Monthly Archives: September 2012

This week my craft began great, but slowly grew to become a “hot mess”. When I first saw it on Pinterest, I thought to myself “Hey how hard can it be to make a towel wrap?” Clearly my initials thoughts were wrong because it is an extremely hard task. First of all, I don’t know how to sew and even if I did I don’t happen to have on in my dorm. So I turned to “Ok to wash” fabric glue. All that was needed for this craft was a towel, some Velcro, ribbon, and fabric glue.  I tried to do this craft on a Friday night, after a 3 hour long band practice while talking to my friend. This was probably my ultimate downfall with the towel wrap. I eventually got tired and just started to throw glue wherever I felt it needed to go. At one point, I ended up gluing one side of my Velcro to the same side as the other piece. Needless to say, I should not try to glue things and have a decent conversation as it probably won’t end well. When I chose this craft I thought that I could use it and it would be handy to have. But, with how it ultimately ended up turning out I don’t think that is going to happen. The first thing that I’d recommend to someone trying to do this would be to focus on what’s in front of you. I often got lost complaining about my lack of sleep or my annoying instructors, instead of making sure that I was placing things correctly on the towel. I would also suggest learning how to sew and use a sewing machine. The glue was messy (probably because I got lazy with it, but still it was gross) and got all over the towel. So if anyone wants to try this on their own, I’d definitely suggest waiting until you have a chance to go home and do it there, rather than do it in your room at 11 o’clock at night with your friend making fun of you. 😀 (mine is the blue one)

My craft for this week was inspired by someone’s post of chevron wall art. It seemed pretty when I was going through it, but throughout the process it seemed I had some problems. The tools needed were pretty easy to obtain. All I needed was a blank canvas, some acrylic paints, a brush, and some painters tape. I began by first taping off some continuous Vs across the canvas. I ran into a problem here with the length of the tape. I was being extremely lazy while ripping the tape and my pieces ended up being different lengths. Also the ripped edges made for an uneven surface (which became really visible when the project was over.) I then began to just smear the colors that I had over the canvas. I read in the original creator’s information that she had allowed her children to paint over the canvas after she had taped it off. And seeing as I don’t have small children running around in my dorm I had to result to doing it myself. I wish that before I had had some sort of plan of how to paint the canvas. My colors ended up mixing with each other and creating some other colors, some of which weren’t as pleasant. Another thing that I would recommend to anyone trying this craft would be to paint a base color, allow that to dry, and then apply the tape Vs. The painters tape that I had used ended up being too thick, and on the small canvas I had, it resulted in the canvas being extremely bare. So with that I’d definitely recommend the base color, even if you do have a large enough canvas or thin enough tape. It will end up adding more color to your painting and have a nice effect on it. Unfortunately, I’ll have to admit that this project did not turn out how I’d expected. It doesn’t look horrible, but it isn’t fantastic either. But, if anyone else tries it and is successful you should let me know how you went about painting the canvas. Anyways next week I hope to be more successful with whatever I end up doing!  🙂 (the picture of two angles was my model, mine is the other one)

Anyone who knows me knows that I am one of the least creative people when it comes to arts and crafts, but it is definitely something that I love to try. So I’ve decided to challenge myself and mimic crafts that I have seen online on a site called Pinterest. Not only will I be having fun, but I will also be creating new decorations for my dorm. I suppose this will be my own little blog about how not to go about doing some of their crafts.

My first attempt was a decorative night light. The night light part became my first issue. In order to drill a hole through glass one needs a crystal drill bit, and unfortunately I don’t carry one of those around in my pocket. My next problem arose when I couldn’t find a wine bottle and instead went for a smaller vase. Another difficulty I had was having my new light fall apart the next day. I left my windows open with the fans on overnight and a few marbles fell off. Now I’m not sure if the weather is what caused it, but I would definitely suggest storing it at room temperature for the first few days to let the marbles settle so that it doesn’t fall apart.   Other than these problems, everything went well. All you really need is some marbles (make sure you have enough of the colors you want, I also ran into that wall), a glass container, and a hot glue gun. You simply heat the glue gun and then apply the glue to the marbles and place them where you want on the bottle. It really is a fool proof process. Unless you like being a masochist, I definitely advise taking it easy with the hot glue gun. Towards the end I became a little impatient and began putting a lot of glue on the marbles, which ultimately led to me getting glue all over my desk and burning my finger. For a finishing touch, you can use the drill bit to place a light in the center, or take an easier approach. I simply took a battery operated flicker light and stuck it in. It had the same effect, maybe less light, but other than that it was still the same. Overall, my first attempt was not as much of a failure as I had expected, but I plan on coming across more difficult crafts within the next couple of weeks. This craft is something that anyone can do it and doesn’t fall into the category of rocket science. I mean if I can make it look decent, anyone can be successful with it.

(my masterpiece is on the left and what it’s supposed to look like is on the right)