The egg table is up. And it only took two hours to completely torpedo this year’s design.
Many years ago I started coordinating my holiday crafts to a central theme. In addition to the Ukrainian egg ornaments, I also make the cards as well as kid ornaments and 6×6 decorated calendars. I try to tie all these items together every year. One year I did a snowglobe theme, one year the theme was “branches”. Peppermint, polar bear, gingerbread men, birds have all been done. There are a few themes that get repeated – holiday trees is one of those and also poinsettias.
This year’s theme is Santa. The card, the kid ornament and the calendar were seriously easy but the egg has been difficult. First off, there just weren’t many idea out there to start with and most that I found were painting on eggs, not traditional wax/resist. I had one idea and then when I sketched it out the first time, I realized it would be too hard to get all Santa’s proportions correct on an egg. Then I turned to clipart – a surprisingly good way to generate ideas for Ukrainian egg design. I messed with the idea for a couple of weeks and thought I had a good design.
Suffice it to say that drawing curvy lines in hot wax on an egg isn’t an easy thing to do. Then add fiddling around with mixing different dyes to get Santa’s skin right. Leaving space for his eyes was a pain. But the biggest issue was just too much white and a bit of red then a black background; it was just — blah. And I didn’t like the side border either, although that could have been remedied. I completed two of the design and then abandoned it.
I spent about an hour going through my egg design books and a couple of online places and finally found something that I could alter. There is no actual Santa on the egg, but it has a lot of red and white, with a black background and I was able to add “ho, ho, ho”; that’s as close as we’re going to get. This design is more complicated than the failed Santa image, but much more satisfying. I managed to get three done before I just couldn’t sit on my hard chair any longer – the design is solidified so now I’ll be on a roll starting this morning – after I feed the bad Santas into the garbage disposal!
Have you ever had to abandon what you had initially thought was a good idea?
Trail Baboon 
Disclaimer… photo above is not from this year. Set-up is pretty much the same however. Last night I was too lazy to go back downstairs, turn on lights, take a new photo.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I like seeing the set-up! Wow.
I hope that’s a plastic tablecloth under it all…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, it’s one of those old-fashioned plastic over fabric tablecloths.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, so many times.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Lots of teaching ideas, lesson plans especially early in my career. About a dozen carvings. About 20 pastels. Another 100 sketches and drawings. A dozen short stories. A novel idea and a collection of short stories idea. How many cooking ideas? Gifts I gave Sandra that she abandoned. (She seldom wears or uses a gift.) Designs I had for building furniture or other things that never got off the ground. Trying to be friends with my brother.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Let me add that those early failures as a teacher taught me how to teach. The other items taught me a lot but not about important, but mistakes and failures are lessons learned.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The question is really, “How often have you had to abandon an idea that initially you thought was good?”
LikeLiked by 4 people
This is what happens when you write your post at 9 PM at night
LikeLiked by 3 people
My mental red editor’s pen makes its unbidden appearance at this point and suggests the substitution “9:00 at night” or simply “9 PM”. It is not something I have control over. It simply is.
LikeLike
I would have thought the egg shape was perfect for Santa’s head with beard at the bottom or for his body (his waist size is perfect for the middle of the egg). But getting liquid wax to cooperate instead of painting- well …I could see the potential problems. I assume you blow out the egg contents -do you end up using the contents for baking etc? We can hardly wait to see the finished project!
Have abandoned many so called good ideas but you know sometimes better ideas result from the failure.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Oh let me count the ways! The current one is trying to order sheet music (for our church pianist) and getting to check-out, only to not be able to get into my account to pay… Waiting to hear back from help desk, but I’m not confident.
That’s really just a task, though, and not a good idea in the creative sense. Back later about that…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Rise and Change Your Mind, Baboons,
As Barb says, let me count the ways. I really do have more abandoned art projects than completed ones. Right now I have an idea for a sculpture of a person that I would like to do. I will see if that is actually a good idea or not.
OT: Yesterday I completed canning season. I did one batch of hot pepper jelly and 2+ gallons of tomato basil soup for the winter. Those are always good ideas!
LikeLiked by 4 people
in my world its called a pivot
an idea and along the way it gets tweaked. sometimes unrecognizably and then again. by the time your done you have to ask do i teally care sny more orcsmile and wonder how you got from that original stupid idea to this great onec
LikeLiked by 4 people
So I could rename the title of this post as Bad Santa Pivot?
LikeLiked by 1 person
works for me
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree with Jacque. I think you mean, “How often…”
Mostly crochet or knit projects, I guess. I’m pretty much a freestyle crocheter, so I don’t always follow patterns. I’ve wanted to make a pair of crocheted slippers and the patterns I have just aren’t quite right. I have a vision in my mind of what I want, but so far it just hasn’t turned out. I’ll try again sometime, but for now I’m really enjoying becoming a good knitter.
I’ve also tried to bring different songs to our little folk ensemble at FiftyNorth. It’s been kind of a disappointing experience for me.
LikeLiked by 2 people
And the question: What seemingly good idea SHOULD you have abandoned…?
I’ve tried a couple of new recipes this week, and one actually went into the trash! One was for pizza rolls with a Pillsbury crust – though to be fair, maybe the crust had languished in the fridge for too long?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I thought it was a good idea to sign up to a exercise club.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
LikeLiked by 4 people
OT.
Just finished up watching the opera Carmen. It is now my favorite.
It just so happened that also just now! (Really!) a group inspectors came through the apartment building with the anticipation of buying. The realtor introduced herself and admitted the six other people. After introductions, she said that while waiting for me to open the door (The volume was quite high since I knew the neighbors were gone) they wondered about the music. The timing was perfect. Carmen’s love song , Habanera, was playing.
At the very least, a new landlord will know an educated fool for a tenant.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Sometimes my whole life seems to be a trail of ideas that didn’t work out and had to be abandoned. But abandoning one thing and moving on to another can be the better path….at least sometimes.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I used to sew quite a bit – made a couple of simple quilts, handle covers for my cast iron pans… it’s been a while since I had an idea that I wanted to pursue. Will think on this and see if something surfaces.
LikeLiked by 1 person
My music teaching career (band director) leaps to mind. I only lasted six years because I was waiting for Sandra to get her B.S. degree in nursing. Would have bailed after four years if it was just me.
The jury’s still out on this crazy author career I had 17 years ago. But I’m still plugging away.
Chris in Owatonna
LikeLike
WP is really ticking me off. I keep being asked to resubscribe, but then when I click to leave a comment, I show up as “Anonymous.” My desktop has been screwed up lately. Something wrong with my internet connection, certain programs don’t load (Quicken), and I think there’s a nasty little bug crawling all over the electrons in the CPU that are giggling evilly as they deflect the proper flow of electricity through the circuits.
Chris
LikeLike
You’re lucky that hasn’t happened to you before! It’s my daily experience with WP. I’m anonymous unless I post something, then I can “like” some things, but as soon as I look away, I’m anonymized again!
LikeLike