I love reading the blog “pinstrocity.” Lots of fun pintrest fails on there (and tips on how to fix them)!

I haven’t had any craft fails yet, but I’ve tried a few recipes that “pinners raved about” that we’re not so hot. And when you make a casserole or something for two adults and a 3 year old, there are leftovers that you must suffer with.

So very true. I still think your crafts turned out adorable!

Oh, dear. When my kids were younger I made the turkeys with a hershey kiss, oreo, and candy corn. I used icing from a tube for the eyes, beak, etc. It was fairly easy. No lollipop stick included. No legs.
-Trish

Glad you gave the warning – I had every intention of trying this with my students at school (I teach special education), but I have a feeling that would cause all sorts of meltdowns. They’re really cute, though!

You know those candy cornucopias using m&ms and sugar cones…big fail last year! The cones were supposed to be soaked on the ends to make them pliable so they could be rolled. It just ended up creating a sticky, gooey mess and most of them broke off. Ended up just putting the m&ms into the cones and calling it a day. My son was smart enough to abandon the project within the first 5 minutes and just leave me in there with my “fun” craft. HA!

@Jen U, I love reading Pintrocity too! It is hilarious! My favorite one was all of the attempts to make those cookie ice cream bowls. Who knew it was so hard? Even so, I still LOVE Pinterest. It is one of my favorite pastimes

I have had a lot of crafting fails with my kids. But I need to remind myself to take a deep breath and let go of the ultimate outcome. Who cares if the turkey has one eye? The kids honestly do NOT. They care about having a fun activity with family. I am a natural control freak, so this is a hard thing for me to do, but once you free yourself from expectations about having a picture perfect outcome, it is way more fun. And the kids can also express themselves creatively without feeling like they’ve failed to produce a perfect end result.

Anyway, you’re not alone! And you’re a great mom for thinking up fun things to do with the kids!

made ‘glow in the dark bubbles’ on our boat this summer for the kids (twilight boat ride) and it was a complete bust. the container of bubbles looked cool, and glowed, but when you blow the bubbles, you could not see them in the dark. we did however have fun with the remaining glow sticks, throwing them off the boat, and swimming to get them. they float, and are super easy to see in the water in the dark.

Hi there! Just saw Giada At Home make these on her show and it looked like an easier version you might want to try! They are too cute to give up on!

I am lauging, because one of my managers actually sent these out to some of the employees with a note stating: “Thanks for being such a sharp employee.” These are adults sending this to other adults…I agree sometimes there are these cute ideas and when you sit down to try them at home… not so simple!

I made a Christmas gift last year for my sister that I found on pinterest – the nail art with string. Thank goodness for my wonderful husband because after putting the Texas on the board & the Double T for Texas Tech – he drilled the over 200 holes (yes, 200 +) and then I nailed & strung the string. In the end it turned out great & my sister loved it but I have to say it makes me look @ the crafting ideas a tad differently now.

I think the turkeys turned out cute.

I like to disprove the science pins, like the glow in the dark Mt. Dew. That one is a total hoax. Also the glowing aura water xylophone, which just got the glow sticks wet.

Yes, me too! It was a really cute pencil vase. Sounds simple right? It was supposed to be a tin can with the pencils glued around it then tied with a pretty ribbon and stuffed with candy dipped oreos on skewers. I tried to glue the dollar store pencils but they didn’t fit around the can. Meaning that there was a gap when all were glued to the can. BIG FAIL! So I wasted 3 dollars worth of cheap pencils and over an hour of my life! And, um, the candy covered oreos weren’t that great either

This very topic has been on my mind lately. Every time I use a recipe of of Pinterest, it does not turn out. i am an avid baker and cook, and for the most part I use cookbooks and trusted recipes. I find it so odd that the recipes I pin don’t seem to turn out. Kind of a bummer.

Even if the project did not turn out exactly like you hoped, your children were able to have an opportunity to share the excitement of first day of school with their friends!

Haha, this post made me laugh! I made a wreath last last year that looked so easy and quick… and while the finished product looks GREAT it took about 4x as long as I thought it would to make and it was pretty tricky to pull off.

