Written by Liza Kolbasov

We all know the feeling: scrolling through your Pinterest feed, looking at the beautiful photos of flawless do-it-yourself (DIY) projects that could make your room look like an aesthetic masterpiece.

When I got the chance to make one of these fabled crafts, I jumped at it. Finally, motivation to dig up my “Fall DIY” board and, gasp, actually make something from it. One Michael’s trip later, I had three jars, some glue and a bag of fake leaves. However, my leaves were flat-out refusing to stick to the jar. I tried everything from tape, glue on the bottom and even glue on the top—nothing seemed to help. I had done something wrong (or the Pinterest people had made around 10,000 jars before choosing these specific ones).

To my surprise, when I woke up the next morning, I was met with a fairly tolerable sight. True, the leaves weren’t exactly arranged in the most artistic way, but the thick coat of glue had dried nicely and turned clear: the leaves were stuck permanently to their places. A piece of ribbon around the edge and a candle inside finished it off; my candle holders actually resembled the models.

Although I will probably never be able to make a perfect craft like the ones on Pinterest, I learned that it’s important to take those examples with a grain of salt, have fun and not be too obsessed with perfection. Perhaps the whole point wasn’t the ideal aesthetic, any- way. Perhaps the point was to have fun making (and messing up) a craft with friends.