A week to memorialize, but it took a month and more

Well, I was on a roll, and THEN…
The week before Memorial Day rolls around and everybody needed to get their summer projects done. That week at work, besides after-hours calls, needing some of my energy, pretty well wiped me out.

Then the next week saw the last steps in a project that took more than a decade to make happen. While I didn’t have much to do with that project it still took some of me energy, and left me in a funk that prevented me from even trying to be creative.

The next couple of weeks involved lots more hours for the day job, a scout outing that I was told I needed to go on (it energized me on some levels, but left me tired), another trip down to dad’s to move some his renovation forward (again, a good feeling, but golly was I tired, and lots of yard work that required attention before it got further out of hand. All of this left very little energy or time to stop in the kite room, much less get anything done. Add that no one has been placing any orders, and I really have been absent.

I have tripped across a handful of things that made me look forward to getting back to work, though.

In a trip to the grocery store, I was greeted near the door by this cute and colorful napkin.

The unicorn grabbed my attention, because it reminded me of a napkin that I once had from a Ninnys Napkins grab-bag that I had used up for a little girl’s birthday. I was also excited because I had recently started carrying negative templates of the kite patterns, so that I could check them against napkins before I buy them (and to let me know if I needed to buy more than one package).

The dark card that I chose also helps for snapping a quick sketch like these.

While I was toying with the idea of the unicorns, This Flamingo jumped out for some attention, making me think of a former boss of mine. I bought several packages of the napkins, and later learned that they’re printed on all 4 folds, so I’ll get to play with these a whole bunch.

In the mean time, with the creative energy still feeling dim and the reminder of the grab-bags, I decided to gather up several of the odds and ends of miniature kites that I have completed and put together a package that instead of all one pattern, had 13 miniature kites with differing sizes, shapes, and prints. These grab-bag packages will also be $200, even though they can take a little more creative energy.
I managed to put 2 packages together so far, and for the third I’m digging back into that grab-bag for some of the unique prints that I’ve received from Ninnys.

Selection of shapes, sizes, and prints in the next grab-bag that I’ll be putting together soon.

Another trip to the grocery store showed me these two prints. I look forward to seeing just what I can do around the watermelon seeds, and I’m always looking for a patriotic/flag print to make available for the civic holidays. I’ve no idea when I’ll use them, it’s certainly too late to do anything about either of them for this summer’s holidays.

On a trip to the craft store last week for some floss (I always need another color for tails), I made the mistake of turning down an aisle and found brand new product for fall and HALLOWEEN! I’ve never really like Halloween that much (it’s too close to my birthday for my taste), but I do find myself resonating with some of its iconography lately, and have struggled to find prints that I like to work with.
I wound up picking out several napkins that will have varying utility, but I’m excited to have some fun stuff to offer with just about enough time to work them up.

By that point the creative energy was starting to return, but more after-hours calls kept me from doing much with it. Then the weekend started with a long day trip to one of our Scout camps to finish a project (and start 2 more) for the camp rangers. Despite their invitation (and attempts at persuasion) I made it a point to get home, so that I could start using whatever I had left to make some progress in the kite room on Sunday morning.

Some of that energy was used to gather up the grab-bag shown above, and some to finish the Pretty on Pink package, so that I could take that off of backorder.

So clearly, I failed to keep to posting every week. I think that there were perfectly good reasons, but if I’m going to get attention here, I’m going to need to find some fillers to have ready when I just can’t make it to the keyboard.