Tuesday, December 30, 2014

DIY - Holiday Decoration Redemption - Ornaments

Chapter nine: Learning How to Learn. The name of the chapter says it all. Learning how to learn is extremely important not only in DIY, but in the real world too. Knowing where mistakes can be made and being able to learn from those mistakes is often a skill that slips away. Mark Frauenfelder described one, of many, incidents where he had to accept that he needed to learn in Made by Hand. After failing to tutor his daughter for a middle school entrance exam in math (in which Mark thought he did very well,) he learned from his experience. At first, he was against the idea of hiring a tutor, but after realizing that a tutor could help in ways he couldn't, he accepted that a formal tutor would be a good idea in the future (Frauenfelder 215).

I created a parallel with his situation and my recent DIY fail. With my mindset with the ideals of a snow globe, I hindered my options of creativeness. I decided to learn from my last project. Following along the lines of holiday decorations, the perfect opportunity came when someone recently showed me an Olaf ornament. Going into this project with murky water in mind, I definitely had to have the right mindset: "Do not be afraid. Do not allow yourself to be intimidated" (Frauenfelder 158). I knew that this time, I should follow how the online ornament looked like. I had to forget about the snow globe. I had learned that following a model or directions often produces better outcomes.

Materials:
-a clear ornament
-white snowy glitter
-something orange that could form the nose
-small strips of wood for the hands
-small black rocks/beads for the buttons

I used clay and paint to make the nose, rocks for the buttons, and pieces of wood I found outside. Since I didn't have a silver sharpie, I had to go with black.
I'm happy at how the ornament turned out. 





How could I resist an opportunity to take a picture of Olaf?
















How do you feel about accepting that you need to learn from your mistakes?

Citation:
Frauenfelder, Mark. Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World. New York: Portfolio, 2010. Print.
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2 comments:

  1. UnknownJanuary 17, 2015 at 4:40 PM

    Hey Theresa,
    The ornament that you made turned out well. When I try to follow instructions for a DIY, it usually ends up with me dismissing the instructions by doing it my own way. I just don't want to read them. This leads to me improvising with my final product looking a bit... disoriented.

    My answer to your question is that I feel comfortable with accepting that I need to learn from my mistakes. I used to be stubborn about it when I was younger, but as I grew older I came to an understanding that it's important to do so.

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    1. Theresa TranJanuary 20, 2015 at 1:00 PM

      Thanks Tiffany! I experienced that on the last project. I didn't follow any instructions and it didn't turn out so well. Sometimes some mistakes are hard to swallow, and those are the ones that are repeated over and over again. Growing up and developing increases the ability to understand mistakes, but not for all people.

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