Mann - CraftFail: when homemade goes horribly wrong

Heather Mann

Founder and chief executive failer at CraftFail.com

Workman Publishing

New York

When I was a kid, things came easily to me. I didnt put much effort into anything. I got straight As, was a naturally talented singer, and had an aptitude for art. I also had little patience: If I wasnt good at something on the first or second try, I would get frustrated and quit because I didnt want to do it anyway. This do-it-well-or-quit-before-anyone-sees-me-try mentality lasted throughout my teens and even into my twenties, when I finally maxed out all the things I could naturally do well on the first try, and I actually had to apply myself.

Throughout my early life, I kept a list of things I was good at and made sure to stay away from things I wasnt so hot at. Journalism and musical theater, in. Volleyball and snowboarding, OUT. The frustration I experienced during the failures was so crippling that I never allowed myself to work hard to improve. I have always been ashamed of this early lack of character.

As I got older and learned to manage my frustration a little better, I discovered a few areas that I enjoyed despite not having any particular aptitude for them. Because these were things that were not on my Im so good at this list, I let myself completely off the perfection hook. I liked sewing, but somehow my beginners dress came out with a wrong-facing fabric bodice or a hooded coat had a small, constricting neck. Because I didnt count sewing among my talents, I didnt beat myself up about failing; I just let the handmade garment stay in the back of my closet, or left it unfinished and moved on.

One of my earliest craftfail memories was when I was seven and my mom was making hand-drawn paper dolls with me and my sister, Shannon. I could not understand why my moms paper dolls were drawn so well and mine looked like a seven-year-old child had made them. So disproportionate, such wobbly lines. Hers looked like real princesses and mine looked like mutant princesses from the planet Gorsnatch.

Ive had years of practice, Heather, my mom told me. You cant compare your seven-year-olds drawings to an adults. Grudgingly, I admitted to myself that she had a point. It didnt make my princesses look better, but I could see that there was a sliding scale of skill level, of which I would have had to start at one end and work my way up.

Unrealistic expectations are one of the major contributing factors to a typical craftfail. A novice baker expects her three-tiered rainbow splatter cake to look exactly like Ace of Cakes Duff Goldmans, but Duff has made 14,372 cakes, and this beginner has made only a few in her entire life. I am willing to bet Duffs first three-tiered cake was lumpy and misshapen, too.

Enough about Duffback to me. As a professional craft blogger and general craft enthusiast, I regularly go where no crafter has gone before (or, at least, I like to try out new skills), and most crafts have a learning curve that cant be avoided. Because I have to learn to use new materials and tinker around with new techniques, I have created hundreds of unappealing prototypes. Before CraftFail.com, I would chuck them, so no one could see my mistakes and realize I wasnt the Mozart of crafting.

The day after I started the CraftFail blog, however, an interesting thing happened. Readers responded right away because they identified with the crushed expectations of a Jabba the Huttsized knitted beanie or a dog pooplike frosting fail. I began to look forward to failing, and my readers enjoyed laughing at me. Because of CraftFail.com, so many people have told me now I dont feel so alone in my failure!

Throughout the years, I have posted craftfails of my own and those shared by other crafters, and Ive become a full-on failure enthusiast. I finally learned what never got through to me as a failure-phobic kid: We learn a heck of a lot more by failing than we ever will by succeeding on the first try.

CraftFail is a celebration of the creative process, but unlike those perfect magazine shots and idealized online inspiration boards, we showcase the gruesome underbelly of the creative processthe try, try again, the A for effort, that special moment when you take a step back... and hope nobody else is looking. With CraftFail, I seek to celebrate the learning process and the nature of creativity. I do not want anyone to be discouraged from trying, but instead to be encouraged by the society of creative failers who are brave enough to share their craft blunders.

In my eyes, craftfails are beautiful because they are tangible evidence of the learning process. I value my ability to failits the most important thing Ive taken thirty years to learn.

When you began your craft, you:

A. Didnt read instructions.

B. Misread instructions.

C. Ignored instructions.

D. Knew better than instructions.

When getting your project materials together, you:

A. Substituted key materials.

B. Substituted one too many materials.

C. Substituted every material in the project.

D. Substituted alcohol consumption for material gathering.

While preparing your project components, you:

A. Measured wrong.

B. Measured right and cut wrong.

C. Measured right and attached wrong.

D. What is this measuring of which you speak?

While assembling your craft, you:

A. Cut corners.

B. Cut corners off.

C. Cut wrong pattern pieces.

D. Cut it out of ugly fabric.

When you dreamed of your project before you began, you:

A. Imagined being happy at the end of the project.

B. Imagined giving the project to a happy gift recipient.

C. Imagined making hundreds of them to sell to happy buyers on Etsy and at local craft markets.

D. Imagined Martha Stewart happily offering you a million dollars for your amazing craft idea.

The project level of the craft you undertook was:

A. Right for my experience level.

B. Challenging yet possible for my experience level.

C. Probably reaching a bit for my experience level.

D. Experience? I dont need no stinkin experience.

When checking the lettering on your project, you:

A. Forgot to proofread.

B. Forgot to flip letters in the right direction.

C. Forgot that you cant spell.

D. Forgot that there arent four Ms in Mommmy.

At the conclusion of the project, you swear it wasnt you becausecrappy directions, see?

A. The directions didnt take into account that my ovens temperature runs hot.

B. The directions didnt take into account that I read only the first sentence of every paragraph. Its a speed-reading technique I learned in college.

C. The directions didnt tell me to avoid using clashing fabrics.

D. The directions didnt mention that the inspiration photo was completely Photoshopped.