JELL-O Eggs and Mom

My Mom really supported my creative side by constantly finding new projects for me. Sometimes on a weekend, if we were both sitting around after breakfast, we would get in the car and go on a crafting adventure. We liked to go to the local craft fairs and most of the time, we didn't buy anything, but we looked at everything to get ideas. Ideas to make our own ornaments, t-shirts and knick knacks that could clutter a house to the point of no return. My Mom is the Queen of the knick knack, the trinket and the bric-a-brac. Mom would hold up an ornament at someones table and she would say, "Kaline, you could make this, couldn't you? If I got you the stuff, could you make me a bunch of them?" I would quickly think up a process on how to make it and come up with a list of supplies in lightning speed.

Then we would head over to Flower Time. Flower Time was the version of what we know today as Michael's Crafts. We would walk up and down every aisle so we could be sure not to miss anything. We would leave with all kinds of things. Things we needed for our projects. Things we needed for a project we thought about last minute. Things we did not need at all, but they were on sale.

One time my Mom asked me to paint a cat's face on a sweatshirt. She bought me the t-shirt transfer and the white sweatshirt. I already had some paint pens and I went to work. I am not sure if the shirt really was that impressive. It was not difficult to do, I just had to trace the outlines of the transfer. Had it been a little bit more intricate, I would have had some trouble. Soon, people starting asking for the shirts and I began taking orders. Then my Mom said it would be a good idea for me to have a table at the craft fair. And a little business had begun. Soon I would spend everyday after school in our basement painting t-shirts. Christmas designs, fall leaves, and the ever-popular kitty cat face. The designs got a little more involved as time went on and I started doing some tricky things like a matching pair of sweatpants or trying to paint on sneakers and socks.

My Dad would usually drop me off at the fairs, he would cart my six-foot banquet tables in and set up with me. A few times, I entered outdoor fairs and he would set up the tent that I purchased and be sure that the tables were stable on the grass. I'm sure that taking his son to a craft fair at 7am was the last thing my Dad wanted to do over the holidays, but he never once complained.

I had a few different displays that I had bought and it seemed to be working. One of my favorite memories about displaying all of my t-shirts is the t-shirt clip. In the 80's, we had those plastic clips that you could pull the bottom corner of your shirt through. I sold these with my shirts too- in a rainbow array of colors. Later on, people would call me and order dozens at a time. At one point, I was in the local paper, the Hartford Courant with an article about my t-shirt business. After this, I got so many orders that I would stay up all night painting and then I would be exhausted at school all day. But I kept up with it through the season as best I could. I did have a few angry customers and Mom would get on my case to start making some for my own family.

Mom always found more projects for me in her magazines. She would always have random copies of Family Circle or Woman's Day lying around and inevitably, there was a craft project in there that we just had to replicate. I remember one time she found the JELL-O egg recipe. She dog-eared the page and ran to show me. My immediate reaction after seeing the picture of beautifully colored JELL-O Easter Eggs was, "Impossible. You cannot make JELL-O into an egg form." She said, "We HAVE to make them." And so we did.

We hollowed out a dozen eggs by popping the top off carefully and setting the eggs in the carton. We poured different colors of JELL-O into the eggs and let them set. When they were ready, we peeled them like hard-boiled eggs and wouldn't you know it? We had JELL-O Easter Eggs! We used green food coloring in coconut flakes to make grass and set them nicely on top. When we presented the platter of eggs, everyone was so impressed. But nobody was more impressed with us than we were with ourselves!

Now, of course, since everyone likes to copy my Mom and me, you can buy the Easter Egg JELL-O molds at kraftfoods.com and cheat by using those. Or you can make them the way they were originally made. The way they were meant to be made- like my Mom and I did.

What I remember about our little adventures and projects is that my Mom was my best friend while I was growing up. It was amazing to me how supportive she would be of anything I wanted to do. She was so much fun for me to hang out with and always willing to take a day off to complete a project with me.