The Right to Bear Glue Guns

Now that Halloween is over, our community shifts into Holiday Craft season at neighborhood churches, seniors’ centers and high schools. Signs on major roadways have been springing up for Craft Sales for the last couple of weeks. These are sweet events featuring all manner of handmade items created by crafty people who make things for you to hang on your Christmas tree, or decorate your home, or set your holiday table, or dress up your toddler or cat.

I haven’t a crafty bone in my body, so these events astonish me.

I imagine that crafters have been working like Santa’s elves for months now.  All summer long probably. This must surely be a necessity in order to produce enough multiples of each specialized item to make sales — and the crafters’ efforts —worthwhile.  Crafters obviously must commit to plying their craft over and over again until a respectable number of crafts come into existence to warrant a sale.  

Herein lays the catch for me.  I lack “follow through.”

Also patience.

And manual dexterity.

And a glue gun.

I did try craft once.  O.K., twice.

When I was in university, I ventured that knitting might make a nice relaxing pastime.  I learned the basic “stitch” (is “stitch” the right word?) and embarked on making a scarf for Ken.  As I knit, the stitches became tighter and tighter; the rows got closer and closer together.  By the time the scarf was 4 inches long, I had used up an entire skein of wool.  The loops were so tightly wrapped around the knitting needles I could barely pry a stitch loose off of them without bending them in two. They vibrated with the tension.  Everyone agreed that maybe it was me who was wound just a little too tightly.  Knitting, as it turned out, was not that good for my stress level after all.

Many years later I decided to jump back onto the hobby horse (pause for reader eye roll.)

By this time, we had discovered something quite beneficial to our stress level —wine. The relics of our wine drinking eventually stockpiled into an impressive cork collection.  “Why not make those into attractive cork wreaths?” I thought, “Sure! Now there’s a craft that is right up my alley!”

I mentioned that I don’t own a glue gun. I did not regard this as a disadvantage – at first. In fact I took it as an opportunity to work au naturel — no, not naked! I mean: I intended to work only with natural materials. Instead of hot glue, I self-righteously used raffia to tie each cork onto a grapevine frame —which I thought was a most suitable choice. The advantages of glue gunning soon became apparent.  Corks are slippery little bastards.  Pardon my French, but reliving the vexation caused by corks continuously slipping out of their raffia bindings irritates me all over again!  

Neither did I think about following some kind of pattern in tying them on (that was another pun if you were paying attention.)  Or following some kind of instructions from Martha Stewart or other craft maven. There was neither rhyme nor reason to my corks. They were tied randomly; all higgledy-piggledy; sticking out at funny angles, some drooping, some upright, some comin’ at ‘ya like Sarah Palin’s rifles.  I tried stuffing little tufts of dried flowers into gaps between corks to see if that improved it. Nothing would – short of a different craftsperson. It was a mess.  And the worst part was thinking I’d have to make more of them.  I couldn’t imagine why I would want to do this AGAIN!

I abandoned all craft aspirations that day.  I decided to accept my limitations. I learned an important lesson: it's the second amendment from the Craft Constitution. Real crafters have glue guns. And they know how to use them.