Good Lord, what have I done?!?!?

I finished my powder horn last night. I’m impressed with myself. Pretty good for a first try. It took me longer then it should have, but seeing as it was my first time doing it, I’m pretty pleased with the results. I had a nice powder horn, I liked it a lot. It held about ¾ of a pound of powder. But I wanted one that was mine and could hold more. I liked making it, it was fun. I know what I did wrong and if I decide to make another, I know what to do differently. I’m even thinking of trying to make another just for the heck of it. It only cost me $15.00 in parts (I have some pretty fancy hardware on mine, with out those it would have been around $7.00) and it kept me occupied and busy for 3 days. (Not counting travel and work hours). I thought about doing scrimshaw on mine, but I think I’m going to wait to do that until I get some practice on some other items first.

I also finished burning the Celtic knotwork crescent moon designs into the door of my wife’s new kitchen box. They didn’t turn out as nice as I was hoping. Okay, they didn’t turn out anything like I hoped they would. Now you have to understand I have no artistic ability what-so-ever. I am so void of artistic ability that I act as a black hole for artistic ability, sucking away the creativity from others around me. On numerous occasions I have been around various artists (painters, carvers, musicians, etc.) and all of a sudden it’s like they forgot how to do their art. Painters will make glaringly wrong brush strokes, carvers will remove too much material, and musicians will forget how to play their instruments. I’m not kidding I’m that bad. I have a musician friend that says I have to stay 15 feet away from him when he plays.

So when I decided I could burn in this knotwork, I actually felt I could do this. I was surprised. I never feel that way about anything artsy. So I had confidence that I could do this. My wife picked out the design and I started working on it. This is how it went; Okay, this isn’t too bad. Oops, made a mistake, eh no-one will notice. Okay, I think I’m getting the… damn, another mistake. That’s not too bad, I can cover that up. Why won’t this pen turn the way I want it to? Why the hell did it do that? Ah crap, that’s not good. Okay, that’s better. This looks decent. CRAP! What the hell was I thinking? Argh, my two year old could do this better then I can! WHY GOD WHY? WHY WOULD YOU TORTURE THE POOR INNOCENT KITCHEN BOX THIS WAY?!?! Etc. The kids are screaming in horror at my creation, my wife is crying since I turned her lovely kitchen box into an aberration of nightmarish proportions. All I can do is say, “I thought I could do it.”

Anyways, so now my wife has a kitchen box that looks like a drunken three year old started scribbling on it with a very hot magic marker using their feet. Luckily I think I can sand off the “design” so it looks normal. Then to make matters worse I tried to burn a design in my Clone’s new chair and it turned out even worse. I don’t know what I was thinking after the debacle that was the kitchen box. I don’t feel too bad about the chair since it the wood was so dark I had a hard time seeing the design I drew onto it and I ended up free-handing most of that design. No good comes from my free-hand drawing anything, let alone with a wood burner.

The next time I get the idea to try to do anything artistic, I need someone to remind me that a monkey fetus has more artistic talent then I do. Maybe I won’t try to scrimshaw on my powder horn after all.

If I get brave later I’ll post pictures of my disaster. But I need to work up the courage before I do that. And since I cut back on drinking, I can’t turn to liquid courage either. Although I need some to face that kitchen box tonight. The thing gives me nightmares.

UPDATE:

Here's the pictures I was talking about.

Click to enlarge at your own risk!