Decoupage Pig: Or How I Spent My Sunday Afternoon

Meet the newest addition to our just-unpacked-flat: Decoupage Pig.  Yes, that's right. We walked into Cass Art looking for picture hooks and walked out with a 1 litre bottle of PVA glue, a flat brush, a pre-formed pig and some scraps of expensive tissue paper.

It wasn't my idea.

I wanted to go downstairs for the sale items and John got distracted by the giant decoupage giraffe featured in the corner.  "Look! Look!" he said, voice full of awe. "WE CAN MAKE A ... [wait for it] DECOUPAGE PIG." A small boy, probably around the age of 4 or 5 was also tugging at his mom's hand and pointing to the pig.  I'm pretty sure John's enthusiastic sales pitch helped.  "What the hell are we going to do with THAT?" I snarled.  "Use it to decorate our flat!" he said, completely convinced.  And once John's convinced, there's not a lot you can do.  "Fine," I said, snatching pieces of expensive tissue paper at random.  "No, no, we have to think about this," John said, carefully selecting sheets according to color.  So I stood to one corner with my hand on my hip, sighing and rolling my eyes dramatically until he finished making his selections and then we trundled back upstairs, where I made him pay for his ridiculous pig project (it wasn't cheap).

But then I must admit - when we returned to the flat, put the stereo on, squeezed the glue into an empty Gu ramekin and started patching up Decoupage Pig, it proved to be a highly entertaining and fun afternoon activity for a rainy day.  Now, I used to be an ultra-arts-and-crafty-person who would have jumped at the first opportunity to make a decoupage anything - but now I've realized I'm just a bitter, jaded 9-5 commuter who's forgotten the joys of getting one's fingers sticky with gold flakes and PVA glue.  I read my friends' crafty blogs over at Art, Like Bread and Le Petit Elephant with a mixture of admiration and envy.  "I want to make another one!" I shouted at the end of the project, disappointed that our creative work was over.  John gave me a strange look.  "I think one is enough," he said, carefully placing Decoupage Pig on the shelf to dry.

Now, the special thing about Decoupage Pig is that it also double as a PIGGY BANK.  Yes, John actually used that as rationale for buying the thing when trying to convince me of its merits: "I can put all my loose change in there!  You'll never yell at me for having coins around the house again!"  Now, not unlike a 5-year-old, he comes in from work, takes off his suit jacket, pauses at Decoupage Pig while rifling through his pockets for change and gleefully deposits his coins into the slot on Decoupage Pig's back.  Sigh.

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