Sticky situation

Sometimes you have to be smarter than the tape...

I am working on a project for a friend of mine, and I needed to use double-sided tape for it.

Well, it's been a little while since I have used double-sided tape, so I didn't know that it had a wrap on it to make sure the tape didn't stick to itself.  I thought that was a good thing.  However, I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to get the wrap off.  After spending about 10 minutes getting increasingly frustrated trying to pick the wrap off of the tape, I finally took the time to read what it said:

"Unwind the protective wrap."  So I did and got to the double-sided part of the tape so I could finally get it to work as it was supposed to.  I guess it pays to read the instructions.  :-)

Until next time, keep smiling and always read the instructions!

Fabric and Failures

First, the fabric:

A few weeks back, Joe took me to the Quilt, Craft, and Sew Show not far from where we are.  What a feast for the eyes!  Imagine any kind of fabric in any color you can imagine and you still won't come close to the variety that was there.  Being really obsessed with fabric lately made attending this show a real treat.  

Of course, I couldn't resist picking up a few things while I was there:

I'm excited to figure out something fun I can make with these.  I have ideas for them, particularly incorporating these with some canvases I have, but I haven't worked out the details just yet.  More to come!

And now, the failures:

I am not one to practice much of anything...why practice when you can just jump in and do, right?  Well, I'm learning that isn't the best way to do things, especially if you are a perfectionist.  I am working on a couple of projects and came away with a couple of failures, one is salvagable, one may not be...I haven't decided yet.  Here they are:

The spray color (brown with sparkles) did not spray evenly across the canvas, but kind of blurbed into blotches (see the bottom of the canvas).  This is the one I am not sure I can salvage.

Here's the one I already fixed...underneath the sheet music on this one lies a really gross-looking stamp of an owl that was done with orange ink.  I thought it would be a cool color against the blue, but it turned out too garish.  I couldn't even take a picture of the mistake...it was far too icky to show.  I do still plan to use some orange elements in this, but not such LARGE amounts.  

I have learned a lesson with all of this.  It is best to try things first in a safer setting, one where a mistake won't be so painful and visible.  I have always resisted the idea of art journals (I want to make REAL stuff...so silly because art journals ARE real!), but I think I'm going to start one up.  That would be the perfect place to try new things so I can then transfer them to an actual piece I'd like to share with someone.  I'll let you know how it goes!

I have also learned that it is okay to make mistakes.  They aren't really failures after all...they just show us ways to not do things.  What did Thomas Edison say?  "I have not failed.  I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."  Words to live by, I think.  :-)

Until next time, keep trying and always, always keep smiling!