Day four, I was feeling a little under the weather this day so James went to the store and I stayed home with the gang. After napping most of the morning, I got up refreshed and in the mood to paint! I spent over an hour digging through my stash for the good acrylics—not the Apple Barrel stuff I use for everything, but the thicker, “let’s make something fantastic” kind of paint. After what felt like a mini scavenger hunt, I finally found one black, one yellow, and one red Liquitex tube. With those, my trusty Apple Barrel, and some well-loved brushes, I was ready to go.

I’ve decided I want to paint a crab. Why? Because I found the bottom of a crab pot washed up on Wellington Beach after the last storm, and now I *really* want to paint a crab on it. Only problem? I’ve never even drawn a crab, let alone painted one! So, I turned to YouTube for some help. After a bit of trial and error, I managed to create a decent-looking crab on half a sheet of paper canvas. Feeling bold, I tried painting another one on a pier—this time without the video. Let’s just say it turned out...mediocre at best.

Then, just for fun, I spread two random globs of blue paint on a 5x7 canvas board. Once it dried, it reminded me of nighttime on the ocean, so I painted my version of the man in the moon over the water. All in all, not a bad day for a newbie crab painter!

Day five, I was feeling more like a functioning human again—good timing, too, since it was Saturday. James headed out early around 6 AM for the farmers market, and later, I dropped Zack (our oldest) off at work before taking the girls to the store with me. Now, if you’ve ever tried to work with a 6- and 11-year-old in tow, you’ll know it’s coordinated chaos at best.

I started unmolding the pumpkin bath bombs, hoping to get them shrink-wrapped before the humidity turned them soft. But, of course, I was too late. I’m convinced this pumpkin fragrance is cursed! Last month, we made a batch of soap with the same scent, and one of the loaves literally jumped out of James’s hands, leaving us with half the amount of this great-smelling soap we had planned. It seems the pumpkin gods are not on our side!

After this catastrophe we had lunch. Then the girls insisted on making slime. Apparently, the batch I made the other day wasn’t enough—they needed to make their own. Once that was out of the way, I decided to tackle a long-forgotten project at the store: decoupaged oyster shells. Earlier this year, I had already had two failed attempts. The first time, I got the napkin onto the shell, but I hadn’t prepped the shell, so it ended up translucent, with the dark shell showing through. For my second attempt my daughter Artemis painted them in gesso, to lighten the dark interior of the shell, and I gave it another shot , but the napkin tore, leaving me with a second failure.

But today, I finally succeeded! I managed to create 9 decoupaged shells and even hand-painted one. Third time's the charm, right? Later in the evening at home, I sketched a crab in my sketchbook. To everyone's surprise, it actually looked pretty good—except for the fact that I had it dancing with its claws in the air!

Day 6, We recently acquired a beautiful china cabinet for the store. For those of you who’ve seen our space, you know there’s no room for a large piece of furniture, so a big rearrange is in the works. Today, the shop was buzzing with customers and friends stopping by, which I’m so grateful for—especially on a Sunday! Before I left, I started unpacking the large set of shelves right by the entrance and moved a table and the narrow bookshelf away from the wall.

I didn’t create anything new today—except a big mess! It’s ok that I didn’t create a new craft today or any craft for that matter, I made progress on a different project, I saw lots of friendly faces and I had a good time. One must enjoy the process.

Day 7 I made a special trip to the store today to tackle the big rearranging project. It was a long, hard day of moving things around, but it needed to be done. The kids came along while James was over at Wulfhause Creations learning how to make picture frames.

When we arrived in Snow Hill, we stopped by the Golden Clover to pick up some sweet treats for the kids. Once the sugar rush kicked in, we got to work. Zack was the muscle of the operation, lifting and moving the heavy stuff while I handled the rest. The new china cabinet is finally in place, and it looks beautiful. The register table is heading home for a much-needed facelift. It was a tough day, but seeing everything come together made it worth the effort. At home I finally painted a crab on that piece of crab pot driftwood.

The items from this week: