CONTINUING THE PRACTICE (OF MAKING LEMONADE)

...that would be, "making lemonade from lemons."

After working all day yesterday sewing small laminated pieces onto the Rug-Which-Cannot-Be-Shown-Yet (with Motown hits in the background), I finished adding the mixed media parts onto the rug. 

And HATED IT.  I mean, just hated it.  All my careful thinking and creative inspiration...the hours of prep...and it did not work. 

The rug, which I liked before the mixed media went on it, looked horrible.

Lemons for sure.  Lemons lemons lemons.  Lemons everywhere.  I could feel my mouth puckering into a real frown. 

What to do?  All the laminations, each of which I had cut, rounded, and punched, were too big and too shiny.  Rather than revealing what I wanted them to reveal, they just looked horrible, like big plastic shiny things covering the rug. 

Sigh.

So this morning (meaning, very late last night, well after midnight) I consoled myself by doing a Zentangle® Snowflake Mandala in my journal.  I was too tired to review how to make a round snowflake, so I just took a piece of printer paper, slapped some folds in it, pretended I was six years old, and started cutting.  I ended up with this rectangle. 

It helped me to feel better.

---

I did this meditatively.  It was relaxing and enabled me to make a clear decision to immediately take every single lamination off the rug that I had spent all day putting onto it.

Thus, this morning I got up and in an hour, dismantled the entire thing.  It had to be done  carefully as my goal in stitching these onto the rug yesterday was to be certain they wouldn't come off.  Indeed, I was highly successful so getting them off without harming the punch hooking was quite a trick, but I did it.

I am now back to square one.  I am still determined to add the mixed media pieces to the rug.  Just not laminated.  Therefore, after the "official dismantling" this morning, I took myself off to my local indie art store and spent a chunk of change on ideas to make these lemons into a really delicious lemonade. 

I think I've hit on a possible way of making this work, so Round Two will begin tomorrow.

"Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. After some years, it can boast of a long series of successes."  (Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach)