There could have been so many alternative titles for this post.
When Pinterest Sets You Up With Unrealistic Expectations.
99 Reasons Why Not To Craft With A Toilet-Training Toddler.
In all honesty, there were a few times during this project when I thought I’d just give up on it.
It did not turn out at all like the perfect Pinterest-worthy product I had in my mind.
It became such a Comedy of Errors- at one point there was a near-naked toddler running around smeared in red paint- that I thought I would share it with you all in the interests of Keeping It Real.

So Valentine’s Day also happens to be International Book Giving Day.
We don’t really “do” Valentine’s Day here at our place.
But I love love and don’t need any reason to celebrate.
And you all know I love books, so I’m pretending to celebrate that. With love hearts. Lots of them.
So I thought I’d share a DIY library bag with you for the book-loving person in your life.

Here’s what you’ll need….
A plain calico bag
Fabric paint in your choice of colours
Paintbrush
A palette or plate
Cardboard
Heart template traced onto cardboard
Paper tube (toilet paper roll, kitchen paper roll.)

Sadly, you will have to iron the creases out of your bag.
If you’re lucky, you may be like me, and have mad ironing skills that actually see more creases being added to the bag with your ironing.
At this point, my iron decided to retire. It just stopped working.
This probably should have been my first sign to quit while I was ahead.

Lay cardboard inside the bag to prevent paint from staining through to other side.

I created a heart template using ClipArt in Word. (Fancy, I know.)
I then traced the heart onto cardboard.
Using the squeezy bottle of paint, I painted around the heart.
Just as I was coming around to complete my perfect heart, the paint nozzle fell off and I ended up with a splodge next to my perfect heart.

So I decided to start again with my spare bag.
Except that now my iron didn’t work so I had to just work with a creased bag and lament the waste of time ironing the previous bag.

Take 2.

At this point the baby woke up, so I had to go and resettle him.

Back to it.
For ages now, I’ve been seeing Pinterest people using paper tubes to create heart stamps.
So I thought I’d give it a try.
Except that I couldn’t seem to form nicely-shaped hearts.

Just as I squeezed out the red paint onto my palette, the Toddler woke up.
She was excited to see the red paint, and happily sat beside me painting on cardboard scraps.
I pretended to ignore the red paint ending up on the dining table.
Or when she decided to paint a spare cardboard tube which then fell onto the floorboards.
(I’m hoping that my Husband will not read this.)

My cardboard tube heart stamp was not as easy to use as I expected. I ended up with many half-formed hearts stamped onto my bag.
As I tried to rectify this situation, the Toddler, with red paint on her forehead, torso and hands, decided she was done with painting.
And then proceeded to touch every white surface in the house.
As she left the table, she used the edges of the bag to clean her hands.
Thanks, kid.

I rushed her to the sink and cleaned her up.
I left her engaging in “water play” and tried to quickly finish my project that was quickly spiraling out of control.

I used my paintbrush to paint some free-form hearts and also filled in some of the outlines.
Suddenly, I hear “MUMMY! I NEED POTTY!”
I won’t go into details, but by this point I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.
Or rejoice that FINALLY my kid seems to be understanding potty-training.

I used some of the pink paint to create some further “embellishments” and then curled up in a corner and slowly rocked back and forth.

Just joking.
I put the bag outside to dry, loaded the kids into the car, swung via McDonalds for a drive-through coffee and we all headed to the park.

And everything turned out okay.

Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day?