Shari is the only person in the whole world to have her own “subfolder” in my email inbox…….she always has the best advice, is always making something new, and I can’t bear to delete any them. I especially look forward to the photos she sends and how “thrilled” her daughter looks when she has to try Shari’s creations on. Finley, like Sienna, does NOT like trying on clothes that Mommy made…..and her expressions are just priceless. Check on the “mosaic” recycled t-shirt dress Shari made on the right….amazing!
Since she refuses to start her own “creative” blog (I mean, maybe she IS busy running her business Happy Chickadee, being a fabulous mother and keeping up with a gazillion other responsibilities), I’ve been pressuring her forever to be a guest blogger on Lil Blue Boo…and she finally caved!
Please welcome my first guest blogger….my friend (and “full-time consultant”) Shari:
OK, so I’ve been having anxiety over writing this guest blog post for, well, months! I keep putting it off…have you seen how many creative and awesome people follow this blog? And, hello, can Ashley do anything wrong? (She’s going to kill me for saying that!)
A little bit about me: My name is Shari and I’m a busy stay at home mum to 3 year old Finley. I love to sew (I am honored to be a pattern tester for Ashley), and I mostly sew things for my little girl, which she then refuses to wear. I am a lover of color and I especially love trying to make colors that don’t necessarily work together, work. That basically got me through art school 🙂 Before starting our family, I was an art dealer and I would paint when I had the time. Now, I barely have time to doodle! So sewing is a great thing for me because I can put it down and start back up without missing a beat.
You might remember a while back Ashley blogged asking us what the most unusual thing we use as decoration in our home is. I emailed Ashley a picture of mine, as I do with pretty much every project I do. She’s been my crafting muse since the day we met. Anyhow, so my unusual decor item are two very old bricks from the first home my husband and I lived in. The house was demolished about 5 years ago, and I keep these old dusty bricks proudly displayed on our mantle.
The house was an adorable, tiny, not well insulated (can you say “get your ski hats out, it’s 40 degrees below outside and we ran out of oil in the furnace!”) little 1940’s manufactured home sitting on 700 gorgeous acres in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. To me, those 2 bricks are not only beautiful, but the memories they hold are too. Needless to say, I’ve heard many comments such as “What are those dirty/ugly/odd/fill-in-the-adjective looking things on your mantle?” So that got me thinking about beauty, and what one considers beautiful is so relative and subjective.
I remember once years ago there was an exhibit of the worst paintings by all these absolutely famous artists. Paintings we would look at and probably say “wow.” But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and not only that, let’s face it, we all screw up our projects sometimes, even famous artists like Picasso, or bloggers like Ashley. 😉
So today I ask you: what is your craft project gone bad?
So today I ask you: what is your craft project gone bad?
Sadly, I have a slew of items to pick from. Let me see, it could be the terrible rust colored dress I made my daughter using an old silk shirt of my husbands. Ashley said “It’s cute” in an email. but I could tell by the lack of exclamation marks, it certainly was not. What was I thinking? My child looks like she belongs in Little House on the Prairie in this one!Or maybe it’s my first pair of pants that I sewed. I somehow managed to sew it so that the front of the pants were made up of a front and back panel, same with the back of the pants of course, and even better yet, I sewed them upside down.
The topper of failed projects may have been dinner last month. It was my husband’s 40th birthday, and I decided to try out a bunch of new recipes. The fritters were tossed before they were even served. The linguine in a curry cream sauce was miserable, somehow the cream sauce decided to separate and coagulate. Yuck. And, the chocolate peanut butter ice cream I made resembled the texture of what my husband described as “curdled milk.” Nothing like a fine meal to say “Happy Birthday!” eh?
Oh, and I nearly forgot the bird mobile that plagued me, and even after Ashley lent me some drill tips and I labored over the thing forever, I ended up back at Ashley’s house with a bag full of 9 sewn birds and said “Here you go, you figure out what to do with these, cause I don’t want to see them in my house anymore!” (They now peek over Ashley’s fabric piles as she sews. By the way, does anyone else in the world have such neat fabric piles, or am I crazy to think that Ashley is indeed Superwoman?!)Anyhow, so my point of this blog post….as we all struggle to make gorgeous things every day, and keep up with the Picasso’s and Ashley’s of the world, let’s take a moment and give a standing ovation to our failed projects. Without them, how could we appreciate all the beauty we otherwise create?
I hope you guys want to share some of your failed projects stories…it would be nice to know I’m not alone!
Happy day everyone…Ashley will be back soon, promise! 🙂
Shari
Don't worry. You're not alone.
The majority of my failures have been food related. I usually can salvage a craft or sewing project into something purposeful, but when I burn dinner or miss an important ingredient in a recipe, I have to throw in the towel!
You're not alone! I have weekly meals that are total failures. My seam ripper is my BFF too. 🙂
Shari! Welcome to the land of creative blogging 🙂 I definitely have my shared of failed projects, too many to count, actually. I have several like the mobile where the project looks so beautiful in my head, but it never quite comes together and ends up collecting dust under my desk or shoved in the back of a cabinet.
