Perfectionist Patter

When I used to work at Paper Pals, one of my favorite parts of the job was making samples for the store.  My friend and co-worker, Hilary, used to tease me as she watched me in creation mode. She would narrate, much in the way a golf game is narrated. In a whisper, she'd say something like, "It looks like she's done folks. No! Wait a minute! She's doing something ELSE. She must be done now. Noooooooooo. She's not finished by a long shot!"  

That is to say that I can spend an hour on a project that would take the average crafter 5 minutes. I can't help it. While not formally trained, I have an eye for design, and I know when something is amiss. And I'm not satisfied until I fix whatever needs fixing.

This same sensibility is turning out to be productive and counterproductive in wedding crafting. I finish a project, only to stare at it and feel it needs tweaking. Such has been the case during my spring break vacation. I planned to work on NEW projects, but the old ones kept calling to me...

(Paper Cake for Candy Bar) Before:

(Paper Cake for Candy Bar) After:

This faux cake has been sitting beside our TV since I made it, and it was bothering me. I couldn't put my finger on what bothered me, but I knew it had to change.  Eventually, I came to the following conclusions:

1.) The flowers on top were too small for the scale of the project.

2.) The "H" also wasn't in keeping with the scale, since each element was supposed to get progressively smaller.

3.) The flowers on the bottom layer didn't really match.

To "fix" it, I re-did the flowers on top with burned cloth flowers I had made for a different project. I topped it with a satin bead-covered heart I had found at a thrift store long ago. To each of the top 3 layers, I added a black element. finally, I removed the flowers from the bottom layer and replaced it with black satin. I also added the word, "sweet," which seems appropriate, considering that the faux cake will be on the candy bar table.

Bride Bouquet Before:

Bride Bouquet After:

I felt like the aqua flowers made things too busy, so I concentrated on a bouquet that would be black, white, gray, and red. I think the resulting bouquet will blend better with my dress, especially since the dress has red details on the bodice.


New Project:  I covered these thrift store canvases with a layer of aqua paint and went over them with crackle medium. Finally, I added a coat of red paint. I'm pleased with the effect. These will eventually have letters on them.

On-Going Project:

A little at a time, I'm continuing making flowers of all sorts. The newest additions are the cardboard aqua ones.