How’d I get myself into this mess?

Introduction: Did I ever tell you that one aspect to my character is trite?

Current situation: Panic – that’s what I’m feeling! I can feel panic’s gnaw right in my midsection. I think I’m gonna be sick! I’m looking at the previous promotional board; the work of a skilled craftswoman; and I’m watching mine emerge……………oh well humility is a Christian virtue – right?! And blogging is most definitely a nerve settling experience.

I came to this point thusly:

We moved to a small town around a year ago and began attending the local community church. Much to my delight, although the church is small, my two teenage sons who’re living at home both really like the youth group. I am blessed each week by the music and praise time, testimonies and practical teaching. I am able to participate in a bible study group for women and watch both my personal maturity and comfort level with some of the local women grow.

So I wanted to give back.

I said I’d be willing to help out any way that they could use me. Requests for assistance are infrequent. There has been the time someone in the church’s neighbor had twins with health problems and several of us took them dinners, help setting up for a girls event, giving a ride to an elderly bible study attendee who didn’t live close to the church or helping set up in the mornings for a few months each time the bible study met last year. These were all easy.

Recently a request came for me to do a promotional board for the fall women’s event at the church. I said yes without giving it a thought. Yes, I know, how dumb could I be! I thought about the promotional board and had all kinds of great, creative images in my mind. What I didn’t think about is that, to be quite candid, I really suck at most things which involve craft skills – cutting, gluing, lining up fabric – somehow I can mess up the simplest of these things.

Well I finally got down to actually producing this board today. First I had to take apart the material/papers/etc. on the board from the women’s ministries spring promotional. Now THERE was a wonderful promotional board – looked like something out of a magazine.

During my thinking on the board phase I’d decided to cover the board with new material since the other, lovely, board was decidedly and gloriously spring. I wanted mine to give a fall theme look. So off I went to Wal-Mart and purchase a fabric that I fell in love with the moment I laid eyes on it. Now at this point I need to bring to light the fact that I’m kind of what some might call “odd” or “different”; now don’t get be wrong – I love and accept myself just fine – it’s just that I’ve noticed in life that I often march to the beat of a different drummer than the mass. So of course now that I’m looking at this wonderful fabric I purchased, I still think it’s oh so wonderful (green is my favorite color and the fabric is a repeat print of small light green leaves with partial gold outline on a slightly darker background) but am beginning to see that this may not be a fabric that has a huge general appeal.

In fact, now that it’s done I can see the fact that I’m not talented at crafts is rather apparent. The fabric isn’t smooth on the board as the previous one was and the overall feel is rather amateurish. But this is the best I’m capable of and I made a commitment to produce the promotional board so tomorrow I’ll put it up in the church foyer.

Oh well.

You know what? People do like candy! I have two small, shallow, bright green and yellow bowls. I’ll put those in front of the board and fill them with the green Mike & I mini boxes I’d purchased at Wal Mart for Halloween. They’ll blend in with the color scheme and hopefully add more attraction. At least the information is clearly displayed.

I think next time some kind of crafty endeavor is requested of me I’ll simply ask what else I can do for them!