The Good....The Bad....And the Ugly

The GOOD:
The best part of teaching...

I had bus duty, and a little first grader drew a picture of me as a 'present.' That's not how you spell my last name, but it's so cute, I'm thinking about having it officially changed. I love the heart shoes, and the curl in my hair.
The BAD:

I have an ever growing pile of reject crafts. It's really weird. I can either do it the first time, or not at all. I can hardly ever 'go back' and improve a project I don't like from the get go. It also must be fast, I don't do meticulous. I worked on this reject project for about a month. I saw this idea on Bakerella. A lady sent her the cutest little wooden person, meant to look like her. I thought I'd make a candle holder for Blythe's first birthday to go on a cupcake or something. I repainted it about fifteen times, so it now looks like she has a skin condition. I set it down and picked it up almost daily, wanting to hold onto the hope that I could like this. I cut her dress off, and sewed it back on 5 times. I just couldn't make myself like it, and then I just couldn't make myself start over. Someday I'll try this again b/c the concept was great, just not the designer. I set it on an end table, and walked away after attempt 54 at improving the project. I then walked back in and on a chair was the little ribbon that used to be a bow around her waist, and the Chihuahua, formerly known as my brother's dog was missing along with the 'girl'. I found him, and his new dolly. No introduction necessary at this point. I had to recreate the scene, he had no trouble spending a little time with his new dolly for these purposes.

He can have her.
The UGLY:
Welcome to the portion of this blog titled-A project only a mother can love, and she will. She likes the reject projects most of all. We played with pottery at work as a team building activity. I was not feeling inspired, but I made my obligatory dish. The art teacher called me a week later to let me know my pot had chipped, an eyeball had fallen off a frog on my bowl. There was no weeping involved. I came down and told her I'd rather try my hand at some ceramic beads.
Here are a few pictures from the process.
Roll a snake, chop even pieces, and THEN roll so all your balls are about the same size.
A Skewer of Beads...kinda makes me hungry.

The beads were fired. I then added clear glaze to the ones I thought I'd be using.

...at this point I should have stopped....they look like pumpkins.
Instead I strung them with some beads I grabbed at Hobby Lobby, and I still wrapped it up to add to a Mother's Day pile of gifts because my Mom is obligated to love me no matter what, even when I give her a string of beaded pumpkins. Trust me, it won't be the worst gift I've ever given her....more on that someday. No picture necessary, it looks like a string of Halloween pumpkins with colorful trick or treat candy spontaneously placed along the string, let your imagination conjure up visuals.
The end.