Craft Fail That Is Surprisingly Appropriate.

I saw this wreath over at Jaihart.

http://jaihartjustlovelydesigns.blogspot.com/2011/03/spring-wreath.html

I thought it was really cute and wanted to steal the idea.  But I’m on a craft supply diet.  (Meaning not that I am eating nothing but craft supplies, but rather that I’m trying to use my stash up a little before buying more.  Although, eating them would be a good way to do that…)

Which explains why I thought it would be appropriate to use white fun fur instead of green.

And a cone shape instead of a circle.

Because everyone knows that butterflies are always flocking to snow covered trees.  I see it all the time.

But then I sometimes overindulge in wine.

You might be wondering in what way this is “appropriate” as my title suggests … Well, I’ll tell you.  I live in Missouri.  Last weekend it was almost 80 degrees.  Yesterday we got freezing rain and snow.  Spring meets Winter.  Just like my cone shaped wreath.

I was inadvertantly all symbolic and stuff.  I’m awesome like that.

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Craft Fail – Diseased Snowman Gift Tag

As a paper-crafter, I have about 3,482 pounds of paper scraps.  So I figured I could make some Christmas tags with those scraps and my trusty Sizzix.  And some of them actually turned out pretty cute.  But this … wow.  I loved this paper and thought pink glitter polka dots would be so cute on a snowman!  When you have glitter and polka dots together, what could possibly go wrong?  Yeah, not so much.  He looks like he has some sort of pox disease.  I’m a little afraid to touch him too much lest he’s contagious!

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Craft Fail – Best Little Birdie Bordello In The Midwest.

What we have here is something that I would highly recommend that you not make as a Christmas gift.  That is, unless you think you can do a better job than me.  Which, given the enormity of this fail, is not entirely out of the realm of possibility.

I like to call it The Best Little Birdie Bordello In The Midwest!  Because, really, that’s what it is.

The thing was so hideous that I took 2,483 pictures of it and not a single one came out in focus! 

I really wish I could blame this one on Martha, but I can’t.  I was inspired by Amy at Mod Podge Rocks http://modpodgerocks.blogspot.com/.  And, while I was inspired by her, I would like to be very clear.  Her bird houses are gorgeous.

I don’t know what sent this over the line from “small mistake that can be fixed with another coat of paint” to “oh my gosh!  wrap that thing in triple ply plastic bags before you throw it away!” but it happened somewhere between failing to sand the Dollar Tree birdhouse before painting it and failing to allow the Mod Podge and paint to dry thoroughly before applying the beautiful glitter.

I put it on my deck but no birds would visit it during the day.  And at night they looked suspicious as if they were just waiting for the bird police to make a bust on it.  Seriously.  Little sparrows would go up to the bluejays, grind out their little birdie cigarettes on the deck, and ask, “You a cop?”

Oh for heaven’s sake.  I was just proofreading this post and I realized that thing at the top is a steeple!  Oh my gosh, that makes it even worse.  Some little innocent hummingbird is going to take her little hummingbird children to what she thinks is just a tacky church …

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Craft Fail – Martha’s Bath Balls

I found an awesome project on Martha Stewarts website.  (http://www.marthastewart.com/article/natural-beauties-bath-snowballs)  In case you don’t feel like following that link, here is what they were supposed to look like.

Here is what mine looked like.

However, I am ever the optimist; my friends call me Pollyanna.  Okay.  That wasn’t true.  No one has ever called me Pollyanna and I’m rarely optimistic.  But I did have a rare moment of optimism when I thought I could “fix” this.  After all, I did get the precise color of blue correct.  So I thought to myself, “Self, you can just break those up, add some essential oil and have plain old bath salts.

Well, what Self forgot was that Martha’s instructions said to let these things dry for a couple days.  I let mine dry for 2 weeks because after 2 days they certainly weren’t holding their shape.  Then they sat in that vase on my counter for another 2 weeks before I got around to taking their picture.  That stuff was cemented in the vase and I could not get it out!

