Letting the Cat out of the Craft Bag....

It ALWAYS seems to happen this way...

I suddenly get the overwhelming urge to be creative, so decide I'm going to get on with a bit of card making or scrapbooking. Yep, I'll make a Mothers Day Card for Mum, it's coming up next week....

Now, I have to admit I'm the sad sort who gets weak kneed at the very smell of fresh paper and craft supplies, so going into Staples or HobbyCraft is a semi orgasmic experience for me. Consequently I have a rather large stash of bits and bobs dotted all around the house. Every drawer or cupboard, in fact. You can imagine the amount of time it takes to round up all these goodies when I feel the urge to create.... but (typically) I digress.....

Eventually, having gathered together all of the necessary scraps, sequins, sellotape and sticky stuff, I am sitting in the middle of the room raring to go, surrounded by aforementioned offcuts of pretty paper, card, ribbons, punches, jewels and flowers, reverently stroking long forgotten treasures that have once again seen the light of day... exquisite embellishments that are just too beautiful to actually use!

This is when my four legged helper comes onto the scene. Sniffing around, stalking the fluttering corners of the hand made paper.
"Gerroff with the muddy paws you monstrous creature.." I growl threateningly.
She growls back even more threateningly, so I feign sudden interest in the contents of a box of stickers whilst she carries on her investigations.

After a brief tussle over the ownership of a bag of delicate organza ribbon that I had fancied using, I decide to let her have it - it doesn't somehow look so fresh and pristine any more.

Right... now let's get something done... I start trimming and cutting, imagination working overtime, fingers in a frenzy. Just need to stick this precisely cut bit of posh, pricey paper onto the card.... Darn, where's the sellotape gone...?
"Hey cat....?" She's sitting by the sofa, leg straight up in the air whilst she vigorously licks it clean, blinking one eye in my direction then ignoring me. I stand up to look all around... still no double sided sticky..... but as I stand up I manage to dislodge a pot of embossing powder from my lap, a new and full pot whose lid was not terribly secure... (For those saner people not into all this craft stuff, embossing powder has the distribution properties of very fine glitter, with the mess potential of talcum powder or cornflour.) And it's a dazzling holographic, shiny and pearly white embossing powder. And my clothing is matte black.

Cat sniggers impolitely at the sight, before getting up and stalking away from the sofa, revealing the roll of sticky tape peering out from underneath. I make a hurried swipe for it, and return to grab the paper to stick down onto the card. Only to discover the feline monster now pretending to be kittenish, attempting a cute performance of batting a scrap of paper around, with chocolate box sweetness and big eyes. Only the "scrap of paper" is in fact that previously painstakingly measured and precision trimmed piece of really expensive double sided handmade-by-the-heir-to-the-throne-of-a-small-independent-kingdom ... you get the idea.

Reclaiming said paper earns me several deep lacerations on the back of my hand, which bleed profusely, dripping over the snowy white card base I was about the stick this soggy, dusty, crumpled and pierced piece of expensive....

Ah forget it, I'll pop into Hallmark!