How To Pretend To Be A Craft Blogger.

by Lori Dwyer on August 13, 2012 · 12 comments

How to pretend to be good at craft.

Bought to you by Lori, the self–confessed un–crafty blogger.

Step One: Go to the Canon PIXMA Printables site.

Step Two: Assess your patience level for the following factors…

* Cutting
* Pasting
* Concentrating
* Vacuuming up tiny itty bitty bits of paper from your lounge room floor.

Cake card: Tolerance level required- medium.

Step Three: Dependent on factors in Step Two, select your project.

If patience levels are low, select….
Get Well card or craft calendar

If children are being annoying (common), select…
Any Ice Age 4 printable, especially
Personalised door hangers or printable mazes.

Bump shows off the megaphone, tiara and Ice Age 4 stickers created to distract her while Mummy gets some work done….

If patience levels are at medium tolerance, select…
squirrel family mobile or printable basketball game.

For (rare) high patience levels, select…
Paper toy train, paper drumming monkey or fish craft calendar.

Step Four: Hit print.

Step Five: Test your hand eye coordination by cutting, snipping and trimming according to instructions. All mothers know the cardinal rule– if you actually want this project to look any good then keep your children far, far away from your workspace and your half–finished craft.

Step Six: Vacuum up tiny bits of paper. Wrestle the only pair of adult scissors in the house away from annoying but cute two year old.

Step Seven (*For those not afflicted with un–craft–ism, proceed directly to Step Eight.): Dependent on pre-determined tolerance levels from Step Two; either scrumple badly cut, toddler-tampered printables into bin, swear, concede defeat; or scrumple badly cut, toddler-tampered printbles into bin, swear, gather your tenacity and begin again; or leave printables in neat pile out of the reach of children for a week or more, followed by either abandoning the project (“What on earth did I print these out for….?”) or gather wits, be as stubborn as an un–crafty mum can be, and begin again at Step One.

Step Eight: Following the instructions (bookmarked on your laptop rather than printed, of course, for reasons of environmental responsibility), mark out your fold lines with a used–up ball point pen (unless you actually happen to have the tool that they seem specifically for doing this. In which case, hello, crafty person. What on earth are you doing here…?) and organise your pieces lest they become lost, thrown out or accidentally glued to each other and/or other random objects.

Craft calendar: Tolerance level required- low.

Step Ten: Salvage children’s glue stick. Trim top two centimeters to remove cover of glitter, fluff, bled marker or unrecognizable debris. As carefully as time allows, paste your previously cut–out bits together in the order nature intended.

Step Eleven: Pause repeatedly to fetch cups of milk, retrieve toy cars from under lounge, kiss ouches and break up sibling fisticuffs.

Step Twelve: Repeat Step Seven.

Step Thirteen: Glue last piece of carefully cut paper into place. Happy dance. Admire finished product repeatedly. Show off completed craft project to family, friends and IG followers. D
eclare you are never paying for birthday cards again.

My personal favorite, the matryoshka card: tolerance level, medium.

Step Fourteen: Bask in self satisfaction. Continue to bask for ten whole days. Forget about printables and return to usual un-crafty-mummy self….

But damn, it was impressive while it lasted.

***

Big props to Canon who gave us one of their PIXMA printers to play printables with. They also gave us a pack of cool stuff. If you have a Canon printer, it’s worth buying new ink right now even if you don’t need it straight away- just so you can claim your Ice Age Party Pack, which is packed with different types of printer papers, and an optional Ice Age DVD.

Just to be extra cool, I’ve got four passes to see Ice Age 4 at your local cinema to be won by one lucky reader. You also get some limited edition Ice Age 3D glasses, as modelled here by the kidlets. To win, tell me- are you crafty? Or, like me… not?

This is a quick one- entries close at midnight Wednesday 15th August.

The answer that amuses or confuses me the most wins. My decision is final and no discussion will be entered into.

This one’s open to Australian residents only.

The winner will be announced via RRSAHM’s FaceBook page and Twitter feed, and probably in the newsletter as well. Winners will be emailed and have 48 hours to respond to that email with their postal address, or the prize will be redrawn.

Comments must have a valid email address to be included in this competition- I cannot stress this point enough, people. The number of times I pick a winner and have no contact address for them… it makes me sad. If you’re on Blogger, make sure you’re logged in then click this link to set your email address to reply-able. Cheers.