know of at least one fella that reads this) there we have:

1. A shoe box

2. Two pop bottles

3. Two milk cartons

4. A margarine tub and a

5. A water bottle 

All decopatched in an array of purples, pinks, blues and greens. A maximum of three colour shades per item of course.

I take this beauty into class with me knowing I will always have the implements to support my students. Although as stationary is so important to me, should a student need to borrow a pen I do require a shoe deposit.

The decopatch took me a couple of days - there was a lot that needed drying time- and pretty much emptied my recycling bin for that afternoon. At which point I realised I was partially responsible for keeping 7 items out of machines to regurgitate fumes into our environment - run with me here, it's the only way to get to my end point even if it's flawed, I was saving our environment. I think saving such a huge commodity for the world makes me somewhat of a superhero. You can call me Super Fatty Crafter! For all your decopatch needs!

Ok, possibly a little hyperbolic there, but I still think its pretty neat. Yes I probably used enough glue to bath my dog in and yes buying these items fair trade would've been a better option, but I like them. I get a sense of satisfaction using my collection, and possibly what I love the most is the potential for the collection to grow. Should a new stationary item become required I'm sure there is a container waiting to be decopatched to hold it.

Help!

I like the idea of undoing work about as much as I like the idea of licking a sweaty bear's armpit. It's right up on my to do list with pulling my eyelashes out. Perhaps this is the reason I got so good at improvisation, at being able to 'fix' craft errors and change designs to produce as good an outcome as if I had followed the original plan. There are however some points in a crafter's day that defeat must be acknowledged and the only thing to do is undo.

This happened to me recently with a cross-stitch project I've been working on for nearly 18 months. I haven't actually been making my own version of the Bayeaux tapestry it's just I pick up and put down projects at the same velocity a child on lucky charms does laps of a garden. 

I thought I had found a fix to a border problem. A miscalculation left a 3 space gap where there should only be a 1 space gap. 'Not to fear', I thought, I will just put another pattern across the middle complimenting the design. I picked a nice flowery design and set to. At least an hour later, two colours and back stitch I proudly displayed my work to the craft critic in my house to have the rose tinted glasses removed. It did indeed look crap. The pattern was fine but having it go through the middle cut the should-be-complimenting words in half effectively divorcing them. Less than ideal!

Another, very stressful, very blue, hour later, this is what I had to show for my salvation attempt.

I was not a happy person and an even less easy person to live with. You can't even use these threads for anything else!

I've still to discover how I'm going to fix my 3-space-should-be-1-space problem (undoing the entire border really isn't an option) so if you have any advice I would be extremely grateful. If not, chances are the project will go away for another indescriminate period of time until I can think of another approach.

Did I also mention that I now have a green line across my work that needs sorting too?