A long time ago I worked as a waitress in an ice cream shop. I did it for years. I loved ice cream, I loved my job. I had ice cream on my break during almost every shift. I’d have hot fudge banana sundaes or chocolate chip cookie sandwich sundaes (all in place of a “real meal” of course.) My boss came to my wedding and gave me hot fudge sundae glasses, a scoop, and hot fudge topping as my gift. I still have them (well all except the hot fudge topping). I ate ice cream all the time.
And then I didn’t.
For a while after leaving that job to marry and pursue a teaching job, I couldn’t even look at ice cream. I couldn’t look at banana sundaes or banana splits or chocolate chip cookie hot fudge anything. I was so done with ice cream.
And then I wasn’t.
One day, it just came back to me, and now although I still don’t love ice cream all the time, and I eat it nowhere near as much as I did during those four or five years, I do love myself a good hot fudge banana sundae every once in a while.
Why do I tell you all this, you ask? (I know, you were saying that in your head, saying. “Where the heck is she going with this story??”)
I tell you this because this weekend, just in time for Mother’s Day, I was inspired to do something I hadn’t wanted to do in a long time: paper crafting. As many people know, I worked in direct sales as a Stampin’ Up! consultant for eleven years. I was a stamper even before I worked for them, even as a kid. I loved rubber stamping, scrapbooking, paper crafting. For more than a decade I was immersed in anything to do with paper, ink, ribbon, and stamps.
And then I wasn’t.
Last August I was dropped for having insufficient sales (and really just insufficient time to devote to the job) and for the first time in eleven years I wasn’t a Stampin’ Up! consultant anymore.
I was inspired to make four photo cards for Mother’s Day, paper crafting for the first time in a long time.
I didn’t miss it. I didn’t even think about it, other than to worry and wonder: will I ever want to pick up a stamp to make something again? I worked with the kids at Christmas time on our cards, a card Elizabeth had designed, but I wasn’t *feeling it* the way I used to. It just wasn’t there. I had lots of “stuff” for stamping and scrapbooking in my office, still, and scrapbooking was on the list of “things to do when all my kids were in school all day” but so was blogging, so I got one of the two checked off that list, but I just had no desire to even go into the crafting room or to make one. single. thing.
And then it happened.
The week leading up to Mother’s Day I got an email from CVS boasting 2 for 1 photo cards just in time for Mother’s Day. The deal was pay $1.99 for one card and get another for free. My very first thought was, “I could MAKE that same card for free.”
There it was: my inspiration to make a card for the first time in almost a year. I went down to my office, printed out photos to make four Mother’s Day cards (saving myself $4.00 at CVS) and found some pretty card stock and designer paper. And then I went to town. I printed and I cut and I scored and I designed and I layered and I did all the things that I used to spend hours doing before. I was on a roll.
The cards were done, but I wasn’t. There was still more I could create with my scraps.
I finished the four photo cards and I had paper and ribbon and designer paper left over. There was just enough to make a matching gift to go with each card: book marks. So I got busy all over again, cutting strips and lengths of ribbon and punching holes and at the end I had four gorgeous cards with four coordinating book marks and very little waste to throw away. I loved the projects and I couldn’t wait to give them to my family members on Mother’s Day. It was just like it’d been for eleven years of Mother’s Days when I was with Stampin’ Up.
So now, we’ll have to wait and see whether this was a one-time thing or whether or not this will be the thing that gets me “back on the wagon” with paper crafting. I know I won’t have the pressure of always having to make and prep things for classes and parties, but instead I can wait for the inspiration to strike me, just like it did last week, when I received the mother of all inspiration, just in time for Mother’s Day.
Bookmarks and cards, all finished.
The four cards.
The Whole bag of Chips 