Remember my blog about the trolley? Well, it ended up working out. However, only after three prior failures. At one point I wanted to take a chainsaw to it – I was that fed up. I don't know if there is a moral to this story. Don't give up perhaps? Don't always see that things are your fault – it's often trial and error this art lark. Don't take it personally. Don't feel like a failure. I felt like all of these things at one point, all vying for top dog in my head. The beat-up bitch inside me was strong. She wanted to win. But she didn't. And I succeeded.

What did I learn.... that 3 ply napkins (peeled off to reveal only 1 ply) don't work on diamond embossed metal unless you really like that sort of thing... the reindeers I used just weren't having it and wrinkled and tore and although the effect was interesting, it just wasn't right. Then I tried some beautiful Marilyn Monroe style wallpaper (which was put at the back of some lovely second-hand cabinets) so I thought to myself nice matchy-matchy. More like messy-uppy. I can't tell my husband I have ruined the remainder of the last part roll. So then I got some metallic sticky strips in 10 different colours... we worked out that I had enough to do about three quarters of one tray. Two more trays to go and online it's not available. So I picked up two colouring books, one on Audubon's birds and one on kew garden botanical illustrations of flowers. One side black and white and the other colour. The paper is perfect for sticking to my bloody awkward old fashioned trolley. And I love it.

I've gone off on a bit of tangent about decoupage disasters but I can now see it as a positive. I came through it better off by just cutting myself some slack. Next time I attempt something I will try and learn from this. I guess what I am saying is keep trying. Keep getting back up. Don't stay down too long.

I learnt to be patient with my own failures which ended up being a good learning process. I'm not as good as I thought I was at craft, or rather some craft, purely because I didn't consider all the potential pitfalls. I just went ahead blindly and stumbled along. Next time I will be a little more prepared but still able to potentially free fall into something and for it to either be good enough or a disaster to remodel into a success, on my terms. It's not perfect but it's perfect for me and it will definitely do.

Sometimes your best is the very best and if you are at your worst, you can't forgive yourself for those little mistakes. I scrubbed out what I did not once, twice but three times and then on the fourth attempt I succeeded. And I couldn't be happier with my weird little three-tiered old-fashioned but very individual trolley.

Liz

A Moodscope member.