Pass/Fail - A Sort-Of Tutorial

I always want to do more project tutorials so you can see how much I plan my projects, how precise I am, how everything turns out just the way I want it to.  You didn't buy that, did you?  


Truth is, I tend to be pretty spontaneous in starting a project, I don't usually have a thoroughly thought out plan, and I'm usually half way through before I realize it might be working out okay but I have forgotten to take any pictures.  Fortunately, I get only mildly upset if something doesn't quite work out the way I thought it would, and I like the challenge of coming up with a solution mid-project. With all that in mind, I decided to expose the twists and turns of my newest little project.  

When we were downsizing my sister's place this little tin was on its way to the trash bin.  I thought it was too cute to toss, even though it was in pretty sad shape.  So it came home with me. 

I liked the painted roses, but the tin was in such bad shape I didn't think I could salvage them.  Nevertheless, I took closeup photos of the flowers.

My first step was to clean up the tin and paint it "candy pink." So far so good.

Then I decided to add gold rub 'n buff to the raised trim. 

 

I used the scatter brush in Photoshop to create a sheet of butterflies and Mod Podged them to the tin.

I HATED IT.

FAIL!!!

Back to the beginning ...  I tore the butterflies off, repainted the tin and started over. 

Remember the flowers on the original tin that I photographed?  I cleaned them up in Photoshop, resized them, and printed them out on rice paper. 

I first layered plain white rice paper on the tin with Mod Podge.

 I then tore out the individual roses and planned to layer them over the rice paper. 

FAIL!!

I had printed these on an inkjet printer and immediately afterward tried to Mod Podge them on to the layer of rice paper.  The colors ran and it turned into a sloppy mess!  I pulled off the flowers and ...

Wow! I like it!

It looks like a soft and delicate watercolor by Monet.  I liked the effect, so I continued to do it on purpose all around the tin.  I gave it another coat of Mod Podge, re-attached the rings, and pronounced it:

PASS!

 So now my pretty pink tin needed a bouquet of flowers to complete it.  I "borrowed" some lovely pink tulips from my neighbor.  

And then I "borrowed" some branches from my flowering pink Dogwood tree.  I like the shabby chic look of this version. 

So ... even though it's a little tough to live with sometimes and I'm not always happy about it when things fall apart, I do like the fact that I can roll with the punches, so to speak, and hopefully come up with a solution when the original plan goes bad.  And if I can't come up with a solution, then my motto is:

"If at first you don't succeed, hide all evidence you ever tried."

How about you? Are you better than I am when you plan your project? Does it always work the way you want it to?