Craft Therapy and Good Friday

There’s not been near enough crafting in my life lately. When we first moved to Boston, my list of craft ideas was never ending. Our apartment was a blank canvas. The opportunities were endless. Now that we’ve been settled for a while and things are mostly decorated, there hasn’t been much for me to do. I’ve wanted to take up bookbinding for quite sometime now, but it’s just something I haven’t had the extra time, or money, to do. We have four little boxes filled with hundreds of wedding photos just sitting on our bookshelf, waiting for a new home. I promised myself before we got married that I wouldn’t be one of those people who let our wedding photos sit for years before doing anything with them. I only halfway lied. Several are framed and adorning our shelves and walls, and we made a sweet little book full of our favorites to place on our coffee table. I’ll get around to doing something with the rest of them one of these days…

After a rough couple of weeks of dealing with the city, appraisers, and our insurance company (our car got hit by a snowplow last week – YIKES!), I’ve longed for mindless and soothing evenings. My to do list just keeps growing, and as many times as I’ve done laundry this week, the monstrous pile of clothes in our bedroom corner seems to be going nowhere but up. I had every intention in the world to conquer that laundry pile last night, but after a childish fit over my husband using cheddar cheese on the lasagna, I decided that I was obviously in need of some sort of therapy. I’d obviously lost my mind.

Jacob, being the loving husband that he is, promised to handle the cleaning today, and prescribed me a glass of wine. I slipped into my sweatpants, turned on some All Sons and Daughters, and pulled out my craft box. I dug out some pretty paper, buttons, and twine, and got my creative juices flowing. Finally, my mind was at ease. I had nothing to occupy my thoughts besides the words of the songs, and the patterns on my paper and what to drink when I ran out of wine.

What resulted in my hour of crafting were these darling little paper rosettes and some new flags for my Spring banner. I plan to use the rosettes to decorate my Easter cake, and assuming that no one tries to eat them, will reuse them on handmade cards. I still need to make a few more, but I like the direction in which they are going. I plan to use the flags to create a new Spring banner, replacing the “Happy Holidays” banner which has been hanging since Christmas. In preparation for Easter, I plan to continue my crafting streak this weekend by decorating eggs. I’m doing away with the dye this year and trying something new. Stay posted to see how well my ideas turn out.

The hubs and I love this time of year. In many ways, we get more excited about Easter than we do for Christmas. It’s a bittersweet holiday, but one to rejoice about. As I reflect on the significance of Good Friday, my heart overflows with love. To know that I alone was worthy of such sacrifice is a bit of powerful information. I’ll end on a simple note, and with one of my favorite verses:

“The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom(!). When the centurion, who stood in front of Jesus, saw how He died, he said, ‘Surely, this man is the son of God.'” -Mark 15:38-39

What is your favorite thing about Easter?