A full day

I have spent much of the day in decoupage work. I am beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t just make this a full-time job, using Etsy for a source of income; it really does take a great deal of my time and energy. Before lunch, I decoupaged a box for Jackie, using a gold color scheme on the box lid, and placing jewels on the inside, as a decoupage version of a luxurious jewel box. I’m pleased with how it came out, though I’m worried the lacquer is going to stick every time the box is opened and closed. Also before lunch, I completed the red-and-blue small pen box I’ve been working on for a while. I’m pleased with the lid, but not the inside — I don’t think I’ll ever try again to completely line the inside of such a small box. All the corners and edges were a pain!

After lunch, I glazed both boxes, and realized I could use a more detailed organizational system (I wish I had an antique dental cabinet to store all these scraps in!). I broke down my drawing-practice scraps into: women, men & boys, girls, and animals. I thought about breaking the human categories down further into white and ethnic, but decided that wouldn’t be necessary just yet. I particularly look for ethnic models anyway, so they’re never far from reach. I also reorganized my collage scraps. This is partly why I think I’m going to have to make a full-time job of this; the scraps are accumulating faster than I can use them (and yet, the more I have, the better my collages are). This is how they’re organized now:

• red
• pink
• orange
• yellow
• green
• blue
• purple
• brown
• white
• gold
• grey & silver
• black
• multi
• backgrounds
• images
• images: produce
• images: plants
• images: precious objects
• images: naturalia (seashells, starfish, butterflies, etc)
• images: odd things (this is my favorite category, comprising all the strange scraps I’d like to use as focal points of collages)
• scraps cut from Treasures of the Uffizi Gallery
• old stamps
• reserves (scraps I have in mind for projects for particular recipients)

Whew. It’s no wonder I’m so tired. That, and my bug bites are driving me crazy.

I’m so tired at the end of each day now, I guess because I’m not used to any kind of full-time job. I love what I’m doing, I’m so thankful I’m my own boss, but it is kind of exhausting to be so focused all day long. I find myself unwilling to cook or clean after my work day is done, and the house is pretty messy. Part of the problem is that I don’t have a hard clock-out time every night; I just work until whenever I feel like having dinner, and then after dinner I work some more. Maybe if I said firmly that each night my work day ends at five or six — depending whether dinner needs much prep — I’d be able to attend to my other duties better. I might try that tomorrow; it’s Friday anyway!

I also made some drawings today, out on the deck under our new umbrella while Erik sat across from me and ticked away on his laptop. I did two girls and a man, and this pinup from a plus-size lingerie ad:

All in all, a good day.