There
is no shortage of tastefully-lit, artfully-filtered photos of
completed DIY projects all over the Internet: I've seen everything
from a kitchen table with a poured concrete top and iron pipe legs,
to high heels with the undersides painted with sky-blue nail polish.
Sure, the table looked great in the bohemian-urban-chic loft, but
good luck finding friends to help haul that heavy-ass table down the
stairs when you move out of that apartment. And the shoes looked nice
in the finished display photo, but after just one night on the town,
they'd look way worse than before. A lot of the DIY craft projects circulating on artsy blogs and Pinterest are,
at best, impractical; at worst, they're downright stupid. (I'm
looking at you, gold-painted honey bears.)
 |
| “What? We coordinate perfectly with the chalkboard-painted toilet seat and the television made of wooden pallets.” |
Truth
be told, I'm not a “crafty”
person, despite
what my friends tell me. I'll admit to being creative,
but I'm definitely not crafty in the sense of “I like to make
things
for the hell of it in my free time”. When
I make or
do creative things,
it's usually
motivated
by
some
kind of necessity,
and
it's almost always
done
in the most inexpensively MacGyver-ish way possible using
pretty much whatever I have lying around or can easily find at Dollar
Tree. Also, because we live in an apartment, projects
that take up significant construction or storage space aren't really
an option.
So, having said all that, I present you with my Irreverent Guarantee:
So, having said all that, I present you with my Irreverent Guarantee:
The DIY projects featured
on this blog do not require you to be “crafty”, or have previous
experience, special equipment, or extra space or money. All
projects have been tested for Practicality (i.e
“How well does it do what
it's made to do?”) and Durability (“Does
it last a reasonably decent amount of time with normal expected
use?”).
I've
made plenty of things that
looked
great...
but fell apart not long
after the “Finished Product” photo was taken. I've
also seen projects that look really cool, but required materials,
space, money, time, and/or effort I just didn't have. Hopefully
some of the things I put here can give you some ideas, inspire some
creativity, and spare you the headache of making
something impractical or
flimsy when you could be doing more important things like playing
video games or sampling beer or plotting world domination. Or
parenting. You know, whatever floats your boat.
 |
| Constructed completely out of Mason jars, hot glue, Christmas lights, and chalkboard paint, of course. |
