More Painful than Giving Birth

Family Circle often has these "ideas" for crafty things. I can usually tell that they are full of s-h-i-t on how easy they are but that doesn't stop me from saying to Bryon, "hey, doesn't that look like a cool idea?" Usually he responds, "You aren't crafty." My interest in said project usually wans before I finish the issue and the house heaves a collective sigh of relief.

This month's issue had a paragraph, no kidding a freaking paragraph with ONE photo, of the craft you will see below. I knew in my heart it would involve swearing, multiple "drafts" and a finished product that looked nothing like their original; yet, I wanted to try.

So, here's what I'm thinking: if you too would like something that resembles a "tree" in your child's bedroom, I would be happy to come over and put one up for you, as I have plenty of extra supplies, and in the process your child will learn valuable new vocabulary, how to fudge-measure and how to throw scissors and exacto knives so they stick in cardboard from across the room. I will do all this for the cool price of one million dollars per "tree."

Please note that at no time doI claim that your "tree" will at any point resemble an actual tree. The point of this "tree" is that I will scew some hooks into the "bark" and Collin will have a place to hang sundry items. I also want to put a height stick on there so we finally have a place to keep track of his growth. He's pretty keen on it. He thinks it looks beautiful. He's three and not very versed on the difference between beautiful and ugly.

Or, he was afraid to tell me the truth.

Notes:
Elapsed Time to Completion: 3 hours
Number of "trees" attempted before accepting this was the best it would get: 3
Number of times I screamed at Collin: 0 (number of times I thought about it--2,999)
Number of times I actually just "screamed": 3
Number of times Contact Paper stuck to itself: 5
Number of times I swore: 0 (Hooray for me)
Number of times I grrr'ed: Lost count