I'm giving the popular topic of "Pinterest fails" its own separate entry in the Bad Crafts category because this is a phenomena that we have all experienced at one time or another. If your thought process starts with "It looks so easy," then you might want to stop and think about it for a second.
Pinterest is the current primary source of photos of crafts by overachieving, skilled artisans attempting to look modest. In the past, Martha Stewart and craft television shows brought this angst into our lives. Now we do it to ourselves. We pass around these perfect photos and feel bad that we can't live up to that ideal.
Sometimes we try. And usually we fail.
It's easy - even recommended - to let your enthusiasm get the better of you. But let's be reasonable. In most cases, those Pinterest "crafts" are the end result of hundreds, if not thousands of hours of work and experience. And in some cases, I'm pretty sure they are substantially faked. (Like the hair flip, which looks highly staged. Or the cookie bowls, which are far too perfect, and which couldn't possibly have baked up that way on their own.)
In other cases, you don't see all the time that goes into it beforehand. Family and baby photos are a great example. Not only do they represent hours-long photo shoots with hundreds of photos being taken, they also use professional grade equipment. You simply can't hope to reproduce that in any meaningful way, short of… well, hiring a professional photographer.
Cupcake styling is another good example. Most of the cupcakes you see on Pinterest were made by professional or aspiring-to-be-professional bakers. Each cupcake took hours of styling to create, using a multitude of frosting tips, not to mention professional grade fondant. You're just not going to get that kind of result with the stuff you buy at the store.
Don't feel bad. It's happened to the best of us. And trying a craft and failing is far better than never having tried it at all. Any time crafting is time well spent, regardless of the final outcome!
Image courtesy funnyuse.com
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