When I first volunteered to do a few Pinterest crafts, I thought no problem. This is going to be easy. I was definitely wrong. I wound up being happy with one out of the three crafts I attempted. These Pinterest crafts look easy, and they don’t have a lot of steps to follow. However, I guess that adage the simplest things are the hardest to do truly apply to this venture. Never again will I attempt Pinterest crafts, especially ones involving mason jars because I’m convinced you have to be born with the Pinterest craft gene. I ruined two perfectly good mason jars with the herpes of the craft world. I’m talking about glitter here people. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I’m serious. Once you use glitter it will be found everywhere for the next couple of months at least. I mean, two out of the three crafts look like crap on a platter. I should be branded with a fail whale emoji on my forehead.

The first craft I attempted was a galaxy in a jar. If it is done correctly it should look like a mystical “out of this world” blue and purple swirled creation. Instead, I ended up with a clump of glitter and muddy paint in a jar that not only landed me a seat on the struggle bus but the driver’s seat on said bus. In the sobering light of day, it still looked awful.

For this craft, I needed a clean glass jar with a lid, tempura paint, some cotton balls, glitter and water. The person on Pinterest used pink, blue and purple paint. I chose pink, purple and green just to be different. The steps to the craft were simple. First, you fill the jars with water, and then pour in the paint. Then you shake the jar, add glitter and the stretched out cotton balls. If I set out to create the saddest looking snow globes ever, I succeeded. Alas, I did not set out to do that. I set out to create a galaxy in a jar. While my poor creations might be a galaxy somewhere out there, it’s not any galaxy I want to visit anytime soon.

The second craft was supposed to be a lava lamp with groovy written all over it. While it was a cool science experiment, at the end of the day it ended up being nothing but a greasy water bottle. While this craft wasn’t a complete fail, there is just no way it looked like a real lava lamp. Now, I could blame that on the bottle I used, but Pinterest said any plastic water bottle would do.

All this craft entailed was to fill a plastic water bottle half way with vegetable oil then fill the rest with water. After, you are supposed to pour ten drops of food coloring in, break pieces of Alka-Seltzer up and drop them in the bottle. I used green and blue food coloring, but it came out this murky color like moss. While the color was cool, having to continually put Alka-Seltzer in the bottle ruined the fun I was having. It became a chore to keep putting tablets in to watch the food coloring bubbles float through the bottle.

Lastly, I created a very organic design on two cups. This was the only practical craft of the three, and the one I actually didn’t fail horribly at. It was my favorite of the bunch because, just like snowflakes, every craft is different. It didn’t have to look like some methodical perfect celestial being had to produce it. I got to use nail polish for an unintended purpose, which was fun and made me feel a little rebellious.

All you needed for this craft was one plain white ceramic mug, a deep plastic tub to dip the mug in, nail polish, paper towels and access to warm water. The first step is fill the plastic tub with warm water then pour drops of nail polish into it. After, you have to swirl the nail polish with a toothpick, but I deemed this step unnecessary. Next, you dip the mug into the tub and the nail polish will adhere to it. I created the first mug with a plain white one, but liked it so much I created a second one with an already decorated mug. This was the only win in the bunch of Pinterest crafts.

Pinterest crafts may look simple, but they actually take meticulous planning and time to do it right. They are not to be entered into lightly otherwise they might turn out to be duds like the first two crafts I did.