Business Card Holder

Okay, lovely readers, today we have a tale about when crafts don't go quite as well as you may have planned.  Sometimes I see an image or I get an idea and I jump right in, and the end result...not so cute.  Today's craft didn't go totally wrong, but it certainly didn't turn out as well as I originally intended.  I found the idea for this project on Pinterest (featured it here on my craft inspiration post), and it led me to this tutorial.  Originally, this project called for spray paint and vinyl letters cut out using a Silhouette machine.  Well, I hate spray paint and sadly do not yet own a Silhouette so I had to make do.

My version calls for the following supplies: sticker letters (though I ended up using vinyl ones), a metal tin (mine is from the gift card section of Michael's), a sponge brush, two colors of paint, one base coat (I used an acrylic made for outdoor use).

Cover your whole tin with the base coat and let it dry.  This is where this project started to go downhill for me.  Me and waiting?  Not so much.

Once your base coast has dried, paint the bottom portion of the tin and the very top with one of your colors.  This will be your accent color.

Place your vinyl letters on your tin.  Note that mine are not all that straight.  That was not really planned.

Make sure your accent paint is totally dry.  Cover the letters with another coat of the base paint.

Wait until that is totally dry, then cover the entire lid of the tin with your second color.  I did this part at night (because of all the waiting!) so the pic is not great.  The color is blue in real life!

When the top layer is totally dry, very carefully peel off your letters.

Not so pretty, huh?  I used a tiny paintbrush and went back in with some blue and pink and touched up the areas that were looking really rough.  They got better, but still not perfect.

Once you have finished painting and everything is dry, it is probably a good idea to seal the whole thing.  I was out of sealer, so like any good craft blogger, I improvised and used clear nail polish.  That part actually worked pretty well, and it gave the whole thing a sheen, which I happen to like.

In the end, not quite as lovely as I imagined, but not too terrible.  I will probably use this to tote along my business cards until I find (or make) something better.  Any of you have good stories of crafts gone wrong?  I would love to hear them!