I eventually had to just run hot water over the salts until they dissolved (there was no way in heck I was going to sacrifice one of my favorite vases for these stupid Martha balls!)

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The Ultimate Craft Failure – Marigold Perfume.

When I was in 4th or 5th grade, the girl across the street (whom I shall call SC because her name is recognizable and I haven’t seen her in years so I’m not sure if she’d appreciate being identified as a participant in this fiasco) and I decided we wanted to make perfume.  Why?  Well, that’s obvious.  I had about 4 zillion empty plastic film canisters and I needed something to put in them.  Duh.

The first thing we did was walk around my parents’ yard looking for something that smelled great.  Roses?  Nah.  Too pretty.  Grass?  Nah.  Too earthy.  Marigolds?  YES!  They were juuuuust right.  So we picked the marigolds and took them into the kitchen.  SC said (and I remember this statement as if it were yesterday), “The first ingredient in perfume is alcohol.”  Therefore our next task was to go to the bathroom to find some rubbing alcohol.  Only there wasn’t any.  There was, however, lemon scented nail polish remover.  We figured it would work.  Plus, it had the added bonus of a fresh lemon scent.

Our next plan of action was to extract the scent from the marigolds.  What better way to extract scent than by heating up our concoction?

Sooooo…we heated up one of my mother’s sauce pans and proceeded to pour the nail polish remover in it.  The whole bottle.

On an unrelated note, did you know that nail polish remover is very very flammable?  I would even go so far as to say “highly flammable”.  As you can imagine, the heated nail polish remover sprang up into a geyser-like shower and then fell back in the pan.

SC and I shrugged our shoulders then added the marigolds.  Ahhhh, the lovely scent of marigolds mixed with lemon nail polish remover.  We really should have marketed the stuff.

Looking back on it, perhaps this failure could be classified as a success of some sort.  After all, we managed to not burn down the house in our pursuit of olfactory greatness.

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Green Warty Baby.

Here is another of my craptabulous creations.  In case you can’t tell, I was trying to make an altered Scrabble tile in order to make a pendant of it.  Please do not expect this to be funny.  There is nothing funny about failed decoupage and Diamond Glaze.  Nothing at all.

My first attempt involved a picture of my daughter.  Let me tell you, my daughter is gorgeous.  It’s just a fluke of the ink changing color and my poor Diamond Glaze skills that makes her appear all green and warty.

Here she is in real life.  No green-ness or warts at all!

So I decided I needed an image that was printed on regular cardstock and not photo paper.  And perhaps designed by someone possessing graphic artistry skills as I have none.  To that end, I bought a sheet of designs from Etsy.  That is when my second attempt at Diamond Glaze worked, but the picture curled up!  Gaah!

It was at that point that I decided I must have gotten crummy instructions.  And, no, I will not reveal the website that gave me crummy instructions.  Mostly because I deleted it and can’t remember it.  I proceeded to do much research and figured out what I did wrong.  I think.  I found another website that said you should Mod-Podge your image down (check) and then Mod-Podge over the top of it and let it dry before applying the Diamond Glaze.   Ooooooooh.  Why didn’t they say so?  I will be re-attempting this sometime in the near future because I love love love these pendants and have bought several from various Etsy sellers.

**This post will also appear on Craft Fail – see link at the right.**

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Craptabulous Tuesday – Easter Eggs

It’s time for another Craptabulous Tuesday!  This week I bring you … EASTER EGGS!!!!  What’s that you say?  It’s impossible to screw up Easter eggs?  Alas.  It’s not.  Not even close to being impossible.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock far far away from all crafters and bloggers, then you have seen these silk tie Easter eggs from Martha Stewart:

http://www.marthastewart.com/article/silk-tie-easter-eggs

Half the bloggers in the world have done this craft and shared it.  (I first stumbled upon it at Dollar Store Crafts – see link at right.)  So I rushed right out to the nearest thrift store and bought 3 silk ties.  Then I rushed to the general store to get some white eggs since I generally buy brown.  I came home, followed the instructions carefully, unwrapped my beautiful eggs and …

TAAADAAAA!!!!

