That Creative Urge

I've decided that I simply have to have a shell covered mirror for the bedroom of my new home in Florida. So I've been shopping. Online. In person. In catalogs. The prices of such mirrors are reasonable until you get to a certain size, the size I need.

I was in a retail store the other day, talking with the owner, who happens to be a friend of my sister Jane. Jane seems to know everyone in southern Florida! I told the owner what I wanted. She had several mirrors with shells, but none of them was large enough.

"Don't buy one," she said. "Make one. Go to Walmart. Find a mirror the size you want. Got a glue gun?"

Of course I have a glue gun. It was one of my first purchases after I arrived in Florida.

"Use your glue gun. Buy shells if you have to or collect them."

Wow. I mean, I'd thought about gluing a shell mirror together, really I had, but I figured there was some trick to the whole enterprise. That the shells would stink. And yes, I know that they can. One year we picked up shells from the beach and I didn't boil them. I usually do, but this year I didn't. We were driving back to St. Louis from South Carolina when we needed something from the trunk. David popped it open and the smell about knocked us over. Lesson Learned: Boil shells to make sure you get all the dead critters out!

So...I'm going to make myself a glorious mirror. Stay tuned! I'll tell you more as I go along!

I'm curious: Do you ever convince yourself that you can't possibly try making something? I know I sure do. And yet, everything we see was made by somebody, wasn't it? So why shouldn't we be the creators?