Thank you for all of your snow dances.  It really worked.  Not only did they cancel school for Thursday even though there was not a snow flake in sight, but it did snow a little that afternoon, so I ended up with a lovely 4 day weekend.  Thanks to you all for your dances!

The 4 day weekend has brought with it several trials and triumphs.  Luckily for all living in my household, mostly my husband, the trials eventually turned into triumphs.  Clearly as I am a person who sells things online, I have to take pictures of them.  Mostly when I have taken pictures I have waited until it was slightly overcast and made my husband or my mother, sometimes my best friend in the whole world who always helps me no matter what –she is a saint, hold up a white sheet or towel in order to get the best, truest color of each of my hand sewn things.  Well, here’s the problem, it hasn’t been above freezing here in middle Tennessee for like 4 weeks.  I am thrilled that I get to wear my hand knits and snuggle with my husband because it is cold, but it is soooo not conducive to taking pictures especially since it is terribly windy.  I mean, I would even go so far as to say blustery.  That means that whilst my mom and I have been sewing away, we have just been stacking up the finished goods on a table waiting until it was not going to make your fingers turn blue to go outside for more than about 5 minutes.

It appears that that is not going to be the case here for a while.  Steps must be taken, I told myself and then asked my fabulously Google savvy husband to find out how to make a light box at home.  .oo3 seconds after he goggled it, I had my answer, pictures and all.

Being a highly task oriented person, I wanted to start immediately, so I dragged my husband with me out in the cold to go get the necessary materials.  We returned home and I started making the light box.  It only took me a mere 2.5 hours to complete when I realized that I had not gotten a big enough box and was going to have to start over.  Thank God, I was watching a funny movie or I might have just ripped my hair straight out of my head.  No problem I tell myself, I can do it on Friday since I don’t have to go to work.  HA HA HA HA! One of the only perks of being a teacher.

The next day, I could barely pull myself off the couch let alone think about the light box as the failed attempt stared at me with victory in its eyes while I pouted on my couch.  That may have been the reason I could not make myself make the new one.  That and I still didn’t have a big enough box.

I called my mom to give her the bad news about the light box, and she told me she would bring over a bigger box on Saturday.  Problem solved.  I start to feel better and I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies.  Little did I know that this could have been considered foreshadowing, because I was going to need them.

This morning my mom came over and we pondered the age old question, how are we going to fix X problem.  It seems we come up with a great idea, I.E. the KnitSack, and then run into problems coming up with enough material to make the product.  Stupid cording. After about 30 minutes of debating, we decided to go to our trusty JoAnn’s to see if they had what we needed.

They didn’t.

We looked for alternatives which were few and far between, but did eventually find ribbon that was PERFECT!   (TRIUMPH!)

We got home, and mom got to sewing.  I immediately got to working on lightbox 2.0.  This task would definitely prove way more difficult than it should have been.  (Enter TRIAL).

While mom sewed happily away, making KnitSack after KnitSack, I measured and cut and taped and glued and measured only to find out that the box was now too big for the piece of Bristol I bought.  Don’t be fooled, the box has to be that big for the Carry All, but unfortunately it is about oh, 5 to  6 inches bigger than the biggest Bristol sold in my little city.  I discussed said trial with husband and mother and husband assures me that I can make this work tonight without having to buy anything else.  I can build shelves, and paint a room professionally in a day, this box is NOT enough to stop a heavy duty crafter and do-it-yourself-er like me.  Re-assured I went back upstairs to take on my current arch-nemesis.

Let’s just say that I was in tears less than 20 minutes later.  Thank God for moms who can keep their cool as I stand at the end of a table in front of what looks like the red headed stepchild of a skeleton of a box with interfacing in one hand, a tape gun in the other and just cry. Yes, I cried over a light box.  It was that kind of ridiculous.  Also, please remember that I have a high tolerance for ridiculous things as I teach 8th graders grammar and was told last year that Narnia was a real place because they made a movie there.  (No, I am not kidding, that is a true story.)

Mom came up with something that managed to save the lightbox from my total and complete annihilation  by stomping, and I kept going.  I got it mostly together and tried it out.  The best surprise is it works like a dream.  I can now control my photography for taking pictures for the shop without having to rush home from school leaving piles of papers ungraded, or stand in the bitter cold wind and hope the bags don’t blow over while my husband shivers.

And, yes, I cried when it worked too.  It needs some tweeking, and is definitley not my finest moment in the do-it-yourself category, but it will do to get the job done.  So evil light box trial becomes total light box triumph.

Thank God for the extra day off or  this might have taken place after a long day at school, and I can promise you, there would have been more tears and absolutely no light box.