Pinterest fails

In my online adventures I have come to be familiar with the Pinterest fail blog. For the uninitiated, this blog shows the difference between projects as shown on Pinterest, and projects as done by normal people.

Despite the fact that I've been on Pinterest for well over a year now, I have only very recently begun to create projects from the site. I had assumed that with my crafty know-how, I would know the proper way to create things and escape the fate of the Pinterest fail. Oh, how very wrong I was.

The project I tried to recreate was this:

I thought this would be an easy project to do; I have etched glass paint and actually made a really nice mirror for my dad's bar with etched-glass shamrocks when I was younger. So I rounded up some rubber bands, got my paint out, and set to work.

What I got was this:

Clearly, things went horribly wrong. The paint kept coming up when I tried to pull off the rubber bands, paint got under the rubber bands, and it was so bubbly it looked like one of those horrible paintings from the Middle Ages about the Black Death.

Yeah, this looks about right

So in my quest to examine where my disastrous turn occurred (spoiler alert: every turn was a disastrous turn), I first noticed that I failed to even read the caption on the photo, which says to use spray glass paint. Whoops! Even so, using the manually-applied paint shouldn't have been so bad; I've had good results before.

I first tried using a regular paintbrush to apply the paint to the glass (the remains of a used-up Bath and Body Works candle), but soon realized that it was a) leaving streaks and b) not applying thick enough. Reading the label on the paint tube, I saw the recommendation to use a sponge instead of a paintbrush, which I quickly recalled that I did when doing the mirror years ago. I happened to have a sponge handy that I use for washing down mosaic grout, and decided to use that.

After using the sponge for a bit, it looked as though the paint was spreading more evenly, and was also giving the glass a thick enough coat to really make the frostedness stand out. I gave it a couple of coats anyway, and let it sit overnight to let the paint fully dry.

I already went into some detail about what happened when I peeled the rubber bands off, so I can jump right to how I can (potentially) avoid this in the future. First, I need a better sponge. While the sponge I used had small pores compared to, say, a kitchen sponge, a sponge with even smaller pores would do an even better job. I suspect a lot of the flaking had to do with air bubbles getting trapped under the paint from applying it with this sponge. A makeup sponge might work great for this kind of work.

Second, I need to be much more careful about applying the paint. This time I slathered paint everywhere, including on top of the rubber bands. Since there was no divide, it was easy for paint to get underneath the bands, as well as adhere so well that the paint on the bands didn't easily separate from the paint on the glass.

Third, I need to take more time. I tend to get overexcited and try to rush things, usually to the project's detriment. I should have stopped after the brush application wasn't working, clean off the glass entirely, and then start over from scratch, instead of trying to cover it up.

Ultimately I like the concept of these frosted vases (or what I'm trying to do, votives), and I think I'm going to attempt this project again, following my own corrections. I will certainly issue an update, and see if I can salvage this fail somehow.