For every month’s worth of projects I post on this blog, there are at least one or two that get shelved because they didn’t work out or they need some serious revising. Sometimes having a DIY go wrong can be heartbreaking, especially when my creative juices are running dry and I have nothing else to post in its place. At other times, the stuff ups are so funny I end up staring aghast at the end result, giggling like a crazy person.
Either way, I thought it’d be nice to give you a little peek at some of the projects that didn’t quite work out because… well it’s always nice to see some of the behind the scenes action right? And it just goes to show that life as a blogger certainly isn’t full of sprinkles and confetti (or at least it isn’t around my way!).
First up on my list of DIY fails is this beeewwwdiful cup. Haha! This one was created during the height of my brush stroke phase when I saw this lovely vase on Pinterest and was inspired to try painting a mug the same way. I enthusiastically got to work, thinking this was going to be the easiest and coolest project ever. Wrong!
What I failed to remember was that the consistency of glass paint is completely different to that of other paints. It’s hard to get a perfectly opaque, solid look over a large area and getting that nice brush stroke effect was near impossible (for me anyway – I’d love to hear from you if you’ve done it successfully).
Luckily, unbaked glass paints wash off easily with soap and water, so at least this mug will live to see another day’s project. 🙂
Next up on the DIY fail list was my ‘ingenious’ idea to make a garland out of curtain rings. This is one of those projects that I think might work out with a little revision, but in and of itself it wasn’t particularly successful.
For one thing, I used spray paint to colour the rings, which started to scratch off when I tried to fasten them shut.
Secondly, since the rings were plastic, they still looked kind of cheap even though some of them were painted. As you can imagine, it didn’t make a very pretty garland and definitely wasn’t something you’d want to hang up at your next party. Back to the drawing board!
Fail number three goes to my marbled treat bags. Maybe it was the fumes, but when I made these and I saw how terrible the end result was, I just couldn’t stop laughing!
And how bad was it? Well let’s just say nail polish marbling doesn’t work on everything, especially not on muslin. The nail polish (in addition to looking kind of ugly because there was just SO much black) started to flake off the minute the bags began to dry, leaving me with little specks all over the table and no colour on some sections of the bags. Awhile later I saw this very handy tutorial on how to properly marble on fabric. Lesson learned. 🙂
And my last, most stupid mistake didn’t result in a ruined project, but instead was a project that ruined my furniture!
If you look closely at the photo above, you’ll see a horrid wet splodge on my desk. Believe it or not, that’s from these clay eggs that I made for Easter this year. The first batch I baked straight away for the post, but I then made a second batch that I left unbaked on my desk for a week or two while I busied myself with other things.
I can’t stress this enough… never, ever leave unbaked polymer clay on your furniture! I didn’t realise this before, but it reacts with the chemicals in paint and eventually the paint starts to dissolve. I now have little sections on my desk that are forever ‘wet’ (for want of a better word) where the clay eggs reacted to the surface and the paint will no longer dry. Total fail.
And there you have it, my latest DIY mistakes for your viewing pleasure. 🙂
I’m sure if I concentrated hard enough I’d come up with plenty more to write about, but maybe I’ll save that for another post. If you’ve ever had a project go wrong leave me a note in the comments below, I’d love to hear your stories!
xx Steph