Creativity Cures Boredom

For the last few weeks I’ve done a call-centre training course in the East end of Glasgow.  I wasn’t impressed at first.  The first week was a complete mess.  We did nothing… except complete quizzes and puzzles and draw pictures of pigs that apparently explain our personalities… Rubbish.  From the second week onwards it wasn’t quite so dull.  Not only am I answering telephones (and rather well, I might add!) but I’ve also sort-of gained qualifications in health and safety, first aid, customer service and conflict resolution.  I say sort-of because a) I don’t know if I’ve actually passed them (though I’m sure I have) and b) the certificates haven’t been sent to me yet.

That’s just grand, but answering phones is dull.  Actually, what I really mean is the bit between answering the phones is dull.  Talking to people, making sure the right messages are given to the right people, etc… is both easy and a little enjoyable (as long as the person on the other end isn’t rude, nasty, angry at nothing… you get the picture) but the time between calls almost kills me with boredom.  Which is why I started to take things to do.  It started in the first week where I actually got a lot of knitting done.  I was finishing the jingle-bell-cube-things for a friend’s little boy, for his first birthday.  I have no pictures of these… Rubbish!

However, I do have pictures of other stuff I’ve done!

This was the drawing I did of a bit of tree that I could see from the window across from my desk… Not bad considering I haven’t drawn much in about 12 years!

Flower I made from a post-it note and a pin.

Other flower I made from half a post-it note…

I also started doing a little cross-stitch during my lunch breaks and on the train home.

I’ve since started knitting on my lunch breaks.  I also have a small puzzle book on my desk to do between calls (when I’m not looking at various news/arts websites, that is)  Needless to say, I’ve not been bored since!  Hooray!

The Awesomeness of Decopatch…

You know those times when you feel like your brain has turned to goop?  I get it on a too-frequent basis.  It’s especially troublesome when I need to be creative.  Thankfully, I’ve discovered a cure: gluing.  Specifically, playing with the prettiest paper ever invented and a ridiculous amount of glue.

It all started at my 30th birthday party.  I decided that I wanted to do something a bit different for my birthday.  I’ve done the go-out-and-drink thing loads of times and I figure I’m probably getting too old for that now.  Certainly it’s a bit cringey to be loud, drunk and silly these days.  Instead, I thought I’d invite a few friends to a craft party, but what to do?!  It was then I remembered Damselfly.  Damselfly is the best, most amazing craft shop I have ever set eyes on and set foot in.  Everything they do and have is so pretty.

I’d seen them demonstrate Decopatch at a craft show before and it looked like fun.  Anything involving glue and a little mess is awesome!  A few friends and I headed to the shop on Saturday 22nd October, very excited.  It took a while for us to decide what we  wanted to make but once we got started, I think it’s safe to say that some of us got a bit addicted… We even had tea and cupcakes!  The cakes were incredible, by the way.  They had glitter on them.  It was almost a shame to eat them, but it’s cake and cake has to be eaten.  It’s sort of The Rule.

I made a giraffe.  Giraffes are awesome.  When I chose it, I noticed there was a small tear in one of the legs but I didn’t think anything of it… Until I pretty much snapped it off!  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry!  I settled for staring wide-eyed and silent at the nice ladies in the shop.  Amazingly, one of them was able to save him, and I glued a few long strips of paper around the leg.

After all that I decided that the giraffe deserved a name, so I sort-of named him George as I was making him.  By the time I finished him he looked a bit random to be just George… And so it became Random George.  And here he is!

  

Well, then I was left with a load of bits of pretty paper.  I kind of over-estimated how much I would need to finish Random George.  And then I stuck them in a small jar on my desk and did nothing with them. Typical…

A few weeks ago I was set the task of making a ridiculous amount of things in a ridiculously short space of time.  Naturally, under that much pressure the brain goes goopy and you make so many mistakes and then you make a mess and then you can’t be bothered to create anymore because what’s the point when it all goes wrong and before you know it youthroweverythingasideanddrinktoomuchciderand…  And that’s when I thought I’d try Decopatch on a glass jar.

Actually that wasn’t the first one I did.  The first jar a covered in glue and paper was this one…

…but that was used for something else that I’ll share with you another time.  I liked it so much I made the other jar.  And I liked that so much I decopatched an empty cider bottle that I had in my kitchen.

I can’t wait to find more stuff to cover in glue and paper!  It’s quite therapeutic, actually.  Which is why it’s perfect for those times when you want to scream/destroy what you’ve tried to make…  And it couldn’t be simpler; you just paste a little glue onto the object you want to cover, lay a piece of the paper down and then top it with another thin layer of glue.  You can get proper Decopatch glue, but it can be expensive and is hardly ever available.  It comes in the shops and goes straight back out again!  I find the PVA Craft Glue from The Works just as effective.  I tried using Anita’s Tacky Glue once and it was rubbish.  I do recommend you get a proper Decopatch brush, though.  Other brushes tend to shed hairs and get stuck to your crafty-make, and that’s not cool at all.  I’d also recommend tearing the paper instead of cutting it.  You get a softer edge and it looks nicer, in my opinion.  Cutting it is fine (and quicker if you want to use a lot of different papers), though.  And you can pretty much cover ANYTHING at all!  Awesome!

Oh, and the brain-goop goes away long enough to be more productive in other crafty-creative projects, so the thing you or I shove off the desk/hide under the desk, etc. can be finished in the end.  Hooray for Damselfly!  Hooray for cupcakes!  Hooray for Decopatch!