In honor of National Craft Month – March, this is my personal history with craft encounters:
Cut snowflakes in January – all mine looked alike.
Glued and pasted Valentine cards in February – was relieved to later discover pre-made sets at the grocery store.
Pasted Shamrocks in March – Some class mates could create a pot of gold, a rainbow and make full-scale leprechaun hats, to dress up that one moment on March 17th. My hat never fit.
Dyed Easter eggs in April – my mother was blessed with a steady hand and hours of patience. I was cursed with an awkward technique and a distractible nature. Three eggs; purple, green and a sort of brown.
Created May flowers and hats, we wore the hats about as long as we did the Leprechaun hats, but they were pretty and spring-like. Oh, except mine.
June was a fabulous moment of freedom where the only art project was to mark off the last days of school with a red pen.
My mother loved to suspend red white and blue streamers across the back porch and post flags for the Fourth of July. I stood on the sidelines and watched the annual parade, but declined to decorate a float or perform. Yes, I let the parade pass me by.
September brought back the groove of crafts and activities. We gathered red, orange and yellow leaves and pressed them between sheets of wax paper. That was back when you could play with a hot iron on public school property.
What did my Halloween pumpkin resemble? The terms now a days is special. I created very special Jack O’Lanterns.
We made pilgrim hats for Thanksgiving. This represented my first visceral experience that boys had it much easier in life than girls. Their pilgrim hats were easy to make – they looked like that of a leprechaun. The girl’s hats were impossible white things that didn’t stand up well under increasing frantic folding. And I was only five.
December was so replete with images and creative possibilities; baking, ornaments, hand made gifts, hand made cards, garlands, flags, festive hats, that the mind reeled.
I began to love August because there was no craft project attached to the month.
So here is to August, the month that for me is one long craft-less holiday.
