My Pinterest Epic Fail

Have you ever been excited to create something, but it just doesn’t turn out the way you thought it would?  Right from the start, you realize that this project isn’t going to turn out the way you imagined, but you’re too bull-headed to give up on it?   You persevere, but your creation ends up in the garbage?  Just to make you all feel better, and to let you know that you’re not alone, I’m going to share my Pinterest epic fail.

Have you seen Pinterest epic fails?  A Pinterest epic fail is when someone sees a beautiful, perfectly done project on Pinterest, and then tries to re-create it with disasterous and sometimes quite funny results.

First, I have to tell you that my project ended up in the garbage, and all of my pictures of the ornament making process were deleted from my camera.

So, I only have pictures of the ornament AFTER I rescued it from the garbage.  It was rescued from the garbage after I told my mom and sisters about my epic failure, and they convinced me to write a blog post about it.  Which was right after they finished laughing hysterically at my pathetic story.

Here’s the story of my epic fail.

On a fun shopping trip with my mom, sisters, daughter and niece, we saw these great decorative spheres made out of wine corks.  I, of course, think that I could make something similar.

My mom offers a bag of wine corks that she has collected.  (My mom – unlike me – NEVER throws anything away).

I search on Pinterest for Christmas ornament ideas using wine corks, and I see this one from a blog called What’s Ur Home Story.

I decide that I’ll make a cork ball ornament for my mom as a gift for Christmas, but mine will be a beautiful, glittery white masterpiece.  Because I love anything white, and because I always have to do things the hard way.

So, I make my cork sphere with a paper mache ornament and some corks.

I soon realize that this ornament is going to be HUGE!  It’s probably at least 6″ in diameter.  My mom has a small table top tree, and this ornament is going to dwarf it!  (Think Charlie Brown Christmas tree).  I keep working on the ornament, thinking maybe she can use it as a tree topper, or decoration for a table.

Once I’m done gluing all of the corks onto the ornament, then I start the painting process.  I really wish that I hadn’t deleted the pictures.  What I did was hang the ornament on a wooden dowel stick.  That way, I could spray paint the ornament from all sides while it was hanging from the dowel.

I held the stick in one hand and spray painted the ornament with the other hand.  It quickly became apparant that my vision of a beautiful white ornament wasn’t going to happen.

The problem was that corks aren’t perfectly smooth, so all of the dents and imperfections showed up very clearly after they were painted white.

I kept spraying and spraying layer after layer of white paint, hoping to fill in some of the imperfections.  I was clearly dilusional, probably from the paint fumes.

Finally, I give up and decide to do the final coat of paint, which will be a beautiful glitter paint.  Glitter helps everything, right?

I start spraying on the glitter paint, and it’s coming out very quickly and is a much thinner paint than the white paint that I had used previously.

Oh, and I forgot to tell you one important thing – I’m spraying the paint on the ornament in our back yard holding the ornament out over the grass.  The grass that is covered with hundreds of small yellow leaves from our locust tree.

Here’s a picture of the leaves.

Because the glitter paint is coming out quickly, and is so thin, lots of paint starts dripping off of the ornament.  I clearly sprayed too much on at one time.  (Again, I blame the paint fumes).

My instant solution is to start shaking the wooden dowel that the ornament is hanging from, in order to shake off the excess dripping paint.  So, I shake and I shake until the ornament breaks off of it’s hanger and lands in the grass.  The grass that is covered with fallen leaves from our locust tree.

Ugh!  Corks are broken off, and leaves are stuck to the still wet and dripping cork ornament.

For some reason, I still don’t give up at this point.  I take the ornament and the corks that have broken off into the garage, and start taking off the leaves that are stuck to the ornament.

What a mess.  I finally toss in the towel, and toss the ornament and the corks in the garbage.  I’ve had it.  Enough is enough.

This is what the ornament looked like when I pulled it from the garbage.  Lovely, isn’t it?

So, that’s my lovely Pinterest epic fail.  I do have ideas for making the ornament differently next year.  We’ll see…

Have you ever had an epic fail?  Please share!

Between Naps On The Porch