The Year Long Jewelery Box Project

This is embarrassing. I'm not joking when I say this project has taken over a year.

I bought this little unfinished jewelery box for Bug to decorate and give to her for her 5th birthday. She just turned 6, and I just finished it.

I'm pretty sure it has been painted no less than 6 times, each time I hated it. I'd put it away for weeks, months... and still hate it. Sand it down, try again. Hate it again. I was halfway through my 7th attempt at it when I found the blog Mod Podge Rocks.

So here is where it started a couple of days ago:


And here it is, finally finished:



Bug insisted I show you the inside too:


The varnish was hardly dry when she snatched it from my craft area to bring it to her room and start filling it. It isn't perfect, but as the Nester says, "it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful." And I'm trying to embrace that or I'll never finish anything.

I definitely learned a lot and learned I love decoupage in the process. I don't like working too much with thicker papers, they didn't want to stay "stuck" and curled up a bit. I also liked that for me, decoupage seems to be very forgiving... and of course, my favorite part of being creative is that no one sees what was in my mind as I was creating it. They only see the result. So if the "vision" and the "result" are different, embrace the result and forget the vision.