Success Is Built On Failure

I have so many DIY ideas swirling around in my head!

But you know the thing about DIY ideas??

You actually have to try them to see if they’ll work

You have to buy the materials and spend the time to make the thing or do the project before you’ll know

Whether or not your plan is going to come together

And for me lately?

Nothing has been turning out at all like I expected

I think it all started with Loren’s duvet cover

Remember this???

You can read the post about this Ruching Gone Wild HERE

What started out as a great idea ended up looking like ruching on steroids!

Then I had the brilliant idea to take it all apart and make a Kantha stitched quilt like THIS ONE.

What I didn’t tell you was that I spent 2 weekends crawling around on the living room floor, hand stitching rows and rows with embroidery thread

While the dog kept eyeing me and sighing because I blocked her out of there with chairs so she couldn’t walk all over it

Then about 11 hours and 19 rows in, I realized it was looking like someone gave a nearsighted monkey a needle and thread and said ‘sew this’

So I gave up and ripped it all out, washed it to get rid of all the needle holes, put the fill back in it and put it back on her bed

And there it will stay

Unless…

I get another brilliant idea

Then there was the orange armoire that had been bugging me for a long time

That one I wrote about a few weeks ago

You can read the post HERE

But I didn’t show you everything I had done

And then I did even more to it after I wrote about it the first time

So here’s the whole story:

I took it from orange

To white over orange

To this

To this hot mess

Hey, at least the orange was finally gone!

Ummmm…

But no

So now

We’re stripping it all off

Now when I say we’re stripping it — that means Mr. Redoux is helping me get it back to where I started

Even though I was the one who did it all

With a ‘just let me do my thing’ attitude

And every time he walked by

He would roll his eyes

And shake his head…

He’s helping me

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — he is a good sport!

So why am I telling you all this?

Why am I showing you my failures?

Well, partly because I was getting discouraged that nothing I was trying was working out

And because it helps to laugh a little at my mistakes

And to tell you that creativity is a process

And not every idea is going to be successful

And that

SUCCESS IS NOT BUILT ON SUCCESS — SUCCESS IS BUILT ON FAILURE

So don’t give up

And keep on trying

You’ll love it when your plan finally does come together!