I peruse a fair amount of crafting blogs because I’m a crafter, I’m always looking for new ideas, and I need to keep up with current crafting trends to try and make my Etsy shop successful. There are certain sites that I like more than others and I was trying to pinpoint why that is and I think I figured it out the other day.
There are a lot of guest bloggers on this particular site, you know the whole, “today we have a guest post from Yolanda of Immorecreativeandthinnerthanyou.com and she’s going to show us how she made this fabulous ruffled burlap poached egg cozy”. Which is then followed by a short introduction about how sassy and funny and creative Yolanda is. Then Yolanda gets to chime in and show us how creative and sassy and funny she is by free forming a few sentences about herself which only proves that she thinks she’s sassy but she’s really not.
This of course includes a description of how she left her fortune 500 job to stay at home with her adorable children who are the light of her life (insert photo of her looking like a recently retired runway model, her husband who just looks whipped, and her perfectly coiffed children dressed in Gap fashions sitting on a fabulous vintage couch set in the middle of a field and photoshopped so that the couch and the people are in color and the rest is in artsy black and white and the photographer did that thing where they tilted their camera at an angle, because you know they were too sophisticated to take straight photos).
Then comes the tutorial in which we get a view of Yolanda’s crafting area which of course is its own separate room and furnished to look like a Martha Stewart Crafts magazine layout. Oh and she’s doing this while her sweet lovely children are napping, or attending the local Montessori academy. And well, at that point I just start getting a little sick. I know Yolanda is not as perfect as she seems. I know that just out of camera shot she’s probably got a pile of laundry and an empty bottle of booze. But when you’ve seen 20 guest bloggers and they all are so good at pulling off this perfect sassy, creative, fun mommy crafter thing, it just starts to really make me feel inadequate.
I work 48 hours a week. I can only get something done in the wee hours of the morning or when I’m allowing my children to rot their brains out with excessive video gaming. My crafting space is wedged in the corner of my basement between the litter boxes and our far too extensive collection of Rockband guitars, and my children haven’t posed for a decent photo without making a goofy grin or having their hand in their mouths or in their pants since they were 1. I can’t remember the last time I had the courage to look at myself in a full length mirror, and when I walk through the mall, those gals at the eyebrow threading kiosk practically beg me to get my eyebrows done- not because they want the business but because they really think they’ll be doing society a favor by taming the two caterpillars currently residing above my eye sockets.
So I’ve decided to take a break from craft blog perusing. I don’t really need to know how to cover everything not nailed down in burlap, and despite what some people think, not everything needs ruffles. I love ruffles as much as the next gal but you do not need ruffles on your lampshade, and you do not need a ruffled camera strap cover. Really…stop with the ruffles already.
I imagine sitting on this couch would be like being trapped in your great Aunt Ida's bosom when she hugs you at your cousin's wedding while wearing that ruffled chiffon shirtthat she's worn to every special occasion since 1968.
"Ida, you're squeezing too tight and I think your Avon perfume is giving me a rash on my face!"Sorry. I digressed there, but I did warn you in the title that this was full of incoherent rambling.