Just the other day, my daughter was sick so I decided to make her a teddy bear to snuggle with, as I started the project, she asked for some pasta, so I started some pasta for her on the stove, I got into making the teddy (from a freehand template I drew), added the past to the pot and began sewing the teddy, suddenly my calming sewing rhythm was interrupted by an ear piercing beep. The Smoke Detector!!! I had burned the pasta. Never in my life have I ever burned pasta! I had to clear the smoke from the house and the pot still has macaroni scars on it. The Teddy turned out looking like an alien and never got stuffed.
So, no, you're definitely not alone.
My daughter Ivy flat out refuses to try anything on when I finish making it for her. Most times I chase her around the house begging but just end up giving up and hope it fits when I can get her to wear it. Most things I try to make without a pattern(hence my love of Lil Blue Boo) turn out ridiculously small or large. *Sigh*
Recently my mom gave me a really nice sweater (that didn't fit well), and I thought I would cut it up to make a cute vest…..it was a butchering job. And I don't have the heart to tell my mom what happened! I hope she never asks about it….
Here's my story. Years ago I was making my mom a Xmas sweat shirt. It was white and I painted a big red pionsetta on the shirt (with fabric and glitter glue!!) I finished and was standing over it admiring my great work and spilled a cup of coffee all over it! I still laugh about it.
When I was 13, I tried to make a cake for our very large family Christmas gathering. I attempted to follow instructions to cut it and form it into the shape of a tree — a simple triangle should be easy, right? No.
The cake was an absolute mess. So much so, it was dubbed "The Vietnam Cake." Despite the fact that it more closely resembled a post-Christmas tree piled out by the curb, it was the one thing that was completely devoured. I don't know if it was the toasted coconut that topped it, or if I somehow got an "A" for effort, but it was enjoyed at the time and is talked about still these 20 years later. My craft project gone wrong somehow got something right.
(Great guest post, by the way…)
hehe…..love your honesty! I have too many failures to mention, in fact if I don't conciously forget about them, I'd be permanently depressed.
Ashley certainly is very talented and very inspiring. (A great combination).
Glad she convinced you to be her blog-guest!
I will never forget the time I was up sewing a dress for my daughter, in the wee hours of the night. I realize now that I was too tired then, and should never have been sewing, but at that moment, I just wanted to finish the dress. So I pinned one of the sleeves in and sewed it on. Then I noticed it was sewn in wrong, it was inside out and facing backwards. So I unpicked it, pinned it again, and sewed it, again. And discovered it was once again sewn inside out and backwards. So, I again, unpicked the seam, pinned it back in place and carefully sewed it back into place. And, yes, you guessed it, it was inside out and backwards. Again. I promptly burst into tears, put the dress away, and vowed never again to sew or work on any project late at night when I was tired and prone to stupid mistakes such as that, ever again. And no, I have not kept to it, I still stay up way too late sewing, and I still make silly mistakes like that one all the time. But such is sewing. I still do love it though, sewing is my favorite past time.
"give a standing ovation to our failed projects" That's just priceless! And really got me thinking. Here we say, that only when you fail you can learn (and if you never fail you never learn). But I have screwed up almost every meal I have cooked so far and I haven't got any better!
To be honest, I love the dress for you daughter. Maybe it is because I am from Europe, but I was actually looking for something like it this summer (well, for me). So either I am crazy or you just sewed the dress on the wrong continent 😉
Anyhow, I really liked you post, it is so refreshing, honest and very reassuring. Thank you!
I had no idea so many little sweeties reject their mommy's labors of love! I am sure it a snapshot of things to come! 😉
I'm chicken to try things that I know won't come out…
Do ya'll still live in WY? I live in WY too, and am pretty familiar with JH (used to live in Sublette County, now live in Fremont County!).
nice to meet you shari!!!!
nice story!!!!!
nice very cool designs!!!
nice pictures of finley!!!!
nice so nice you share!!!!!!
OMG I loved reading all these comments!! I threw my back out yesterday and have been in bed for two days and then to see this rush of lovingly remembered failed projects…I LOVE it!! 🙂 I can relate to pretty much every story you guys listed…so funny!
And my seam ripper and I are always on a first name basis. 😉
You have no idea how many times I sew the neckline to a tee inside out! Haha!
So glad to meet you guys and to hear your amazing stories!!
xoxo
Shari
Just seeing the pic of that red dress tells me how way "out of my league" you ladies are. That is far more beautiful than anything I've sewed, let alone "created". I think if I made that dress for my little Lucy she would be wearing it for a long time.
ok, so I love your friend Shari. She needs to start a blog.
shari…no you are not alone…I have made tons of wonderful creative mistakes. haven't we all?
thought I gotta admit…I do have a neat huge pile of fabric! (The super neat freak part of me, just seems to do that. lol)!!!
Great post Shari! You are not alone! I had made a ton of mistakes especially when I just came back to sewing after many years! It took me awhile to get things right! I love your designs! What a great job you do!
Hi Shari! I hope you are a regular guest blogger here. I'm sure Ash could use the help, and I really enjoyed your post! You're a funny girl! Wish I had known you better when we both lived in the desert. I too, try many things and they just don't turn out like I had imagined. But just think of all the times we 'create' and it turns out even better than we imagined! Then it's like we're fricken genius! LOL!
P.S. – Every time I see one of Ashley's neat little fabric piles, I try to guess what each fabric is. I recognize a lot of them. I hope she has a contest some day for who can name the most fabrics in the pile. Hint, hint Ashley!
I don't know why I have that extra google account. It always confuses me. That last comment was by me, Holly 😀