So, last week started off with the realization that the craft fair that I had signed up to participate in at Super Rock Star's workplace was happening. On Thursday. In my true to form procrastinating nature I started gathering ideas Monday morning. How hard could it be? SO.. I started off where any good crafting soldier starts off--PINTEREST. I have a love/hate relationship with this particular place. I LOVE it because you can get super good ideas for just about anything here and I HATE it because those super good ideas almost NEVER turn out the way they show in the picture--known as Pinterest Fails. As you will soon see--I had one of those precious moments in my week.
TUESDAY morning (the procrastination continues) I found this SUPER cute idea for making a candle center piece out of mason jars.
It just so happens that a friend of mine from my Bible study had just given me a bunch of mason jars that she no longer wanted. As you get to know me...you will find that I NEVER turn down a freebie-- even if I have NO idea what I will do with it. If it's free. It's mine. Anyway, I thought they looked adorable and relatively easy to make: Some jars,some spray snow, a cute little cut out scene (PLUS the artist supplied the template for printing--YAY!) -- pop in a candle and POOF you're done. Cute. Easy--Heh Heh--not so much. FIRST of all, the artist said to use spray snow. I should have grown a little suspicious when I noticed a comment questioning how well the spray snow would stay on. "I've had mine for over a year, and the snow has NEVER flaked off" says the artist. Liar, liar, pants on fire!!! I wasted an entire day spraying these jars and waiting patiently for them to dry. Just merely picking them up sent the snow disintegrating off like the needles on Charlie Brown's Christmas tree.
I even tried putting a finishing coat on. Nuttin. They were a HUGE mess. And the cute little cut out? Oh. My. Goodness.
Next, on my list to make was some pillows. I had all the fabric I needed, had come up with a simple Christmas tree pattern and I thought I would use up my plethora of extra buttons to sew on to make it look like ornaments on the tree. PERFECT! Now, here's where things start to take a very bad turn. Super Rock Star got home Tuesday evening and I had managed to have 16 jars sprayed that were spewing dusty snow everywhere, one template cut out and the fronts of 4 pillows PARTIALLY done. I was feeling pretty good about my progress until WHAM he hits me with "You know you have to have these ready by tomorrow afternoon, right?" WHA WHAT??!! Yeah, apparently to participate in the craft fair you have to be oh, I don't know, PREPARED and have your table all set up the afternoon BEFORE the fair starts! Gulp! I give him my best -- I had no idea look and I think he could see the desperation in my eyes.
Being the loving super SUPER ROCK STAR guy that he is AND the best husband EVER, he offered to help. He came up with the BRILLIANT solution to use white spray paint (which does not flake off everywhere) for the jars AND he spent the entire evening cutting out the scenes. Did I mention that the scenes were on thick craft paper. And had tiny details like 1000 windows on a house with at least two chimneys (Who does TWO chimney's. On a cut out? Why?!) ?
Sewing on the buttons on the Christmas trees took and EXCRUCIATINGLY long amount of time. Also, I punctured my fingers with the needle so much, I was howling in pain with all 32 buttons. (If only they made something to put on your fingers to protect them from being poked by the pins and needles when sewing....)
Also it turns out that in my pile of a bajillion buttons the only colors I possessed were brown, black and beige. Not very Christmassy (UGH!) I had decided to buy some rope trim just to give them a little extra "I made an effort" look. Let me ask you-- have you ever tried to sew rope trim onto square pillows?
If not--it's a real hoot (said no one EVER)! In trying to force my sewing machine over the stacks of 3ft high trim and fabric (small exaggeration--but that's what it seemed like) I had to grit my teeth (because that helps--you know) and shove the masses through the machine praying that some small particle of a stitch would latch on holding it together--meanwhile the pins that I used to hold the stacks together are jamming into my wrists and the howling in pain continues (no--they do not make a thimble type apparatus for wrists--I checked). I am not a big curse word user. In fact most of the time the worst that pops out of my mouth is the phrase "curse word" and the OCCASIONAL use of the "D" word. By the end of all this I was throwing curse words out left and right without remorse. I was yelling at my sewing machine as if my words would some how miraculously get it to defy all the odds and produce a somewhat straight seam in the midst of all of the uneven terrain of fabric, trim and buttons. At one point I noticed Super Rock Star giving me a side glance that was either fear or pride--maybe a mix of both.
By late that night, we had managed to finish most of it--only some assembly left to do. But, we were both exhausted and our hands were cramped into grotesquely painful positions. Our home was a complete disaster area and we both fell EXHAUSTED into bed.
As for the craft fair. I sold 3 of the 6 pillows I made and 0 of the mason jar contraptions. I don't blame people--as much effort as we put into making them they didn't seem up to par for selling. Plus, there were at least 3 other tables that had some sort of mason jar craft to sell, so maybe they weren't as special as I had hoped they would be. Lessons I learned: 1) Once again, NEVER trust an idea on Pinterest (esp. if your making it the night before said event--this is true for recipes, crafts, everything) and 2) If you decide to sign up for a craft fair--maybe start a little earlier than the day before.
1 comment:
Oh my gosh! You are truly a kindred spirit of mine, Jen. I am notorious for such procrastination, always thinking it will be easy peasy, done in no time. HA! I'd like to think I would learn from such moves... ;-)
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