I am Not That Crafty

I am clever, but I am not a crafter.  This is not a well-known fact, but I thought that I would share this with you anyway. 

When I was still single, I thought that crafting was cool.  I subscribed to Martha Stewart Living, and since I fancied myself as a party planner, I thought that my niche would be homemade favors and gifts.  And Martha's magazine was chock full of little projects, many of which I attempted with varying degrees of success.

Fast forward a few years later when I became a homeowner.  Although I was no longer into party planning as a side hustle, I was still into the idea that homemade items were cute and worthy of making in my spare time.  My thinking was that I would point to some cute little homemade knick-knack and proudly proclaim "I made that" and then proceed to wow my listeners about my adventures with the hot glue gun.

Fast forward to yesterday when I found a few remnants from my crafting days collecting dust in my basement.  Without so much as a second thought, I tossed them and then it occurred to me that if I tossed everything from those days, I might have a half-cleaned house.

Before this turns into yet another lament about my chaotic surroundings, let me make another admission: I am a collector of random stuff.  It started when I was a kid and used to collect all of the weird discarded and dislodged stuff that could be found underneath the clothing racks at the local mall.  In those days, I thought of myself as a future engineer, so all of these pieces were going to be put to good use in one of my "inventions" (of what, I had no clue).

As I got older, it appears that I never quite grew out of that "collecting" habit...and my house is evidence of this.  Instead of picking up stray pins and and makeup samples, I buy a lot of random things: ribbon, yarn, wooden dowels, silk flowers, stickers, baskets, scrap book paper, letter cut-outs, hole punches, glitter, paint, etc.  To do what with, I still have no clue...

These purchases were tied to my desire to be a Creative Crafting Diva (CCD), but now that I am a Busy Black Woman, I need to choose or at least compromise.  Perhaps these two personas can work wonders to plan fabulous parties; until the inevitable clash when the party is over and I need to decide what to do with all of the leftover crap.

One solution is to wipe the slate clean and invoke my Word of Wisdom solution from two weeks ago--purge.  Several of the crafty hobbies that I attempted, but have since abandoned can just be tossed: sewing, quilting, knitting, rug-hooking, paper-macheing, scrap-booking, tee-shirt reconstructing, framing, calligraphy, gift-basket making, silk-flower arranging, candle-making, jewel-making...I think you get the point.

Another solution might be to get therapy.