Craft Cabinet #2

I've been writing every day for the last two weeks -- which makes me happy, although it's doing weird things to my motivation.  (And really, it's not like I spend all that much of my day writing.)  During the week, I haven't left the house much, haven't cleaned much, haven't accomplished much of anything concrete. My brain is in some new mode, for sure, with a lot whirring around in my subconscious.

But I did leave the house last Friday to attend the second Craft Cabinet event, this time in downtown Fullerton.  My husband's company is literally 5 minutes away, so I'm familiar with the area and was happy to do a little vintage shopping beforehand.  I was also happy to meet up  with Lisa from Trapped in North Jersey  (obviously she's not all that trapped anymore) for some dinner and chatting. (Lisa and I met at the first Craft Cabinet in Long Beach, and have been meaning to "do lunch" ever since.)

 The event was really lovely, held in a sweet little boutique called Oh, Hello Friend, which is a good addition to the Fullerton scene (some of the older shops still have that OC-rocker/Social Distortion/rockabilly vibe going on, which makes me feel old, or like I need to be attending The Hootenanny.

 This time, I was less stressed about the actual crafting part of the evening -- instead of bringing my own craft, we were tutored by Famous Blogger Brenda Ponnay  about watercolor paint techniques and then encouraged to try our hands, using the varied floral table arrangements for inspiration.

Here was my inspiration: a jar of ranunculus, and this gorgeous palette of intense colors:

And here is what I created, after being encouraged to loosen up, lose focus, and use my right-brain. But since I'm a lefty, don't I always do that? Maybe I should have tried drawing with my right hand? Anyway:

Ta-dah. Clearly I'm no visual artist, but the children were duly impressed.  "You should totally frame that, Mom!" 

I still stressed about the "meeting and talking to people" element, but I did okay, and my feelings overall are still very close to what I wrote in my re-cap to the first event, back in August. (To whit: I'm a weirdo wallflower.) Oh, but wait: maybe I've progressed, because I actually told Jules that I was going to ask her out to lunch. And then we traded texts.Well, I did have 2 beers at dinner. Time will tell if I can get over myself enough to make good on that threat promise.

Finally, something that also impressed my kids, and me too: thanks to my new obsessive hobby of checking my Instragram feed, I saw via Andrea that a crafting magazine called Mingle has a big photo spread about the first Craft Cabinet.  Even in her little Instagram photo, I recognized my big hair from afar.  So this week I bought the issue (it's sold at Michael's), and indeed,  there was my hair, from the side and the back in a couple of far-away shots.  Then later, looking closer at the article, right in the crease, I found this actual shot of my face:

There I am, taking my Washi-taping very seriously.

 So that was pretty cool. And it's good to get out of the house and meet new people. (I'll just keep telling myself that.) See you next week.