Languishing Christmas craft

I've mentioned before that I tend to only like to do Christmas crafts during the month of December, which means it can take a while to get something finished. Yesterday I had some free moments so I decided to get out one of those languishing projects. I have never forgotten about this project, I really like how the finished project is supposed to look, but it just wasn't something that made it to the top of the list. I also knew it had been a while since I had taken it out because I moved it in its unfinished state. But how long exactly it has been since I had worked on it surprised even me.

Let me show you the project before I continue. Here is what it will look like when it is finished. 


It is a little beaded tree and I still love it. This is an old Martha Stewart kit from when the magazine has a lot of really nice kits that they sold. What surprised me was the year on it... 2002! I knew it had been a while since I had worked on it, but I didn't think it had been twenty-three years! That means I got it when I was pregnant with D. I'm sure I worked on it that year and probably the year after that when he was still a little baby. It's possible I even did a small bit the year after that. Then, in 2005, J.'s mom passed away which sent all of us feeling, and we had also begun the process to adopt TM, though we didn't know it was TM at the time. I'm quite sure a Christmas craft which involved counting very small beads was not where my head was at. I put it away and told myself when I had more margin I'd get it back out. I had no idea that in the next ten years we would double our family size including a couple of years of having five children under five. As I think about it, it does make sense that this particular project never saw the light of day until yesterday. 


And I do have more margin now. In fact, considering many of my other craft related projects, this was feels pretty mindless in that it doesn't take a whole lot of concentration or technical ability. I would say I left it with about two-thirds left to do. Will I finish it this year? I have no idea, but I know I'm finding the whole process a lot faster this time around. In re-reading the instructions I remembered my love-hate relationship I had with Martha Stewart due to her very out of touch outlook on life. She helpfully suggests that the maker might want to divide this into a couple of days to avoid strain. A couple of days?? There are probably close to fifty little beaded branches that have to be made. This afternoon I worked on it for a couple of hours and made seven. The only way someone is going to make this in two days is if they work two full eight hour days... or just assign several of the staff to do it. As I said, a love-hate relationship. 

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