Musings & Threads. Happy Accidents.
Happy Accidents
Call it coincidence, happenstance, a fluke, maybe even luck…but sometimes things unfold in our lives in just the right way and it stops us in our tracks. Just such a thing happened to me on the evening before Easter this year. Our dining room table at the time was a mess of strewn paper scraps, small artist’s paint brushes and plastic bowls of white, sticky Mod Podge. I’m not a big crafter these days, but I do really enjoy decorating our home with the changing seasons and holidays. So, as it often happens, while I was searching online for something completely unrelated, the internet put something pretty in front of me and I was off and running like a dog who’s seen a squirrel. What I eventually found was someone selling decoupaged Easter eggs on Etsy - and who knew that was even a thing?
They were really striking, layered with coordinating patterns of paper napkins. So, after looking up whatever the hell decoupaging meant, I decided to give it a try and make them as gifts for my mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law - because why not test your really rusty craft skills on unsuspecting family, right? To my delight, my husband and all six of our kids joined in (with varying amounts of enthusiasm - still, all of them helped to some degree). And, lucky for me, my husband is solidly and securely in touch with his feminine side, having inherited his mother’s keen eye for detail, decor and esthetics. Believe me when I say the man took egg decoupaging very seriously.
Anyway, there we were, crafting away with things I swore would never come within ten feet of my beautiful new dining room table (the craft supplies, not the children). As I started cleaning up, I happened to unfold a scrap of napkin because the shape of it just caught my eye. What I found is seen below. Sure, it’s just a piece of party napkin, but it literally froze me in place, my mouth hanging open, when I saw what I had accidentally made by trying to cut random shapes for the eggs. I quickly decoupaged it onto a sheet of heavy stock, linen paper because I just felt like I had to preserve it.
The take-away for me was that happy accidents happen in our lives all of the time. I think one of life’s pleasures is finding yourself in the frame of mind to actually notice them and then taking the time to savor them. Were it part of a Rorschach test, I’d say without a doubt it’s a butterfly; maybe you see something different. Regardless, it’s just a piece of cheap, paper napkin. But it is sitting on my desk, even now, making me smile every day, and reminding me that even when you think you’re doing something pretty ordinary, extraordinary things may be taking shape, waiting to surprise you.
Paper Napkin Decoupaged Butterfly by Nicole Emmi. A Happy Accident.
