The Valentine Tree, A Saga In One Parts

"I know," she said, slogging through the snow to the Studio,  "I'll make a Valentine Tree. It'll be fun, totally cute, and I'll take a picture of it and put it on my blog, and people will see it and want one and buy my pottery and I'll get rich and famous." (An aside: she's always wanted to be rich and famous, but is finally approaching the age where she might have to accept that this is not going to happen. Still.)

The daydream was interrupted, briefly, by actual Work, but eventually she made a slab, cut out hearts, stamped interesting designs into them... then stepped back and realized they were all too big and started over... and eventually she had some hearts.

Then she sprayed them with a High Gloss Finish No Fumes spray. About 20 times until the can was empty and the hearts were well stuck to the newspaper and the studio reeked of fumes.

Then she put threads on to hang them by and added some beads that were wandering around the Studio. It was at this point that she remembered how much she loathed macrame.

Not wanting to sacrifice another evergreen (and not wanting to wade around in the deep snow but that's another story) she cut a couple of branches, jammed them into a vase and hung the hearts on them. The vase had a slight tendency to tip over but by being very cautious and lightning-quick on the rescue, she managed to get them all hung. They pointed in every direction and swayed in the slightest breeze. All the best Studios have slight breezes, usually caused by an ill-fitting front door that freezes up in the winter, so they swayed a fair bit.

She then tried to get a good picture of the Valentine Tree. After several (well, maybe quite a few) hours, she went in for lunch and told her Significant Other that trying to photograph the Valentine Tree (except that that is not what she called it at that point) was going to drive her nuts. He said it was too late.

Eventually, with the assistance of a stray visitor, an old photo flood duct taped to an old pole, a rare gleam of actual sunlight through the window and Photoshop, she got a picture of the Valentine Tree.

Rich and famous may have to wait.

Happy Valentine's Day!