Crafting Calamities

By now you know I love working with paper.  Any kind of paper really—scrapbooking, old ledgers, sewing patterns, vintage magazines.

I mentioned before how I enjoy using torn paper, because me and measuring don’t work well together.  No matter how much I try, my measurements are nearly always off.  Frustrating.  So, I just tear it, glue it on and any accidents look like they were done on purpose (at least I hope so!)

But there are times some accidents can’t be redeemed.

For instance…

I am altering a school composition journal for my niece’s belated birthday.  I have picked out really cute scrapbooking papers.  (For this particular piece I am actually measuring, but this time it doesn’t have to be exact since I sand off the excess.)  I’ve got everything put together down to the vintage skeleton key tied up with a few strands of turquoise embroidery thread and placed on the orange polka-dot ribbon.  Turns out better than I anticipated. 

Then the unfortunate accident happens.  I know I should have left it well enough alone, but NO.

I’m really not this dumb, but this? this was d-u-m-b Dumb!  The already-glued-down ribbon’s ends were fraying a little, so I decided to take the gajillion-degrees heat gun to it.  Yep, dumb.

I proceeded to ‘fix’ the ribbon ends while at the same time burn about twenty pages of the journal.  I wondered why I kept smelling smoke!  Sheesh!

I tore the burned pages out thinking I saved it.  No one’s the wiser, right?  Whew.

The next morning I picked up the journal and another 10 pages fell out and, not noticing the night before, I had warped the front cover beyond repair.

I have started on another one and will post pics when I’m done.

{note to self:  buy fire extinguisher for under desk}

Care to share some of your crafting calamities so I can feel better about myself without spending a lot of money on therapy?

:)

Brenda