I love America. I really do. I hate crafts though. I was frightened I would betray our country by failing at these crafts (and if history is any indication, that's a legitimate concern). I blasted some "Proud to Be an American" and the Top Gun theme song, and hoped that was enough inspiration to guide my heart to victory or something. I don't know. I wasn't looking forward to this.
I don't entirely understand why someone would want to make this to begin with. You spend two hours making this centerpiece to put it out for your Fourth of July barbecue and then what? One person comments on it casually, as you nod and smile, your eyes wide with pride, darting around frantically hoping someone else will stop shoving hot dogs in their mouth long enough to agree. You hope, deep in your heart, everyone will gather around the centerpiece you spent hours painstakingly crafting, chanting your name, chanting, "America!" and hoisting you on their shoulders, and parading you down the street because you made the best damn patriotic centerpiece ever. But instead, someone is just like, "Oh, neat." and that's it. That's the payoff. Maybe someone says it's "cute." I just don't see the opportunity costs paying off here, is my point.
To be fair, my real point is that this was all my rationalization for saying, "Fuck i,t" about five minutes into this craft when the hot glue I was burning my hands with gave out and the first of my three firecrackers collapsed. That's the reason these look less like fireworks and more like "nondescript celebration rectangles." The only part of this craft I didn't completely screw up was filling a jar with beans, which is something anyone with even a fleeting familiarity with both jars and beans can accomplish.
I don't care though, because this craft is stupid and you can't even eat it. I have a rule that you shouldn't put this much effort into something people can't eat. Maybe you could cook the beans before filling the jar with them.
I thought this one would be terrible, but I was surprised to find that I'm a natural when it comes to making fake flowers out of felt. That is a gift I am confident I never would've known I had if I didn't work at Cosmopolitan.com and spend an inordinate amount of time making crafts at work.
I slipped into a weird, zen-like trance doing it. It was borderline cathartic. It was also quick and easy. You just grab a styrofoam circle, cut up some felt, and pin it together. You still can't eat it though, so F.
3. Flag Shoes
I wonder if, when Francis Hopkinson first flew the stars-and-stripes flag, Ben Franklin was like, "Yooo. Can't wait to see someone put this design on some sick-ass Converses, LOL." Here we are, several centuries later, and Franklin's vision is finally a reality, thanks to some person on the Internet.
I'll be completely honest: I flew through these in half an hour because of time constraints, but these things turned out pretty OK. I'm sure if I sat down and focused, these could've looked even better. This is probably the first time one of these crafts isn't getting thrown in the garbage five minutes after I give up on it. I'll probably wear them on Fourth of July, if only because my wife is British and I love to rub America's victory in her face any chance I get. I love these shoes and I literally cannot wait for her to hate them. I am bursting with patriotic pride and excitement. Seriously A+
I hate cupcakes. I hate not having the things I need to finish something. Frustration and a lack of a cupcake tube resulted in this: the Cupcake of Oriskany. That's an allusion to the Battle of Oriskany, considered to be one of the bloddiest battles of the American Revolution. What I'm saying is, this cupcake is an atrocity. I ate a whole pack of Pull 'n Peel Twizzlers while I made it though, so that was awesome.
You're probably wondering why the icing is black. What's supposed to happen is you get an icing tube, put some food coloring on the sides, and squeeze the icing out. I just dumped some icing on top, and then poured out some food coloring. It didn't go as intended. The reason "these colors don't run" is because if they did, our flag would just be a black rectangle. Which is metal as fuck, I guess.
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