Mod Podge Musings

I'm not crafty. Have I mentioned this before, that I often have crafty-mom envy? I read articles in Better Homes & Gardens about moms who sew their kids leprechaun costumes for Halloween; or fashion gauzy bats; or bake triple chocolate spider cupcakes. I’m not that mom. I read about that mom.

So recently as I was skimming blogs I spotted a Halloween craft that possibly even I could manage with my children: simple canning jars, covered with Halloweeny-colored tissue paper, a votive glowing inside. Glass jar Jack-o-Lanterns, so to speak. Very Martha.

The boys and I set off Saturday morning for Hobby Lobby to purchase supplies. I spent $53 – something tells me I bought more than was simply required for the craft project. But never mind that. It was an historic event: I purchased my first-ever vat of Mod Podge. I made sure to bellow loudly a couple of times, “Come on boys…Mommy needs Mod Podge,” to ensure the other shoppers knew that a crafty mom was in their midst.

Later that afternoon my good friend Sarah and her daughter came by to participate in the Halloween craft project. We snipped dozens of yellow, orange, gold, green and black slips of tissue paper. We mod-podged (Oh I’m loving this word) them onto our jars. At times we concentrated quietly. At times we chatted and admired each others’ handiwork. And finally we lit the candles (an act which required approximately 12 matches and near third-degree burns. Have you ever attempted to light a tea-lite sitting deep within a glass jar?). And then we turned off the lights and basked in the glow of our craft masterpieces.

They didn’t look exactly like the ones I had seen on the blog. They were more rumpled, sticky with Podge, a motley looking bunch of jar Jack-o-Lanterns, if you want to know the real truth. But that didn’t matter, because it had been, in short, a perfectly ordinary, extraordinary October Saturday. I felt blessed. Yes, blessed to have accomplished a dyed-in-the-wool, genuine craft. And blessed to realize that I have good friends who know I’m not in my heart a crafty mom…and love me anyway.

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