I still try to do craftiness. Really, I do.

I tried to remember when I'd last posted anything vaguely crafty that I'd done and couldn't remember, so I went back and looked at the archives and LO it was in October.

Friends, I don't know about you but that seems like forever ago.

And didn't this used to be a crafty blog at one point? I mean, I thought it was. But then I also used to knit and well, that hasn't happened in youjustgofigureitoutforyourself. Yeah, that's a while.

Oh well, I'll knit again soon. And maybe a blanket! It's cold in here! Because the fancy new fireplace isn't working properly and we've resorted to blowing our faces off instead! That's a horrible story for another day!

For now though, let's look at craftiness.

Perhaps you remember the debacle with the apple pie filling, yes? Well, I'm no longer classifying it as a debacle because, for once in my life as a Professional Crafting Disaster, all the pieces fell into place without having to wreck any perfectly good supplies or hurl any scissors.

I know. It's a big deal.

See, the idea, which I'm sure you can imagine on your own but I'm going to describe for you anyway, was to dispatch a truckload of apples given to me by the Nice Neighbors in the form of canned apple pie filling via the Miraculous Apple Machine and then gift them to a chosen few friends and relatives at the holidays alongside other preserved goodnesses like pickles in relish, chip, spear, mini gherkin and whole DILL form (don't let me catch you making sweet pickles, devil people) and apricot jam and then cards outlining to whom we donated the monies we might have used otherwise to buy them shit they don't need.

Yes, we're those kinds of gift-giving assholes. The ones who give you a card saying that a "gift has been given in your name to X organization" instead of buying you a new gadget for your kitchen or sexy lingerie or whatever it is you're supposed to be giving your relatives at holiday time.

See? You don't want me giving you gifts anyway.

I planned to make fancy labels for these As Close As You're Going To Get To An Actual Gift gifts from a printing service, but when they showed up a wee small for my tastes, I decided I'd figure something else out. Eventually. And then I'd package them up somehow and send them somehow and, well...I forgot about it for a while.

And then yesterday happened and I settled all my canned goodness debts by making up some tags with good old (SHITTY EVIL I HATE YOU WINDOWS 7) Microsoft Office, some glue, fabric scraps too cute to throw out and embroidery thread I've never used.

So, the random preserves went from this:

Randomly preserved garden and neighborly donated bounty.

To this:

Suitable for door and mailbox ditching.

Not bad, right?

I mean, yes - I took shittastic photos, but it was early this morning and I just wanted to make sure I had photographic evidence of the crafting event - since OBVIOUSLY you whores wouldn't just believe me if I told you due to my latency with crafting - but still they look pretty cute.

I think.

And hopefully the contents of these pretty cute gifts will soothe the raging hatred that arises when the recipients read the We Gave Your Present To Babies With Cholera In Haiti and To A Wolf In Colorado note on top and they realize that there won't be any holly bedecked thong and push-up bra set from us this Christmas.

Not that we've ever given that in the past, but it does seem like a good way to let people down easy with regard to gift giving. In fact, we should have been doing that all along. Giving people absurd and useless gifts, I mean. Because then giving donations in their name to worthwhile organizations would come as a relief and create happiness instead of coming as a disappointment and creating homicidal tendencies.

Oh well. I can only plan so much, you know.