It's no secret that in your crafting journey it's sometimes a good thing to bite off more than you can chew - it's how you grow... sometimes though - you gag and make a mess. Gags aside. On my daily inspiration board (facebook) I linked up two recent discoveries, both showing classy alternatives to covering balloons with paper mache. One used fabric to make bowls, and the other used doilies to make a light cover. Both were divine. So I got to thinking, given both projects were way outside my 'sense of urgency' style of crafting (designed around crafting with toddlers and young children at parties), what if I used the same ideas, but simply went with some thin fabric-paper (that came wrapped around a bunch of flowers last mother's day) and a few paper doilies and made a bowl that way...My craft project did not go entirely to plan.
- Blow up balloon. Tick.
- Weight balloon and place it in a big bowl. Tick.
- Start placing small shreds of paper and small and large pieces of doilies onto the 'end' of the balloon and use home-made-mod-podge to stick it all in place. Tick.
- Wait for it to dry overnight. Tick
- Apply another layer of paper, doilies and home-made-mod-podge. Tick.
- Repeat, repeat. Tick.
- Pop balloon and peel rubber off the inside. Tick.
- Admire your handy work. Hmmm... sort of.
When it was finished the bowl looked ok, but was extremely fragile, and no amount of extra home-made-mod-podge (or store-bought for that matter) was going to stiffen it up. It was pretty, but effectively useless. While I was contemplating what to do with it, my daughter Mimi came into the kitchen, took one look at it and said; "what is it, a hat?" Guess so. Notch another craft fail up for mummy, and thanks darl for the oh-so-flattering photo up the nose... but I suppose that's what you get when a short person takes your photo!
On a brighter note; thanks to Marcie at the appropriately named blog "I Gotta Try That" for nominating me for the Liebster blog award for being a lovely blog with few followers. As part of the joy of winning the award you're required to answer some questions and pass on the award to some other bloggers... what's intriguing, is that since I last won the award in January (read about it here) the number of questions you have to answer has risen from 7 to 11, the number of blogs you nominate has likewise multiplied from 5 to 11, and it's also now a requirement to pass on additional questions to ask other prize recipients... I can't help but feel the pressure that I did as a school child when faced with the dreaded chain-letter-envelope, which is why I humbly accept my award from Marcie, highly recommend that you follow her blog as I do, and refer you back to my previous blog post where I answered questions about myself. To try to stay in the blog-loving spirit, I will nominate some under-followed blogs I like and answer the questions asked of me, but I'm not keen to keep the chain going by devising more questions to send on. Boo me all you like. That's how I feel about it.
OK, so the questions I've been asked to answer:
1. What kind of people are attracted to your blog? From what I can tell, they are mostly crafty parents, but I'm happy to have everyone who stumbles my way. x 2. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be and why? With Happy-Husband and my children, wherever that may be. 3. Is blogging more of a job or a hobby for you? It's a daily obsession. 4. What's the one thing about yourself that you would love to change? No more migraines. 5. If you are a mom, how often do you enjoy alone time? Hmmm... how exactly do you define alone??? 6. If it was going to be made public, which would you tell: your age, your weight, or your income? Age - I'm past 40 - there, it's out - I'm old - and I'm ok with that...! 7. What personality trait bugs you the most? In me or in others? Because let's be honest, obsessive-compulsive-perfectionism when it comes to over-planning things is ok in me but rather irritating in others! LOL! 8. What's your favorite restaurant? Happy-Husband and the kids in the kitchen. 9. What are you best known for? Party-craft! 10. Finish this sentence: My favorite social networking site is ______. Children's birthday parties!!! 11. Pet names from strangers (sweetie, honey, etc.). Love it or hate it? Coming from the Construction Industry (I was an Architect & Project Manager in my previous life), I got called a whole stack of names from strange blokes, many of which are not print-worthy, and no, I didn't really love them... but one thing I've learnt is that any of that 'lazy-language' is a reflection on them not me. I still believe that today.
Now then. Almost there; here's a list of 5 blogs... I can't do 11, (sorry Marcie!) that I have only recently come across, and all with less than 200 followers like my humble blog-home:
http://rusticstardesigns.blogspot.co.uk/
http://briebrieblooms.blogspot.com.au/
http://www.drivenbydesign101.com/
http://michellesbelles.blogspot.com/
http://stuffachicken.blogspot.com/
So... a very differnt blog post today... and the Olympics tomorrow!
Wow... rest assured I'll be wearing my paper beret.
Stay crafty everyone.
