My Crafty Shame--Part 1

My last post was, as my little brother whose first language is txt-speak would put it, so sad face.

:(

Time heals all wounds, and apparently it also gives me the courage to talk openly about my crafty disgraces in a public way.

As I mentioned in my very first blog post, our house has a ballroom. As obnoxious as it sounds, there really is no better word for it. It's a 1,024-square-foot addition that was created expressly for the wedding of the original owners' daughter back in the 80s. Our big girls coined "the ballroom" upon our first viewing of the house, and I'm not sure who could be better ballroom identification experts than two wanna-be princesses.

The ballroom has a bank of rotting casement windows along the back wall. Very long and stressful story short, we have replaced eight feet of the wood rot and have eight feet more to take care of. We're doing this in stages because we have big plans (of the secret variety...not to be unveiled yet; sorry!) for the ballroom.

In the near-term, the ballroom needs drapery to disguise the mis-matched window renovation. My awesome plan (<--this is retrospective sarcasm) involved burlap. Have you guys seen treatments like these? They are big right now in mainstream decorating catalogs. Examples:

Pottery Barn

Ballard Designs

Half Price Drapes

My instinct was to reject burlap as an option because of its trendiness, but tutorials online claiming the SUPER OMG SO EASY!!! AND CHEAP!!ness of the window treatments lured me right in.

What a fool I am!

I got as far as spending $90 on about nine yards (p.s., since when is $9.99/yard cheap for fabric, oh wise tutorial-putter-onners?!) and ironing down my seams with a particularly well known fabric bonding tape. (No free plug for them. I hate them.). This is where failure struck. That stuff just would not hold. No amount of ironing and begging would do. Maybe it was a gimp roll, right? I tried the second roll in the pack. No worky. No likey!

In a rage, I balled up the burlap and shoved it in a closet, where it still sits, stinking up the space with its disgustingly pungent hydrocarbons.

I actually had another craft fail that same day, and there's even photographic evidence. What sort of blogger would I be if I didn't share? See: Part 2.