love the wang

it’s that beautiful time of the year. the weather gets colder (or as it translates in the OC, 70 degrees,) the stores are bustling,  the Christmas music is pumping, the people seem to be generally in a happy and giving mood and very importantly, you get to eat fatty foods without people judging (fudges and cupcakes and hot chocolates with teeny tiny marshmallows, come all!)

BUT, there is one place and one place only where the *enter Holiday celebration of your denominational choice* spirit enters and pukes like a giant Rugby player who’s had one too many pitchers of Michelob Ultra after a winning match. and THAT place is….*drum roll please* THE CRAFT STORES.

oh yes, Michael’s and Joanne’s and Tall Mouse. oh my! every one of these stores are bursting with holiday goods in various forms: unfinished wreaths, various ornaments, craft papers/punches/glues/cutters, fabric embellishments and etc. they’re all calling out to you….”make me!” “craft me!” “take me home and make be GORGEOUS!” especially this time of the year, all the stores are enticing crazy martha-stewart wannabes like me with 40% offs and 3-for-$5’s or (my favorite) Joanne’s crazy and kooky Coupon Commotions! and i can’t help it, i’m a crafting sucker. so a normal trip to Michael’s to pick up ribbon and glue usually costs me about $100 and leaving with anything from grommets to a 10,000 piece vellum pack to mountains of yarn.

there is a unexplicable satisfaction to the completion of a craft project; a sense of accomplishement that is so easy to come by. three hours in front of a tv with two sticks and two skeens of yearn and voila! scarf! don’t even mention the soaring sense of pride when you wear it out and someone just HAPPENS to ask you where you got it. you get a certain glimmer in your eye and you pause for dramatic effect before you say, “i made it myself!” and you wait for the gasps and compliments and request for tips.

you can’t really blame me, it’s in my blood. my mom is the craft queen that could give martha a run for her money. she makes intricate Japanese shadow boxes, owns her own mat cutter and can finish a full length waffle-weave scarf in italian wool during a viewing of Mission Impossible 3. the woman doesn’t have to LOOK at her needles, she just kinda knows when to switch from pearl to knit. she once finished a market scene shadow box that required her to cut out each GRAPE in one of the fruit stands. then there’s the vintage beaded clutch i carry during special occasions that EVERYONE keeps asking where i got, the answer? “my mom made it when she was in her 20’s.” the woman BEADED and entire clutch! there’s the sewing and the cross-stitching and the gardening- the woman’s a tour de force a la craft. and i’ve got half her DNA!

unfortunately, the other half of my DNA belongs to my father…the impatient one. so what you end up with is ME. the one with boxes and mountains of craft supplies, but not so much completed projects… during college in the sorority house, i was the go-to gal if you needed emergency craft supplies or some instructions during a mishap (i was VERY popular the night before big sis revealing; arrow-boards and sweaters always seemed to made at 3AM.) but if you looked at my room, you couldn’t tell my dirty little secret. even now, in my apartment, you wouldn’t be able to tell my craft obsession. that’s because like a shameful bulimic, i hide all my binge craft supplies in boxes tucked away behind cupboards and under beds. and there’s a whole section dedicated to half-finished projects…three half-finished scarves, one throw-pillow, one unfinished scrapbook, a collection of unfinished bracelets and a couple of sewing projects i never found the inspiration to continue. they all at one point or another originate from the desire to MAKE people their presents.

and so we matriculate to this point of the year: the hunting season. the season where craft supplies are so cheap, it doesn’t matter that i already own a good 2000 pieces of various glittery designer heavy-weight archival craft paper, the sight of aisles of MORE at 40% off makes my palms sweat and knees weak. i want to buy them, take them all home, roll on the ground with them and admire their beauty…and then hide them in a box like they never existed so i can go out and buy MORE! *maniacal laughter*

but as this blog is to help me self-improve, i am trying to show restraint. this year, i vow not to try and knit a scarf for every person i need to gift (i don’t have my mom’s speediness and/or skill,) i won’t try to make a 26-piece hand-crafted holiday card for everyone i know and i won’t try to bake 14 dozen cookies for all my co-workers and guests(you laugh…but little do you know the truth.) i will limit my trip to the craft store to ONCE a week and resist the temptation of glitter. and i will no longer be a secret crafter, i shall come out from the darkest corner of the closet and yell from the top of south coast plaza: I, THE WANG, AM A CRAFTER. AND I AM PROUD TO BE ATTRACTED TO PAPER, YARN AND ALL THINGS ASSOCIATED WITH THE GOODNESS THAT IS CRAFT AND THE WONDER THAT IS MARTHA STEWART, HER HOLINESS.

it is here though that i must ask my friends for their support and intervention. events that may occur that signal trouble 1. if i ever turn down a trip to anthropologie to go to Michael’s 2. if i ever wear a knitted BIKINI 3. if i ever give YOU a knitted bikini 4. if i ever give you a homemade scented candle and finally, 5. NO HOLIDAY SWEATERS. EVER. if any of the above should occur, i give full permission to admit me to the nearest crafters anonymous rehabilitation locations. should no vacancies be available, lock me in your closet until my hands stop mimicking knitting motions.

thank you for your continued support and love as i embrace and explore my life as a (trendy-non-cat-lady-like) crafter.