Is There a Rehab Program for This??

            You know that story The Red Shoes about the ballerina that gets a pair of red slippers that make her dance beautifully, but she can’t stop dancing? Literally can’t stop at all and dances herself (spoiler alert) to her death? Well, I’ve had a similar situation over here, only it wasn’t toe shoes. Let’s call it The Red Glue Gun.

            I don’t know what it is about fall, if it’s cooler air, the kids going back to school, or the sheer abundance of holiday crafts and recipes that start appearing everywhere, but I start getting the urge to get crafty. This year it was especially bad. I think it has something to do with the fact that all the kids are in school all day and I actually have time to do stuff. And since the beginning of September, it has looked like Hobby Lobby exploded all over my house.

            First it was the dollhouse. I have always had a thing about dollhouses- really anything in miniature, and I’ve wanted a dollhouse for years. Attempting to build one from a kit proved beyond a doubt that that requires way more patience and precision than I will ever possess. So I turned to Ebay and bought an exact replica of the tin dollhouse I had as a child.

            It was great. I made some furniture, it was cool. But not as cool as it could be. So I set out to help it achieve ultimate dollhouse fabulousness. For an entire weekend I glued tiny wallpaper, sewed tiny pillows, mitered popsicle sticks to make window mouldings and chair rails, I even painted tiny pictures and made a tiny beaded chandelier. I think I remembered to feed the children somewhere in there, but who cares if I didn’t? My dollhouse looked fabulous! It lights up!!!

        I thought an entire (tiny) house makeover would quell the crafting urge. Nope. The Sahara-hot days of summer started to cool down, and I made the mistake of looking at Pinterest. Then I discovered burlap canvases at Walmart. Cue the deluge of pumpkin paper crafts, fall leaf paintings, and scarecrow embroidery. Surely that would do it, right?

            Ha ha ha, no fool, of course not! Because the second most crafty holiday in all the year is approaching. That’s right folks, Halloween. Second only to Christmas when it comes to glitter and glitz. And this year, I attempted to take on every craft project that I had filed away in my brain from last year. I painted a wall of Halloween silhouettes. While searching for a haunted house image to trace, I stumbled across awesome paper mache haunted houses people had made. Several hours and 15 pounds of glitter later, I had one of those. Painted wine bottles? Check. Chicken wire ghost? Obviously. I have become a weekly fixture at Hobby Lobby and the Dollar Tree. And walking into either of those establishments has started to cue a reaction similar to a drug addict. My pupils dilate, I start to breathe a little heavier, and my mind starts spinning at all the project possibilities.

           But I’m in recovery. Yesterday was October 1^st, and I put out all the Halloween creations that I had been furiously churning out. There are no longer a pile of paintbrushes drying by the sink, bottles of paint, glue and paper scraps littering the laundry counter, and I swept up the fine coating of glitter that covered everything. I’m pretty sure I have a hunchback, and I have severed all the nerves between my finger tips and fingernails trying to pry up all those little metal tabs that hold the backs of dollar store picture frames. But I’ll be okay. The glue gun burns, wire scratches, spray paint carpal tunnel and glitter lung will all heal- just in time for the flurry of Christmas crafts to begin…