Project Lessons

Ever since I started this blog, I find myself looking for topics to write about. I don't want to ALWAYS post step-by-step details of my latest sewing or gardening project, or focus too much on the messy things my children enjoy doing, but since it is a "Project Day" blog, it doesn't seem right to type up something on all the dew-covered spider webs I saw on my walk this morning - even though it was pretty cool, what with the foggy morning and the sun burning through....but I digress. Back on the topic of projects, I came across a suitable idea a few days ago at the library. We go to the library at least once a week, because along with doing projects, my kids and I love to read. While I am there, I almost always check the discard bin, because the thrill of finding something good for free or cheap is too good to pass up. This particular visit was no different, and I found a stack of old crafting magazines for 10 cents. The projects they advertised didn't really interest me, but I was intrigued by how different they were from current crafting magazines. There was mostly small type, and they weren't even in color!
(Popular Handicraft Hobbies for Fun and Profit, late 1970s)

Around the same time, I was given a stack of old kid's project books, from a different decade from the magazines, and the same thought struck me: "These are so dfferent from both those old magazines and the stuff I see now." There were a lot more pictures than in the old magazines, and they were colorful, but they weren't the explosion of photos and text and "green tips" and safety disclaimers that make up modern how-to materials. (Better Homes and Gardens, late 1980s)

Then, my own crafting magazine subscription arrived in the mail: (Family Fun, July 2010)

You would think that crafting would be crafting - that projects today wouldn't be much different from projects 40 years ago - but I guess that isn't the case. I wonder if in a few years people will read my blog and think "Boy, what they did in the '10s' was so old-fashioned!" (Will blogs even exist?) Will scrapbooking have gone the way of the corn-husk doll? Will knitting not be cool again? All this thinking reminded me of a verse I read a while ago, which maybe gives it all a little perspective: "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher; "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." What profit has a man from all his labor in which he toils under the sun? One generation passes away, and another generation comes; But the earth abides forever. Ecclesiastes 1:2-4
Thankfully, Solomon must have reconsidered his opinion a little bit because later in the book he said: "It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor in which he toils under then sun all the days of his life which God gives him;" Ecclesiastes 5:18
So, maybe the lesson is that projects are fun, and have a certain value, but they aren't the MOST important thing, and that I have to be careful about what place they have in my life.