Put Down the Gun Slowly . . .

Last night I was possessed. Or maybe inspired. When I'm more rested, I'll be better able to tell the difference. You see, I do not scrapbook or craft. I DO NOT HAVE PATIENCE for anything so delicate and precise. I make pinatas and cakes because you destroy those shortly after finishing them, so they don't need too much precision. That said, I went a little craft crazy. I was preparing a Sunday lesson for the young women (teenage girls) at church. The lesson was about preparing themselves to enter the temple some day. And in the temple we wear white, as a symbol of purity. We are also married for eternity in the temples. I remember a similar lesson when I was a young woman. As a reminder, my teacher gave us all a white handkerchief to keep and hopefully take with us when we first went to the temple. That stuck with me. I kept that hankie. It made me think about the temple about my goals and desires for my future. I took it with me to the temple.

And so, as I prepared my lesson, I couldn't stop thinking about that handkerchief. Granted, I couldn't find it, nor the poem that went with it. But really, I didn't have time to go hankie shopping--where do you buy white hankies anymore anyway? And then Saturday afternoon, a small window of time opened and I stopped in at the mall and bought a package of 6 white hankies. Then I went to the temple for the afternoon.

When I got home late, I still had to finish preparing my lesson. I decided I didn't have time to mess with the hankies. I sat down with my scriptures and the lesson and began reading. But all I could think about was white hankies. I got online to search for a poem or something to go with it. I found a really cute idea where you make a card shaped like a dress bodice, stick the hankie through it and it looks like a wedding dress. I started sketching bodices. It was getting late. I decided to forget it, just give them the hankie and a poem and call it good. I went back to my lesson, it was pretty straightforward, so I prepped it quickly. Suddenly I was again sketching bodices on white cardstock. So I gave in and made the cards. I was folding and ironing hankies into skirts. It was approaching midnight at this point.

I noticed a bit of glue had found it's way to the front of one of the bodices and as I tried to wipe it off, I just smeared some dirt from my finger across it. So much for purity and remaining unspotted from the world.

Then came the foray into my sewing supplies. I found some white twill tape and before I knew it, I was hot-gluing twill tape onto the bodice to cover the glue smear. It looked really cute.
What if I just modify slightly every bodice with a couple embellishment and each girl gets a distinctly personal gift--just like our endowment from our Heavenly Father? This is when the dig began in earnest. I searched for the leftover beading from my wedding veil I'd made 10 years ago--must have trashed it. Came up with some thin drapery cording, some plastic no-sew iron-in hemming stuff, a little bit of rope and some white plastic drapery loops.

Before I realized it, it was after 1 am, I was bleary-eyed and holding a hot glue gun. But they were done. But what if I just . . . Jen, I thought, put down the glue gun slowly, and go to bed.

The next day, I showed the finished product to my husband. Who are you and what have you done with my wife? He asked.

Other than the staying-up-late-headache I had the next day (you know you're old when . . .), and the big mess in my office/sewing room, I actually sort of enjoyed it. And I was really pleased with the outcome. I think the girls liked them too. But don't worry, I do believe the scrapbooking demons have left my body . . . for now.