Collage Cards and the Midlife Crisis Art School

 

One night I went to bed while my children were safely in their beds; when I woke up they had been replaced by adults. This vexed me because I had made so very many plans to do fun children's art projects with them. My Pinterest boards are still full of ideas. But these

nocturnal goblins who supplanted my babies have their own inscrutable hobbies, and not much interest in playing Kindergarten with me.

In school I avoided art classes, watching with envy as my friends developed their skills. At the time I was too focused on making sure I never did anything wrong, ever. That's not only antithetical to art; it turns out to be a miserable way to live. So I'm assigning myself some of the art projects I pinned for those children who vanished in the night. It involves full permission to waste time and money on terrible iterations of useless endeavors. It involves finding some mentors who dig imperfect art, too, and glomming onto their style. It involves a new mantra: the process is the purpose. And as ever in my crafting life, every piece must be as stupid as possible.

Today I made collage cards for birthdays. It was pretty simple: I cut out strips of patterned scrapbooking paper to make candles. I applied these with glue sticks to blank foldover cards from Michaels. I also cut out flames from patterned and plain papers; those were easier to assemble with school glue.

Difficulty: dead easy

Materials: cheap--and you don't need much of them

Usefulness of product: actually useful!

Other notes: the ruler wasn't necessary--the candles are better if they're a little imperfect.