Ouuuccchhhh!

Looks like I'll be taking a short crafting hiatus.  Why?

If you're the type of person who likes to know the details, no matter how gory, here's what happened (otherwise, just skip this paragraph): I was making dinner.  My husband was out of town and I thought it would be nice for the kids and I to have a nice sit-down Sunday dinner.  I made spagetti and meatballs, steamed green beans, and heated up some sourdough bread.  Then, I thought, we should have salad too!  Ohhh, what a bad idea.  I was slicing the green onions, in a bit of a hurry to get dinner on the table, and apparently overestimated my knife skills.  Just because I have watched Tyler Florence do it a thousand times does not make ME an expert.  Obviously.  See the above photo for proof.  There is now a crater where the inner half of the tip of my left index finger used to be.  I knew it was bad as soon as it happened.  Why?  Well, because I've done this before.  Yep, 7 or 8 years ago I took off the tip of my right thumb with a cheap mandoline.  That time, I tried to stop the bleeding on my own, to no avail, so this time I figured I shouldn't prolong the trip to the ER.  Being that my husband is out of town, I called a friend who was wonderful enough to drop what he was doing and take me in, and his wonderful wife in the meantime picked up my highly traumatized kids and took them back to her house.  Thank goodness the ER is pretty quiet on Sunday evenings!  Two hours, one cauterization and one tetanus shot later, I was back home with a balloon-sized bandage, popping ibuprofen like nobody's business.

If you're not into gory details, then let's leave it at "I cut my finger".

Actually, the pain is not that bad...yet.  The tetanus shot hurts a lot worse right now, but I know that will change in the next couple of days. Since I've, you know, done this before.  And apparently didn't learn the first time.  Anyway, I don't think I"ll be doing much in the way of crafting for at least a few days.  Even when you're right handed, you still use your left hand for a whole lotta stuff, and you never reaaly know how much until something like this.  For example, it has taken me about 20 minutes to type this- so frustrating!  What I'm really bummed about though, is that last week, after drooling over it on Overstock.com for a couple of months, I finally broke down and ordered myself a Sizzix Big Shot, and it should be here any day now.  Not that I will get to play with it for awhile now though. :(

Well, enough wallowing.  Let me show you what I did yesterday before my injury.  I took my own advice and stopped thinking about those coasters.  I figure the right design will come to me eventually.  I decided to do another picture frame, and got a good start on it, though it is not finished.

I decoupaged this with a soft mossy green tissue paper.  I'm starting to rethink the whole idea of the tissue base though.  The first one I did, with the gold tissue and the pansies, was a lot easier than this, apparently because of the metallic properties of that tissue.  I only needed one layer of the gold, while on this one, I put on three layers and could still stand to do more.  I'm thinking I won't though- I kind of like the uneven look with some of the wood tone showing through (hard to see in this photo).  Paint just might be a better choice for these projects, so I am going to look into that and give it a try.  Just as soon as I have the use of my left index finger again.  I still need to decoupage the flowers onto this one, and think I am going to go with the blue butterfly delphinium- I think they will be a nice contrast against the soft green.

I'm afraid that I am going to have to sit out the weekly challenge for the Yahoo paper craft group, which is too bad because it looked to be a fun one this time- making a set of something.  I'd thought about doing a card and bookmark set, but don't think my finger can handle it just yet.  So I hope that Sherry has something fun planned for next week, when I hope that a regular Band-Aid will suffice my poor injury!