Putting It In Boxes

One of my numerous hobbies is painting little boxes. Lately I've been thinking of selling some on Etsy. Partly for a little extra money, mostly to induce my sister to start her own Etsy shop out of competitiveness because she is much craftier than I am, and could sell her jewelry for a much higher price than I could ever sell my boxes.

This box I made by painting some address labels I mis-printed at work and then sticking them on a cardboard box. I like how it looks, but it was so easy and cheap I can't imagine anyone actually paying money for it.











This was an experiment last night, where I painted a wooden picture frame white and then decoupaged on some tissue paper.
















This little box I painted a while ago, it just needs the 6-18 layers of gloss I like to coat them with. A cheery little bird. I would like it better if the background were blue rather than yellow. Now I know.












This little box had several different attempts at a design on top. First was a rubber stamp of a black and white cat in red high heels. Then was a rendering of that famous Impressionist painting of people in a park, but it was very bad, and, ultimately, upside-down. I tried sanding it off but gave up and covered it in more labels.








It's hard because I'm kind of a perfectionist and don't think anything is good enough to sell. But I probably only need to have a few saps buy stuff before I'm convinced otherwise.

Another Food Ruined

Among the odd skills you gain in cell culture are being able to open jars one-handed and being able to mouth-breathe for long periods of time to avoid bad smells.

I'm prouder of the jar opening, but the mouth-breathing is possibly more useful. Today I used it because I helped clean out the cold rooms. This wasn't too bad because since they've instituted regular cold room cleanouts we don't have the months- or years-old media that has festered or fermented into syrupy morasses the likes of which normal people can't imagine. Have you ever scraped your fingernail down the crease beside your nose after a long day when your face is oily, and then looked at the gray, unctuous material that collected under your fingernail? Imagine that but by the liter. That's what cells can get like when they're really old. But today we were tossing some pretty normal, uncontaminated stuff.

I still didn't want to smell it. I mean, get real. As we were dumping gallons of the stuff I was carefully mouth-breathing. And then the cleanout leader chirps, "It smells like poppy seed bagels!"

Thanks. Thanks. There's another food I'm not going to be able to eat again.

I started working on painting little boxes again tonight. If I can get up some stock maybe I'll start an Etsy shop. It'd be nice to have a little spending money. No, writing that just feels weird. I'm so uptight about my money matters I would designate any extra income into savings. Whatever, it might still be fun to have an Etsy shop.