That’s right!  They are as white as the wind-driven snow!  Yay me!  Exciting Easter eggs!

The best I can figure (and this is under the advisement of one of my co-workers) is that I got ties that had been cleaned so all the dye that would normally bleed out had already done so and there was none left to bleed onto my eggs.  Which makes sense.  And I’m sure Martha didn’t buy silk ties from a thrift store – I’m sure hers were brand spanking new.  Pshaw.

So, after my failed experiment, I decided to dye my eggs the old fashioned way.  The way Jesus and His Disciples did it.  I went to Wal-Mart and bought a no-fail “Magic Glitter Egg Kit”.  Magic my foot.

Okay, the white stripes were on purpose.  Sort of.  I wrapped rubber bands around a couple of the eggs.  I guess they weren’t tight enough because the die leaked under them.  What?  Why do I have 5 pink eggs, 1 blue egg, and one yellow egg?  Well, I don’t.  You are looking at a yellow egg, a blue egg, 2 pink eggs, and 3 purple eggs.  Duh.

Besides my rubber band trick not working, the pink and purple ended up looking exactly the same.  Then the orange didn’t take but I had already dumped out the blue dye so I had to make yet another pink egg.  The yellow was pretty until I decided to glitter it (there are 3 glitter eggs in the picture).  Apparently, my “Magic Glitter Stick ‘Em” rinsed most of the yellow color off.  And we won’t even get into the spots on the blue egg …

There is a bit of good news though … I can safely eat my eggs without worrying about being poisoned by Chinese Easter Egg Dye Lead as seen here:

I officially give up on coloring Easter eggs.

For more fantastic craft failures, check out a new blog put out by Dollar Store Crafts:  http://craftfail.com/

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CrapTABULOUS Tuesday

I know this will surprise you all since I’m so crafty and Martha-y and all that; but sometimes my crafts just don’t turn out all that well.  What we have here is a glittered nightmare.

It was supposed to be a Valentine’s Day garland.  I do still kind of like the birds though, I wish I hadn’t poked holes through them so I could use them on a card or something.  That red glitter is amazing.  I got it on clearance at Michael’s after having drooled over it during the entire Christmas Shopping Season.  It’s Garnet by Martha Stewart.

 

You know the worst part?  My husband went to JoAnn’s with me in November and we picked out the bird Sizzix die together.  Well, when I went to use it 2 nights ago for this project, I realized that Sizzix is in some kind of racket and my beloved bird die with only work with some kind of special big Sizzix machine, not the original machine that I own.  And, of course, it’s the one receipt from the last 12 years that I can’t find.  Since it was a Christmas item, I’m sure JoAnn’s will give me approximately 4 cents in store credit with no receipt.  So what I had to do was trace around the holes and then just make a template.  That’s right.  I cut out 4 of those suckers by hand.

If that’s not craptabulous enough for you, here’s something else crappy.  Blue Bunny Light Bunny Tracks Ice Cream.

Now I have eaten a lot of diet food in the last 3 or 4 years, but nothing as disgusting as this “ice cream” (I’m being generous here by calling it that).  Oh my gosh!  Not only is it bad from the first bite, but it also leaves an aftertaste like cold 8 day old coffee grounds.  Bleck.  The peanut butter and “chocolate” are super hard too, I thought I was going to break my tooth on this stuff!

Most of you know that I am a Peeps Purist.  But, when I saw these, I just had to get them.  That’s because I thought they were little sailors.

Any guesses on what they really are?  That’s wrong.  Nope.  Unh-uh. 

Give up?

They are snowmen!  I know, they look like chimney-sweeping sailors, but they are supposed to be snowmen.  Great job, Peeps.

That felt good.  I should do more CrapTABULOUS Tuesdays. 

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