I love this …. made me laugh, feel affirmed because I have done the same thing and am not NEARLY as talented as you. Thank you for sharing this, I feel so normal now!!!

Um, yeah, I’m there with ya. Last year my friend and I had a Christmas Craft Day with our kids and tried to make Rudolph doughnut hole pops I saw on Pinterest. Epic fail. Even my friend and I couldn’t get them to look decent and we are both avid crafters! We still laugh about what a disaster it was…and a complete waste of materials, time and effort. Same goes for homemade gingerbread houses, even the graham cracker kind. This year I’ll stick with letting the kids decorate gingerbread man cookies and call it good!

Yes, I have had a pinterest fail – but on the cooking front. I tried the Buffalo Califlower and as I was pouring a cup on buffalo sauce over the lovely roasted califlower I thought “this doesn’t seem right….” and I was right, it was a soggy mess!

I have to tell you- all of the honesty lately, about how real-life is and how things are not always easy or perfect….. it has been so refreshing. I wish more of my blog-idols would share the good, the bad, and the ugly.

LOL. I really can relate. I was going to decorate cookies for halloweens with my girls but decided to do it while they slept instead, and I was beyond frustrated, even with the ‘basic’ ones that only required sprinkles. I saw such beautiful sugar-skull cookies for the Day of the Dead, and was a fool to even try it. You can laugh at my pinterest fail here –>http://howsweetlifeis.com/2012/11/06/october-fun-halloween-update-and-more/. Thanks for “keeping it real”, Emily! xo

I hear ya! I saw some pumpkins made from book pages at a craft fair and found some online as well. After taking HOURS to cut all of the pages, they were lopsided and roughly cut. Wish I had just spent the $12 for the ones at the fair

I have a pending Pinterest project that is bound to be a fail. It’s Martha Stewart’s paper mâché hot air balloon. I’m determined to have a red and white striped one hanging in my eldest daughter’s whimsical room, but it could be disastrous. We’ll see… Won’t somebody just sell me one??!

Thank you for this – it made me laugh! It’s so refreshing to talk about how life is not perfect – we are always under so much pressure that it is important to realise that the fails are just as much fun, and as important in life, as the successes. I recently offered to make a surprise birthday cake for a good friend, even though I knew I would be pushed for time and had a busy week at work/looking after my toddler. I went straight to Pinterest, found the pink rose-covered cake (you know the one, right?!) and set to it. Three hours and lots of tears later, I scraped the mess of pink icing back into the bowl, added a dash of vodka, slapped it back on the cake any-old-how and shoved loads of those paper cocktail umbrellas into it to disguise the mess. Hey presto – a cocktail themed cake that looked great, tasted yummy, and went down a treat! And a one-off original too, not a Pinterest everyone-has-copied-it perfection. And that was just fine with the birthday girl!

Did you ever see the zombie hands Halloween treats? You fill a disposable plastic glove with popcorn and use candy corns as the finger nails. It is near impossible to get the candy corns in the right direction and you can forget getting the popcorn into the fingers! It took me two hours to make 25 of them, I was exhausted! All I kept saying was, “These children better LOVE these” lol I’ve also tried the ziplock bag butterflies. One side is grapes, the other is goldfish crackers separated by a clothespin to look like a butterfly. That is another I won’t ever do again

Been there. Failed that. I just posted my Pinterest Fail this week. Here’s the link, if you’re interested.

http://www.becca-homeiswheremystorybegins.blogspot.com/2012/11/pumpkin-pie-bars.html

Becca

Thank you for sharing this. It’s nice to know that others have pinterest fails also. If it involves food, I call them delicious disasters when they don’t turn out like they should..and I have plenty of them

you are too cute. soooo relate! many a pinterest fail so i’ve concluded that pinterest is usually for mommy projects only. hilarious!

I should start a blog for all of my pinterest fails! I have a really bad average, like a 30% success rate. I guess I am a hopeful crafter.

I have a board titled, “Pinterest lied to me”. I basically review pinterest ideas (recipes, crafts, or organizing tips) I’ve tried, hoping to let my followers know whether or not they’re worth the time.