Craftastrophe

Are you there readers? It’s me, Caroline. 

I’d like to pretend that I have been buried underneath the layers of ice and snow that have plagued New York City since the holidays, only now thawing out like discarded Christmas trees and 4-week-old bags of trash, but alas I have no reasonable excuse for my absence.

So why no new post since December?

I’ve had crafter’s block.

I mean that’s not 100% true because I have not stopped Taking and Making, but the quality of my finished projects are not up to your standards. (Yes, I’m blaming you and all your expectations.) I’m stuck and continue to be stuck in inspirational limbo because I just can’t let go of my 2011 craftastrophes. Time is of the essence, however, and if I expect to keep this blog relevant, I must move past my failures. And in an effort to not let it get the better of me, I will use my latest craftastrophe (involving wax paper, confetti and the US Postal Service) that was also supposed to be my Valentine’s Day post, as a teachable moment.
So, do me a solid. Pull up a chair, grab a glass of scotch, and simply humor me.

It started innocently enough. I’ve really been into the idea of making my own envelopes. I make my own cards all the time so why not finish the job? It’s a really easy process and you can use just about any type of paper you have laying around the house. Or so I thought…

At the last minute, I decided to have a Valentine’s Craft Lunch. I couldn’t just put invitations in the mail on such short notice and expect people to show up, so I contacted a few ladies with the intention of following up my verbal invitation with a more formal one. My concept for the invitation was conversation hearts, and I really loved the idea of being able to see the invitation through the envelope. I also wanted to include some heart confetti in the invitation, and if the recipient could see the confetti inside, she was less likely to:

                                      A) Spill it all over the floor,

                                                      AND

                                      B) Curse the day I was born for disguising a 
                                           handful of confetti in an opaque envelope.

I decided glassine would be optimal, but all I had on hand was waxed paper. I figured it should work especially if I added an extra piece of card stock for support. I decided to write the addresses on the extra piece of card stock, which I figured could be easily read through the waxed paper, because the ink smeared otherwise. I made the envelopes, inserted the heart invitation and dropped in my confetti for good measure. I popped them in the mail and that was that.

I received confirmation from one guest that she received the invite a few days later, although it was slightly tattered with confetti casualties. I assumed this was the case for everyone else, until our first party guest arrived with only the red card stock in hand, sans party information and confetti! I don’t even know how she got that because the stamp was on the outside of the envelope. Once everyone arrived, it became apparent that out of the 8 invitations I mailed, only one made it, and damaged at that. And if my ego wasn’t bruised enough, 4 days after the party, I received this: 

 

Fail. 

Determined to learn from my mistake, when I sent out my personal valentines last week, I made envelopes from glassine packaging that was leftover from a recent installation at work. I wrote the address on the outside and even test mailed one to my boyfriend to ensure delivery.

Success.

Looking back it’s hard to say where I went wrong (or right) on these. Maybe it was the waxed paper. Maybe it was putting the name and address on the inside. Maybe it was karma for being late and using email as my first mode of inviting. All I can say is I hope there is confetti all over the floor of the Post Office sorting facility.