Fourth Of July Fail

Fourth Of July Fail

In the past 50 years I've learned some things about myself. 

#1  I really love crafts

#2  I'm really bad at crafts

#3  I love buying supplies for craft projects

#4  I'm really bad at following through on craft projects. 

So you will understand that when I saw the lovely Jennifer Allwood with her mane of blond hair and her adorable accent doing a super-easy, super-inexpensive craft for Fourth Of July I had to bite. 

Here are her super adorable balls:

Photo Via The Magic Brush-Jennifer Allwood

Please see her fantastic live FB feed on how to do these darling stars and stripes balls here!

Now that you've seen her project and how easy she makes it look you can agree that this seems like something that I, as a homo-sapien that manages to walk upright and form complete sentences should be able to accomplish. Right? Are you with me?

So of course I took myself immediately to the craft store to buy me up some supplies (because I've never met a supply I didn't like). I had these cute little metal buckets that I thought would be adorable with the napkins decoupaged on them. I'd use as a flower container or to hold silverware etc. Sounds reasonable right? Anyone want to take bets on how much I bought while I was there? Here was my list. 

1) Mod Podge (I already had a supply at home)

2) Sponge brush (I already had a supply at home)

3) Festive napkins

ONE ITEM! I only had to buy ONE ITEM!!!

Does this look like one item to you?

No...No...this does not look like one item. This looks like someone with a shopping/hoarding problem. Is there a meeting for that? But I digress....so I brought my haul home and set out a space on the dining room table (because isn't that where everyone does their crafting?) and got started. 

On this day I had my lovely assistant with me. She is 16 and very willing to try whatever task I set before her. We discovered however that mod podge and Maia don't mix. 

Here is Maia...isn't she cute? 

Maia

We've got this!

Easy, right?

Just apply mod podge then napkin

 Now you can see from this photo that Maia has clearly confused our Fourth of July project for a candy cane. Her first attempt was to apply the napkins in a more organized fashion than the haphazard fashion in the video. Haphazard is the way to go here. 

So because I am the adult (clearly) and I have a fabulous grasp on crafting do's and don'ts (that's a damned lie) I picked up the stars portion of the napkin and another metal vessel and started to show her how's it's done (too ridiculous to mention). 

No words

Here is what I learned:


1) Mod podge sticks to everything including fingers and fingernails. 
2) Brushes are borderline pointless
3) I'm not good at crafts
4) Tearing the napkins is way better than cutting. They lay down easier and blend together effortlessly
5) Take the white layer off the back of the napkin leaving the thinner overlay.
6) Smaller pieces = Better
7) Be ok with lumpy and bumpy
8) Don't plan a blog post about a craft before you've done it

Here is the final project as I set our Fourth Of July Table:

The finished project

Stars and Stripes and Watermelons

How could I not buy piggy salt and pepper shakers?

Extra napkins did NOT go to waste!!

Fourth of July!

Be Safe everyone!!