I recently spent two days trying my damnedest to fuse plastic bags together. I had seen the technique featured on countless blogs and websites, and it seemed like a great eco-friendly project that I could use in a workshop this summer. Plus it sounded so easy.
But for the life of me, I just couldn't get the technique to work reliably. I tried different irons and different iron temperatures. Fail. I tried keeping the iron in one place instead of moving it around. Fail. I tried ten seconds, twenty seconds, and then thirty seconds. Fail. No matter how methodical I was, nothing produced reliable results.
It was hard for me to give up on the idea, in part because I had really wanted to use this technique in the workshop. But I also had a hard time because I felt like I had personally failed.
Maybe I need to take the advice of Kim Werker and Sadie Stein and stop judging myself. Apparently I'm not the only one guilty of this, which is both comforting and sad. Why do we do this to ourselves? I mean, I'm certainly not a failure just because I couldn't get a certain technique to work for me. But that's not how I felt when I was standing over the thirty-seventh plastic bag eviscerated on my ironing board.
Thankfully, I finally decided to put down the iron and come up with a new theme for the workshop. I think it will end up being a good one. And speaking of new workshops, I'll be posting all of my summer workshops soon, so be sure to check back here or over on Facebook.
2 comments:
Thanks for linking to CraftFail! :) Did you use a hard surface when you tried to fuse? I did it on my kitchen table (wooden), between 2 layers of paper sack, and it eventually worked.
Hi Heather-- No, I didn't think to try another surface. I just figured an ironing board would work. Thanks for the tip!
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