CraftFail

Are you familiar with CraftFail?  According to their About page, Craft Fail is "a community blog dedicated to sharing our not-so-successful crafting attempts."  It is fantastic.  Some of the entries are absolutely hilarious.

I'm sure most of you are familiar with Jen Yates of Cake Wrecks fame.  (If not, click the link immediately.  You are missing out.)  Did you know she also has a crafty blog called EPBOT?  She recently posted about her quest to make the world's best book purse.  She said, "I believe that failure is really only failure when you give up. 'Til then, it's just a work-in-progress."  I couldn't agree more.

Check out this cute card.  It is by Teri Anderson and was published in the July/August 2011 issue of Paper Crafts Magazine.  

 

Unlike most of the cards they publish, the instructions for this one weren't printed in the magazine.  Instead, the card was a teaser to bring people to the website.   When I saw the cute yarn flower, I remembered making something like it as a kid.  I vaguely recall dipping the yarn in something (was it Elmer's glue?), forming it into a shape, setting it on waxed paper, letting it dry, and peeling it off.  

Here's what happened when I tried that.

CraftFail!  The Elmer's glue did make a rigid flower, but there are disgusting clumps of glue on the petals (especially the lower right) and the yarn turned all frizzy. 

I tried again, this time dipping the yarn in one of my favorite craft materials, laundry starch. 

Better.  There are no disgusting clumps and the frizzing is minimal.  The flower holds its shape pretty well, yet it is flexible enough that I could round out the flowers and fix up the shape before adhering it to a card.

It wasn't until after I tried these two versions of the flower that I actually went to the Paper Crafts website to find out how Teri Anderson made her version.  Turns out all she did was loop yarn on a Glue Dot!  No dipping, forming or drying involved at all!