Just Don’t Call Them Crafts

I mentioned the other day that it’s been somewhat challenging . . . okay, extremely challenging . . . trying to balance all of the stuff I’ve created for myself.

Don’t get me wrong. I love all of the stuff. I do. Pet portrait commissions are coming in. I’m working on new products for the Zazzle store. And also creating different hand painted clip art for the other Etsy shop.

All stuff that I love to do.

I finally came up with a schedule that might actually work too. Except for one thing . . . crafts. Me and crafts . . . well . . . we don’t always get along. In fact, I don’t even call them crafts. I call them DIYs. Or ‘paintables’. Like if I don’t call them crafts I might like them better.

It’s not that I don’t like them. It’s that they don’t like me. I can almost hear giggles from my craft cabinet as I approach. “Here she comes again. She’s actually gonna try and make something again! heeheeheehee. What can we mess up this time?”

I had almost gotten to the point that I wasn’t going to do crafts anymore. Paintables, maybe. Crafts, no.

Then I saw these Mod Podge Sheer Colors at Walmart, perfect for tinted jars. I figured it was a ‘sign’ because our Walmart has the poorest excuse of a craft aisle I’ve ever seen.

It’s so bad I took this photo in April, posted it on Instagram and Facebook and tagged Plaid Crafts, the manufacturer of 90% of the crafts at Walmart. Plaid responded, asked me where the store was and when the photo was taken blahblahblah.

It still looks like this. Yes, I’ve complained to the store manager. Numerous times. sigh.

Anyway, the Sheer Colors weren’t even in the craft aisle, which is why I saw them. They were on what’s called a ‘fast track’, a little display on the side of the end cap. They weren’t priced, of course, (another Walmart pet peeve of mine) but I grabbed them anyway because I’ve been wanting to try them.

Weekends are my DIY days so I washed out some jars and got ready to . . . DIY. (You thought I was gonna say ‘craft’, didn’t you?)

I’ve seen a lot of people pour tints and paints on the inside of jars but I wanted to be able to use them as vases, which mean pouring it on the outside.

You might be thinking, “why is she pouring it rather than brushing it on?”

Good question. Very good question. One I should’ve asked myself.

It just seemed logical that if you could pour the stuff on the inside, why not pour it on the outside?

Now do you see why my craft supplies all laugh at me? Seriously.

It was right after I snapped this pic that I realized that pouring something on the outside of a jar is completely different than pouring on the inside and I grabbed a paintbrush and started scraping the green goop off before it could dry.

After I got most of the green goop off and it dried a bit things weren’t as nightmarish as they’d first appeared. A little streaky, but not bad.

I was ready to try again.

This time I brushed on a light coat.

In case you needed a comparison shot.

After one coat dried it was pretty pale. Pretty, but pale. I think I wound up painting 3 coats of the aqua, but it could use a couple more.

I was talking to Amy, of Mod Podge Rocks, today and she said the gals at Plaid used a foam spouncer. Good idea. That would give you more coverage, but it would also give you little air bubbles, which they said it did.

I think I’ll try a foam make up sponge this weekend with the Aqua.

I don’t have any of the Green left.

Imagine that.

I did have enough for another coat of green, just to even out some of the streaks. It’s really not as GREEN as it’s showing in this photo.

To cover the mouth of the jars, I just wrapped some jute twine around them.

The seashell tags. Ok, I wanted to add some seashells to the jars. I don’t honestly know why, I just did. But I couldn’t find a single seashell in this town.

It could be due to the fact that we’re hours away from any ocean.

But I thought for sure somebody would have decorative seashells. Nope. Not a one. So I drew my own. Hmmph.

I’ll show you how to make them later.

In case you can’t find seashells in your town either.

And you want to hang a tag around a tinted jar that you now know how not to do.

You’re welcome.

If you want to see how to tint the inside of some jars, check out Amy’s post here. By the way, she used the same colors as I did so you can see how they’re supposed to look.

You’re welcome again.

And now I’m going back to painting a cute pug. I want to get her done before this weekend when my schedule goes wonky due to . . . you-know-whats.

Do you have problems with any crafts or DIY stuff? Do you like trying out new products? What’s the last thing you tried?

Colleen

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