It’s April’s Fools on Wednesday, and I wanted to write a lighthearted post for that occasion. So, let’s talk about some of my failed projects! If you follow my blog regularly, you’ll probably see that I try my best to execute recipes and DIY projects nicely, and hopefully end with a pleasant outcome. It may not always be to everyone’s taste, but I still do my best. But what you don’t see is that sometimes, I start working on a project for a blog post, and everything goes wrong. Some of the failed projects were salvaged and posted on this blog anyway. Others were abandoned and never spoken about. Until this day. Here’s to keeping things real! Remember, behind every cute-looking, successful, published project, there are failures kept in a secret.
The worst assorted cross stitch kit of all times
Let’s start with a project that did end up being published on the blog. It wasn’t my fault that it was a failure, and I managed to salvage it really well. But when I was working on it, it was disaster after disaster.
I buy assorted DIY kits all the time. Not all of them are amazing in quality, but they’re usually good enough. When it comes to cross stitch sets specifically, I most often buy them in TK Maxx, and the vast majority of my completed cross stitch projects – a few dozen at this point – were by the same brand. Occasionally, I ran out of thread in a specific colour when working on those sets. It’s rare, but it happens. But this Christmas design was on another level. I ran out of not one, not two, but three colours. And it wasn’t even a close call – I ran out of some colours with huge areas left to sew! I actually couldn’t believe that. I was able to use threads from my own stash to save the day, and the final result was really cute.
Baking failure – gooey double chocolate cookies
Now, on to a project that never made it to the blog. I was experimenting with a trusted chocolate chip cookie recipe, making just a few tweaks. I had full trust in my changes! But when I took the cookies out of the oven… well, they were just melted into one giant, flat cookie, covering the entire baking sheet. Oops.I was baffled, actually. That was my worst cookie failure ever. Needless to say, that recipe never made it to the blog. It was a few years ago, and I can’t remember if I ever tried it again. But l still have a photo of that disaster!
Failed terrazzo plaster of Paris
The next failure was the terrazzo plaster of Paris set, which I did share in a blog post. At the time, I was really trying to play it down. I wrote that post trying to convince myself that the final result was cute, but frankly, it didn’t turn out great. The colours are bad, there’s no contrast between them at all. And the whole thing looks chipped – I made the plaster mixture too thick, so it didn’t spread to fill all the gaps in the mould.
Now, a couple of years later, I don’t like looking back at that project. I haven’t touched plaster of Paris since. I might give it another chance in the future, I know that beautiful things can be done with it. But the one attempt I did have, clearly ended as a failure.
Baked banana bread cheesecake
Fit, high protein recipes have been trending online for quite some time, especially those supposed to imitate a sweet treat. I like to experiment in the kitchen too, and have shared several successful recipes on this blog, including this delicious no-bake strawberry cheesecake. But not all experiments go to plan! I once decided to attempt baking a high protein banana cheesecake. In my head, it sounded like a great idea! The final result… well, let’s just say it wasn’t as expected. The baked cheesecake resembled a flat, dense-but-moist pancake. It felt like underbaked cake, to be honest, despite spending a long time in the oven. I believe I didn’t add enough dry ingredients, and wet ingredients alone will never make a cake.
It still tasted nice, actually, but visually, it was a complete failure. I wish I had a photo of what it looked like inside, but it was so bad, I knew I wouldn’t be sharing the recipe anywhere. But I do have a photo of what it looked like when I took it out of the oven. It didn’t look too bad, I guess – a bit brown because I kept it in the oven extra long, knowing it was still wet inside. What you can’t see is that it was flat, really flat.
3D Wooden flowers from Flying Tiger
LEGO botanical sets have been trending for a while now. I have one of them, and I love it – but they’re pricey, and a little too big for my tiny flat, so I never bought any more. However, I did find some wooden 3D flower sets, which felt like a nice alternative – they even look more elegant, to be honest!
One of those sets was a success. I loved assembling the red camellias from a set I bought in Poland. So, when I saw a similar set in Flying Tiger, for just a few pounds, I decided to get it too. And, well, in this case, you get what you pay for.
First of all, the pieces weren’t labelled in any way, so following the instructions was a bit tricky, but I managed to figure it out without major issues. However, I quickly realised that the elements didn’t fit as snuggly as they should. The pieces wobbled and even fell out, and the whole thing felt really unstable. There was glue included in the set, but that defeats the point of a 3D puzzle! Besides, the glue wasn’t particularly fast drying, and when I used it a few times, it took hours to develop any kind of grip.
If that wasn’t enough, the thin stems weren’t balanced enough to hold the heavy flowers. The final straw was when I was carrying the hydrangea flower to another room, and it just fell off the stem, hitting the floor, and breaking a few flowers. I had enough. I glued the flowers back together, but honestly, I might have to bin this set – it doesn’t even stay upright in a vase, the balance is so off! It’s a real shame, because the flowers look quite pretty… but they fall apart from just looking at them.
Gingerbread salt dough gift tags
Finally, let me share a snippet of a project which you may actually see on this blog before Christmas, in an improved form. Last December, I tried making gift tags out of salt dough. I wanted to make them look like gingerbread cookies, and that didn’t quite work out. I added spices to the dough, to make it smell nice, and to give it a darker colour. And whilst the smell aspect was a success, the colour was not.
The raw salt dough was brown like gingerbread, but once baked, the gift tags turned grey, and it wasn’t pretty. To be honest, they don’t look too bad in the photo, but in real life, the colour is closer to ugly grey. Still, this idea definitely has potential! I just need to perfect the recipe, so watch this space. As you see, creativity is a process of trial and error.
Final thoughts
As you can see, not everything always goes well! If you see picture-perfect projects online, remember that there were probably even more failed ones in the background. And that’s completely fine! Every experience is a learning process.
Did you ever have spectacular failures with your DIY or kitchen adventures?
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