I can STILL remember my so-called Pinterest-fails from when I was five years old. Long before that red icon resided on my phone-screen, I was trying to create crafts, clothes, and cookies. I can still remember sitting on the carpet, trying to sew some doll clothes by hand. The stitches weren’t straight, the edges frayed, and when I turned the shirt right-side out it was too small for the doll’s head to fit through. Argh!
Just last week, my Heidi was in tears over the exact same thing. She was sewing doll clothes, by hand. The stitches came undone, the dress didn’t fit over Elsa’s head, and bottom edge had frayed. Her frustrated tears totally took me back to my childhood!
Now that we have Pinterest, it might actually be worse. Before, we just had pictures in our heads of what we wanted to create. These mental pictures can be rather forgiving. Not so with Pinterest’s pictures. They’re perfect. They’re often professional. I have a hunch they might be photo-shopped.
In the last week I’ve actually attempted not one, not two, but FIVE new Pinterest-informed endeavors. I’m not sure what is wrong with me, it must be the holiday season. I get ridiculously optimistic and seem to forget all the past Pinterest-fails that trail behind me, creative wreckage. I forget all this because it’s Christmas-time! Everything’s possible at Christmas, right?! Of course I can sew myself a floor-length plaid tartan circle skirt even though it calls for 5 yards of fabric and I only have 1.5. AND I can stain and antique my kitchen cabinets AND whip up three new recipes. Anything’s possible at Christmas! Right?!
My fatal flaw is that I often “wing it”. I often don’t follow recipes, I never use patterns, I eyeball rather than measure, and I like to move quickly, so there’s not a lot of time for prep. This doesn’t bode well for beautiful outcomes, but I will say that the experiments of this past week have reminded me of some timeless truths:
People are more important than things.
I noticed that when I was staining my cabinets (and really cared about the outcome) I was quick to grow impatient with Heidi, who wanted to help. God actually had to deal with my heart on this issue, because I easily get more absorbed in my project than in giving my full attention to the kids. I let it sit unfinished for several days, until the Father gave me the green light to continue, after I’d surrendered my silly project and made my kids the priority.
Ugly food often tastes best.
No explanation needed.
No one notices your frayed hem.
So, I did sew a plaid skirt to wear to a speaking event, and I was hoping they’d have the lights low so no one could see what a terrible job I’d done. I figured no one would look low enough to see my imperfect hem. Wouldn’t you know it, the stage had FULL LIGHT (ha!) and I was up high enough that the audience eye-level was exactly at my hemline. Ha! But you know what? No one cares. Be free!
The imperfect version is the most fun.
Last night we made THESE. And we laughed so hard we we were snorting and crying and I haven’t laughed that hard in years. And it was all because they turned out so gloriously imperfect.
Controlling kills the fun every time.
I won’t lie, when we started making these cookies, Heidi wanted to do it all on her own. I admit: I cringed. The gingerbread men began looking like victims of some horrible accident, and I was so tempted to reach right over and do it myself. But that would have been the worst. And when she frosted them and sprinkled all five colors right on top of one another, and put the red hots there as eyes and they started looking like horror-movie characters, I thought about telling her to do it differently. But I stopped. And I’m so glad because she LOVED this whole adventure, and asked if we could do it every year and woke up the next day and asked to finish decorating the rest. Seems like success to me.
And so I share my #pinterestfails as a friendly reminder that an imperfect Christmas might just be best, and maybe we can lighten up a little and love each other more than our ideals. I’m sure you know this already, but it never hurts to have a little reminder. Happy holidays! Thanks for reading.
PS For the record, some of my projects turned out ok! I like the cabinet-stain, and THIS sugarless flourless chocolate cake is incredible!!
