Since my toddler shattered a huge amount of my already minuscule ornament collection last week after de-wiring our pre-lit tree, I decided it was time for a DIY project. I should mention I really suck at most crafty things. I am more of a sketcher and painter than a crafter. The results would be totally acceptable if my two year old had truly taken part in this project, but his role was greatly diminished when it became apparent he only wanted to eat the glue. What do you do when you have toddlers and babies and need cheap ornaments you don’t care about? Collect junk from outside of course! I gathered pine cones and twigs from the back alley and rooted through the paint cupboard.
Since the two year old was proving to be a poor crafting partner and time was of the essence, I settled on slapping some blue paint on some pine cones, some spray glitter on more pine cones, and white paint on sticks. Yesiree, we were going fancy this year folks. The blue hand painting went fine. As did the stick painting. It was the glitter that had a few what-have-I-gotten-myself-into moments. If ever there is a time you definitely do not want the nozzle on your spray can to malfunction, it is when you are dealing with glitter. Lots and lots of glitter! I shook the can, pressed the nozzle, and BOOM. It started basically puking globs of sticky crap and glittery substance without stopping. I lifted my finger and nothing. The nozzle had stuck wouldn’t stop spraying! I turned the can upside down and moved the nozzle around in an effort to get it to peter out. By the time it did, there was a shimmering layer covering a disturbing percentage of the basement. The little stack of paper I had set the pine cones on was saturated. I am sure my landlord will be so pleased someone glitter bombed the commons area!
Then came adventures in Mod Podge! I wanted to create the quintessential kindergarten ornament with the Elmer’s glue and chunky glitter because, get this, I had never done a single glitter project during my childhood. Seriously. I don’t know if this sort of deprivation is an age thing or just a regional thing, but glitter simply was not used or a “thing” when I was a kid. Not at school, not at home. Do you feel sorry for me yet?
So, I didn’t actually have any Elmer’s glue sitting around since my kids are not old enough for that sort of thing but I did have an ancient jar of Mod Podge in my art supply cabinet. It was pretty old and the consistency had thickened up to a very dense pudding, but I had to work with it. I didn’t want to ruin one of my spendy paint brushes with glue, so I had to improvise. I nabbed a baby medicine syringe from an old bottle of antibiotics and used it to pump Mod Podge onto the pine cones. What I ended up with was a goopy mess and a clogged syringe, but at least the final goal was realized: glittered pine cones.
The labor of painting, gluing, and glittering pine cones and twigs was tedious. Doing a crappy job took hours. I cannot imagine how labor intensive it would be to make good looking ones. If I had opened an Etsy Shop for poorly made painted pine cones I would have had to charge $30 each just for the time involved. Luckily, I am not deluded enough to hock my homemade wares. I have no talent. Its all good.
The results were not great. More like horrendous.
Despite the defective spray-can-glitter-bomb debacle, you can barely see the glitter on the white pine cones. Although they do kind of look subtly frosted. I think more sparkle ended up on my husband’s bicycle tires, which I guess is fine since he bikes to work in the dark.
The twigs I had collected were way too thin. With much thicker twigs, I might have pulled it off, but instead it looks like I have shredding hunks of string hanging all over the tree.
I added red ribbon to the blue painted pine cones for some contrast. I like the way the colors look, but it doesn’t make up for the poor painting.
The Mod Podge and chunky glitter pine cones look as expected. I actually don’t mind these ones since it was my very first time working with glitter and squirting Mod Podge with a baby medicine syringe is really not very easy or precise. It looks like a five year old did it, but since a five year old probably has more experience than I do with glitter, I’ll take it.
I have successfully changed my shabby chic tree into just a shabby one. However, it is perfect now for the baby and toddler since they can break the new “ornaments” all they like and I won’t care or have to worry about someone eating glass. I’m sure eating glitter and toxic glue isn’t great either, but at least it is not as immediately dangerous!
My name is Rowan and I am a crafting failure. It is OK though because I have never claimed to be cool. I am totally playing the mom card on this one. When people come over and raise an eyebrow at my ugly tree decorations I can shrug in my kids’ direction and give that don’t-my-kids-make-darling-projects look. That’s right people, I have no shame.
Do you have any good crafting fails? This was definitely not my first.
Oh my goodness. This made me crack up. At least you’ve got a memorable Christmas tree! 🙂
(And I love your name!)