card making project {2}

Eva and I finally did our holiday card project. Tonight.



Here she is getting all set up for it.

I'll post a picture of the finished cards tomorrow after they have dried. There is an awful lot of glue and glitter and such that needs to sit still awhile before we photograph. And- while I swept up as much glitter as I could, I'm sure there will be quite a bit of glitter around the house for a while, such is the way of glitter. But that doesn't bother me. It's the tension of the actual project that bothers me.

I wish I could say that making the cards was fun. At least Eva said she had fun afterward. And during, I think. She said she loves doing projects like this with me. So that's something, at least. And I did calm down after a while. I relaxed. But I have to say this type of project triggers all that is stressful and tense in me and suddenly nothing that I can do looks quite right. Or turns out. I talked myself down, though, and managed to pull it together to play a bit with Eva and by the end I was mostly fine with the project and even managed to enjoy myself for some of it. Good grief. At least it seems like that now, in retrospect. And when I look at some of the cards, I definitely have a positive memory associated with them, so that's another something.

Still, I had to take so many deep breaths during and after and I feel like I am still recovering from the project a full 1/2 to an hour later, even after clean up. I'm not exactly sure what this is all about but I have a feeling that throwing myself into a few more projects like this- with Eva- just for the project's sake {and the connection time} could help quite a bit.

As it turns out, we may not even send out any of the cards. Eva hadn't wanted to send out any of the cards that only she worked on and I was fine with that. Now she wants to keep my cards as well, which I guess I shouldn't be surprised by. I don't know what I thought was going to happen. Did I think I would smuggle the cards out of the house without her noticing? Still, I think we can come up with a nice way to set them up so we can enjoy them over the next couple of weeks, whether we end up sending any of them or not.

And, as tense as the project was, I am glad I did the project. I'm glad I got the idea and shared it with Eva and made up the list. I'm glad we bought crafty goodness and put it all together, together. I'm glad Eva enjoyed herself and I'm glad I made the time for that type of connection with her. And I'm glad it's all over. Until next time, when I hope it's not quite as bad. Practice makes perfect, as they say. Or how about practice relaxes. Practice makes deep breathing second nature. Practice makes comfortable. And the like...