Do you remember the smell (and admit it, taste) of school paste? And watching the kindergarten teacher apportion your share to a square of paper from the big white jar with a sticky wooden ruler?
In the days before pre-school and educational toys, this set up meant something new and exciting was about to happen. The simple joy in putting pieces together to make a new whole.
Excepting the craft gifted ( another chromosone I'm missing), adults are largely afraid to make something less than perfect.
Thus I surprised myself when I decided to make our Christmas cards this year and was further shocked when Charlie offered to help.
The decision was not inspired by a Martha Stewart rerun, but cost of cards and the volume of our list. With the sunk cost of all my scrapbooking tools and the post-Thanksgiving coupons for the crafts stores, I figured we could do something respectable for about half the hard cost of retail.
With more than 100 cards to make, a variety of card stock, paper punches, several die cuts and embossing folders and both of us working the better part of the day, the card shells started piling up like snow flakes -- no two alike.
But after most of a Sunday on hard wooden chairs... you frankly don't love them all. I spent another evening addressing the envelopes and thinking about how we would divide "the good ones" among our respective family and friends.
Last night I divided the envelopes into "yours, mine and ours" and suggested we each keep drawing from the pile of completed cards until every envelope was matched to a design.
Somehow the cards had gotten prettier in the ensuing days. When the "picks" were done there were four cards left on the table, and I would gladly send any one of them to my best friend.
I wrote the copy, Charlie signed them for both of us and did the sealing and stamping. Sure, I fell back on a rotation of simple sentiments in most cases, but it was nice to have the freedom to shift the message for friends of various faiths or who had faced special challenges recently.
I heard my frugal Nana telling me her various projects were "better than store-bought" and smirked that it only took me four decades to realize she was right.
There's a sense of kindergarten pride in the creation of things that aren't perfect... but carefully considered. While I know I used my scrapbooking two-sided adhesive runners, I could have sworn I smelled the paste.

Copyright 2005 Judi Griggs