a collection of lovely failures

a month of trying out stuff

Jun 17, 2025

It’s now 10 days after the surgery, and I’m glad to say I’m finally feeling like myself again. With the difference that now, fearing a third stone, I’m constantly drinking water. And peeing all the time. Like 3 times during the night (annoying), which makes me think that I was definitely not drinking enough water. So please, my friend, take a moment to get a glass of water before continuing.

Surprisingly, during this whole period, for the first time in quite a while, my head was not constantly, anxiously, desperately, stressfully spiralling on what I should do with my life and how I pay my bills. Funny how you get some perspective when things are really shit and you have no control over them.

During this time, this helped me to reconnect with doing things for fun and just let it be. You saw the silly potatoes and the not-so-great zine, and there was also some other stuff I tried out these days, and I want to share it with you. Maybe I can inspire you to do something ugly, silly, not great at all, but that will make you (and maybe others) smile a little bit.

a really ugly bracelet

One thing I started a few years ago was doing silly pins with polymer clay. I saw someone selling this type of pin, and I thought, why not try it out? I normally work on a simple design, building the picture with little tubes of clay. After that, I roll and slice the cane. They look like this:

I love the surprise, and that they always look so wonky. But this time, instead of a pin, I decided to do a bracelet. The problem is that I got a different brand of clay, and it was too soft and not so easy to work with. On top of that, I made little holes with a needle, but they deformed after baking the clay. So, I was really struggling to pass the elastic through the little beads.

Jasmin looked at me, sitting there for like an hour and said, “why don’t you use the needle to pass it through?”. Genius. Somehow I forgot how needles work (??) and I didn’t think of it. We laughed really hard. She made a bit fun of me, and on how I can do quantum physics but struggle with the simplest tasks. Absolutely true.

So after this brilliant idea, it took me like 2 minutes to finish the ugliest bracelet, but I somehow loved it so much and I’m actually wearing it every day.

“the weirdos”

With the leftover clay, I decided to make funny, weird creatures. Jasmin chose their names, and I just improvised a little box so they have a little home. I really liked the idea of making my drawings 3D, and I feel the weirdos’ family will definitely grow.

bleached megazord

The next project was to do something with a really big shirt that I got in a second-hand shop. I had the idea of drawing a Megazord, but I wanted something that I could do at home, without really investing in printing or putting too much effort into making it happen. So, I just got bleach mixed with water, a small brush and voila:

My Megazord turned out with very short legs because I miscalculated the proportions and I didn’t want to trace it beforehand. But somehow I think it ended up as a charming Megazord. Another successful failure!

And it was so much fun that I used the “building blocks“ idea to also create this design on another shirt:

I love how the lines look very messy and in some places very strong, and in others very weak. And as that exercise, it also makes you slow down, as you need to go light with the brush and dip it into the bleach-water mix very often.

strawberry love

Last but not least, this weekend we enjoyed the good weather, going to a strawberry field. There you can harvest and enjoy the really fresh strawberries. It was my first time and I loved it so much! You can see all the different shapes and shades of red, and it was so much fun (and delicious!).

Since we are travelling and the strawberries will not last long, Jasmin made marmalade and asked me to draw a label. Since the glasses were all random sizes, I decided to do a few designs and just print stickers at home to decorate the glasses.

I have to say, the marmalade turned out very delicious, and my stickers are not very professional, but they have a shitty-but-cool vibe.

yummy!

When was the last time you tried something new? If you'd like to know more about some of these things that I did to try yourself, write in the comments, and I can give you some tips :)