Fail Harder

October 12, 2009 by Minnie

Originally uploaded by swissmiss studio

I saw this ‘Fail Harder’ sign on SwissMiss that someone made out of like 45 million thumbtacks. I need this sign (along side my Natalie Dee print out that says ‘I’m a Quitter!’ (which you can now get as a t-shirt(can I double triple parenthesis like this?! whatever, go buy a Natalie Dee t-shirt. they are awesome.))) above my craft space because I fail hard and I fail often.

“Over 100,000 thumbtacks were used over 351 hours to create this typographic mural that spells out Fail Harder, a message that underlines the importance of failure during the creative process.”

It sucks to have a craft project crash and burn. I attempted to dye a pair of shoes today except that at the last moment I realized the shoes weren’t actually leather… Instead of not doing the project I went ahead with it and um… it didn’t quite work out. FAIL. And this on top of last week after my silk screen project turned out assy when I was thinking, “MAN, please let me have one freaking successful project. GOSH!”

Sometimes I want to get stabby when I’m reading all the craft blogs where people are seemingly cranking out perfect craft project after perfect craft project and all the commenter are gushing about how awesome the blogger is. Maybe that’s why I so mean spiritedly love Regretsy and Craftastrophe.

Have you read?

Book Review: The Festival of Lights

As if Diwali weren’t colorful and fun enough, The Festival of Lights: A Lift-the-flap Diwali Celebration by Namita Moolani Mehra, illustrated by Darshika Varm, makes it even more fun to read about with flaps and things to lift and pull to see more information or details in the illustrations.

The book is a story about a family getting ready for Diwali and what happens on the different days of the five-day celebration. There’s cleaning, shopping, crafting, food preparation and getting the home altar ready for the big day.

It covers decorating the outside of the house with rangoli, diyas and lanterns, buying sweets to share with family and friends, the sights and scents of the mandir (home temple), getting dressed up in new fancy clothes, the story of Diwali and celebrations with relatives.

Flaps (there are more than 140 in all) give you vocabulary words for different foods and definitions, as well as fun things like what’s inside the shopping basket or where the cat is hanging out. They also help illuminate the story of Diwali, which is the triumph of good over evil as Lord Ram defeated the demon Ravana to save his wife, Sita.

This pretty and colorful book helps kids understand what Diwali is and how it is celebrated, regardless of whether they practice it at home. This would be a nice book to keep in a classroom (it’s rated for kids ages 3-7) or to have at home to teach kids about Diwali even if it’s not something you celebrate. Where I live there are a lot of people from India so we are probably exposed to Diwali more than some other regions of America, but it’s a nice holiday to know about wherever you live.

Combine with the book Diwali and check out some fun lantern crafts and printables for kids to round out your experience.

About the book: 24 pages, hardcover, published 2025 by Wide Eyed Editions. Suggested retail prices $22.99.