After the Epiphany

Adverb 2006 is now officially over. The folks have left. The table is empty. Gifties have been integrated with all the other stuff. The cats are yowling about their nip hangovers, clutching ice bags to their heads and voluntarily wearing sunglasses to protect their enormous bloodshot eyes.

Me, I’m shuttling back and forth between the computer and the paper studio, trying to get with the program and make some art.

I’m feeling stuck because I really haven’t done any “art for art’s sake” projects since Thanksgiving. I’ve been rushing to get Christmas exchange packages done, and send our December birthday goodie packs (and I need to get on the stick and do January’s pack, too.) I’ve been putting together decos (a new form for me–itty bitty books. I don’t think I’ve ever bound single signatures before. I don’t think I’ve ever built a book of fewer than 100 pages before.) Y’all know I haven’t been blogging since about Thanksgiving. (And no, see? I haven’t died.)

But ATC’s? Nothing, nothing, ninguna agua. I have cardstock. I have new toys. I have potential out the wahzoo.

And that’s part of the problem. When I began doing ATC’s (was it really just a year ago???) I was struck with all the cool things one could do to make art–and I just froze up like a rabbit in the headlights. I clipped a few pictures and slapped them on cards, and I shudder when I remember those first three. I’m surprised I traded them out, and if I checked the second swaps lists, they’d probably all be right there.

And now I’m feeling the same way–there’s stuff I now have the tools to do (heat gun, anyone? Embossing powder? Dryer sheets and Lumiere paint??) I want to change my numbering system to reflect the first, and the second, and the umpty-leventh card for the year. (Why? ‘Cos I think it would be a neat challenge to average a card a day. At least, in September that sounded like a neat challenge, a way to stretch myself. I remember one card I just called “Ten” because it was the tenth card I made that night, and it felt like my mind was a muscle being worked to failure. Now–now it sounds like going up the Matterhorn in a barrel, or over Niagra Falls on a pair of rollerblades.)

Fortunately, I signed up for an alphabet swap (I lurve me a good alphabet swap) and several deco projects, one of which is waiting in the studio for me to get off the pity pot, get my rear in gear, and go pop that art cherry for 2006.

Heck, after three cards, I’ll be loving it again.