Things don't always go as planned. . .

Thought I'd confess to a couple failed projects. . .

First of all, I have this darling Japanese craft book which has been translated into English. There are drool marks on most of the pages. The projects are darling, the instructions are charming.

I've been meaning to try a bunch of the patterns, but settled on this one. . . tiny stuffed bears for babies to gum and teethe on. I thought, PERFECT! I have the most fruitful bunch of friends and family imaginable and I always need baby gifts. . . Here is the picture from the book.

So cute, right? Here are the two I made:

Not so cute. . . it's really hard to work this small! These little guys are only about 4 inches tall. I did the blue one first and then tried the brown one scaled up to see if it was any easier. Nope. Horrible. I won't be giving these to anyone, its too embarrassing. I think I probably should have used stretch terrycloth, but it didn't specify. I may try again in the future after the pain of this failure has faded.

Project Failed.

Then, there was this darling t-shirt idea in Family Fun Magazine. Get a solid color t-shirt, sketch your design in chalk and then do the final with a bleach pen. . . let sit for a bit and then wash. Sounds easy, right?

I thought this would be a great project to do with my nephews when I was visiting this summer. I pictured me sitting down one on one with each, they'd dictate ideas that I would easily draw in chalk and they could trace with the bleach pen. The kids would be really proud and excited about the t-shirts they made and it would be a fun Auntie Jul memory. Well, that was the plan.

It started going wrong in our brainstorming session. . . all three were coming up with a million ideas all at once.

Jake (8) decided he wanted two specific clone troopers in the middle of hand-to-hand combat.

Jesse (6) wanted a spider. . . shooting a bow and arrow at a target.

Sammy (3) wanted a dog lying on the ground dying because he'd just eaten a poisoned stick.

So Auntie Jul had to disappoint her eager nephews and break the news that she's not THAT good. Jake got a clone trooper mask. Jesse got a tank. Sammy got a monkey. And the whole let-the-kids-trace-the-outline-with-the-bleach-pen idea turned out to be very stressful. I know, I know, it seems obvious. Kids and bleach don't go together. They shouldn't even be in the same room. It was kind of a mess.

I didn't get pictures of the boys t-shirts. But here is the one I did for Lucy.

I thought it was cute. . . I was going for a kind of tattered tattoo look. When hubby got home, he said, "Why the Southwest Airlines logo?"

Project Failed.