Redemption for Forsaken Art

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I've had a lot of folks giving me flack lately about the lack of arts and crafts. Fair enough, I mean, there is an entire section of this site devoted to Art, so I should probably [wo]man up and post this thing already...

This project is OLD. As in July. As in before I put the kabosh on the iPhone photos. Stop judging me. Stop.

I want to warn you: this was unintentional. One grand plan turned into another grand plan and after two epic fails, 2 mistakes, and 1 accident, suddenly it worked itself into art. The best laid plans, no?

So here's the story: A long, long time ago (July), in a galaxy far, far away (the Hobby Lobby a town over), I bought a piece of light wood for 99 cents. 

I had grand plans for this piece of wood and the number "5." [Why 5? There are 5 people in my immediate family and my mother's kitchen was lacking that handmade touch that says "Look, someone lives here! It's not all from Pottery Barn!" No offense, Pottery Barn. I do love you. Please lower your prices, though.]

Anyways, the grand plan and the number 5... my idea was to cover the wood in painting tape and cut around the letter "5," removing the excess tape. Then, I planned to paint the bare the wood white (and paint over the taped "5"). The idea was that I would later peel off the tape to reveal the number 5, seemingly etched into the wood below.

It was the best of plans, it was the worst of plans. 

Here's an accurate only somewhat photoshopped play-by-play of how that happened...

I epic failed. 

Mistake #1: There was no contrast in color. The difference between the light wood and the white paint was hardly noticeable so it just looked like a slab of wood. 

Mistake #2: The painting tape must not have been stuck on well enough because the outline of the number was not clean, it looked wavy and messed up.

There are no photos do document this claim of epic failure. This is, in part, because it was very unfortunate looking... and in part because I flat out forgot to photograph it (due to my lack of love for the weird looking, obviously unfinished project). 

So it sat around my house in a desk for a month. 

Fast forward to August. 'Twas a brand new day and I had a brand new plan. I was going to start over! This thing has two sides, right? So I flipped it over, whipped out an old can of dark wood stain, and decided to stain the wood before taking a second crack at the whole taping thing. 

Accident: Instead of using rubber gloves, I had tied Target bags around my hands (Please picture me walking around with Target bags tied around my hands and feet... dork), which made my hands even less coordinated than they usually are. Thus, the wood was doin' a little slip and slide dance on the newspaper. Through my clumsiness, I accidentally stained the back of the wood in a weird pattern. Let's just say it doesn't exactly "go with the grain." 

But when it dried and I flipped it over, I looked at it... really looked at it... 

And I decided that my silly mistakes and my clumsy accident had created something pretty rad. 

BOOM! And that's the way the cookie crumbles! 

Sidenote: Yes, to the right of the art, that would be my younger sister, in a pot next to a raw turkey, screaming her head off because somebody thought it would be hilarious to pose the photo.