It's Funny How Things Work

Way back in early December I drew this in my little notebook.

Now you have to understand, I drew this in about three or four minutes. CLEARLY I didn't stress over it.

Small star, smallish birds, asterisks at the very bottom.  

???

So OF COURSE I had to try it out.

Because THIS was clearly not working.

So I moved the asterisks to the very bottom, then I put the letters above them, and then the boxes, but only three because four made the row too heavy visually. Then I put my trees, and I made them arch a little from the bottom so they wouldn't be to visually heavy, then the birds, and then I threw up some leftover asterisks, because may be I needed some very pale silvery or gold up there in the sky to fill up that empty space.

Then I went across the room to look at it.

Nope. Birds are too big.

Rummage around to find medium birds.

Wellll.... dunno about that. Let's try small birds.

THAT's not right. The birds and the asterisks can't decide who's the boss. Nope.

Gotta get rid of those extra asterisks...

Oh yeah, that's better. But I should probably make my trees the same size. Because, that's the way they are in the original drawing...

Ok tree fabric chosen...

Oh hell no.

Okay, this is better.

But now I wonder, there's an awful lot of nothing above the trees. Do I REALLY need the birds?

Apparently not.

So I will make my final elements (I need a couple of smaller trees on each end with red trunks and I think I need a replacement bulb in my spotlight), and then I will sew this together.

THIS GOES TO SHOW that THINGS CHANGE and you have to let them. You cannot FALL IN LOVE with any element because you may have to sacrifice them. In writing, they say "Kill your darlings."

I may fine tune this a bit. I may make the center box a bit bigger than the other two and see how that looks. I've wondered about putting an umlaut above the O in Noel, and that would mean making it a bit smaller. It would also throw off the symmetry, so I am not sure about it. And it adds an element of "cute" that I am pretty sure this does not need. In writing Kill Your Darlings means to get rid of that overly crafted piece of writing. I would say "Don't get too cute." I don't want Cute in this. I wanted a simple banner that would proclaim the holiday season.

Message accomplished. Now I have to finish it without mucking it up.