Gettin' Crafty? Funny.

This episode brought to you by: LAZINESS. I can't be bothered to get up and retrieve my computer, which is as much as twenty steps away (several of them stairs), so I'll take the easy route and type this on my phone. Wait...what?
This will result in you being deprived of many of the more interesting and humorous aspects of this blog- boldface font, different type sizes....stolen images from the Internet...nothing like a little plagiarism to delight the senses, eh?
WELL NOT TODAY, friends. No. Instead, you will be treated to an ill-spelled, oddly punctuated and PICTURELESS entry, riddled with the occasional gratuitous use of CAPS LOCK.

It's a bit funny to say that I'm being lazy in this entry (it's a bit funny...isn't that the point?), since this tiny touch screen typing is really pretty time consuming, but also because I am going to tell you about a rather tedious, but also fun, activity that I participate in with some friends.

We engage in craft night every few weeks. We paint, build and cross-stitch. We drink tea and chit chat. We make many jokes about elderly people, most of them having something to do with how damned hard cross-stitch is on the eyes and fingers and what the HELL are old people thinking???

Craft night is not just enjoyable time spent with good friends. It's also a place ripe with hilarious potential.

I've started to make many of my gifts for people. Given my level of skill in most crafts (beginner, with a side of apathy and a healthy serving of attention deficit), this is already funny. I once painted a picture for a wedding present. It was a real dickhead thing to do- for one, I'm not great at painting. Two, they certainly didn't put "crappy half-ass painting" on their registry. Three, in my head, it was going to be really nice. When it wasn't (big effing surprise), I didn't do the right thing and get them a nice set of towels; I gave it to them anyway. Along with an apologetic safeway gift card.

That, in itself, is only sort of funny. It's more jerky than funny.

What was funny was when that couple came to our wedding, and gave us a gift (which we still have, mind you- one step above my shitty painting, I'm sure) which came with a warning that it has the potential to burn our house to the ground. I think the message was fairly clear...I gave them a terrible painting, and they gave us a paperweight thing that could kill us. I deserved exactly that present- well played.

I'm a little more focused these days and the quality of my handmade "goods" (averages? mediocres?) has improved to the point that I'm not terribly ashamed. But I'm by no means an expert, so there's certainly still the "Handmade by Heather" special touch in all of them, and I don't pass up opportunities to infuse my idea of humour into them, too.

So if, perchance, your birthday approaches, or your second anniversary, or some other worthy event- and I like you enough to A) know about it and B) care, you just might find yourself the proud new owner of a swell cross-stitch bookmark with your face on it.

Isn't that nice?

Moral of this story: If I come to your wedding, and I bring you anything other than an envelope, I apologize...but the crafting bug bit me and the only cure is more shit painting.