I know some of you are seeing the title of this post and saying “Washi tape?  REALLY? Again?”  Believe me, I know… The blogging world is over saturated with washi tape projects, and I am adding to the mess, but here’s my story: Washi tape was my LAST resort!  That’s right folks… this is a story about a craft fail SAVED by washi tape. 

Lucky for you I didn’t realize this was going to be a craft fail from the beginning, so I took lots of pictures. And when I DID realize it was a failure I kept taking pictures just to really rub it in, I guess?

The original plan was gold stripes on a black Moleskine planner.

MAJOR FAIL!

The Sharpie paint marker bled through the painter’s tape and made for some REALLY terrible lines.  In my attempt to salvage this atrocity, I made it 10 times worse by thinking “Oh, what if I make the stripes purposely uneven?  That could work!”  

Oh my gosh, you guys… I was on a major craft fail roll here and kept going.  So what did I do next?

Well I painted the entire thing gold, of course!

Ugh.

You could so visibly see the lines where I had painted the original stripes with the painter’s tape.  It was a hot mess!!!  And this is so not something I could have just thrown away, I mean I paid like $26 for this bad boy!  I needed to salvage it.

Enter washi tape…

This is where I gave up taking pictures of the process because I was basically convinced i was just going to look terrible, anyway.

But then something kind of magical happened… the washi tape made it look better!  I started out with just two patterns, but then I decided I liked making it a little more fun and a little less serious.  I don’t know about you, but I dig the girlyness happening here with the pink and polka dots and the soft blue.  

As you can seek, it’s not perfect.  Duh… nothing ever is.  Surprisingly, I’m ok with that!

The best part?  If this hadn’t been a complete failure with the gold Sharpie, the washi tape wouldn’t have looked good. On the black, the tape would have looked too dark.  The gold actually makes it work!  WOAH!

On the inside, this agenda is perfection.  I can plan out my entire week without having to flip pages and there’s plenty of room for my schedule, my to-do lists and any other notes.  As a substitute teacher, having the ability to plan out my day from 8am to 8pm is perfect since I’m sometimes at two different schools in one day.  This gives me space to write in all the details I need to know.  The bit at the bottom is fantastic to use as a blogging planner as well.  Oh and there are little strips you can tear off for shopping lists on the back. So good!

Moleskine was always my number 1 choice for layout (this is my third time using one), but not so much for looks since they are all plain black in the Professional series.  The Kate Spade planners are beautiful (and what blogger on this earth doesn’t have/want one?!?!) and I was oh-so tempted to get one… but after seeing their size, I knew it wouldn’t work for me.  I need something I can carry in my purse and Moleskine does the trick.  So layout and size win over beauty.  Sorry Kate Spade… maybe next year?

So there you have it… my first HUGE craft fail that I just couldn’t give up on.

In case you’re interested, Chapters/Indigo sells these and they have been on sale since pretty much the day after I bought mine full price.  Of course.  Here’s what they look like without gold all over them:

There are a lot of sizes and layouts to choose from with Moleskine, so if you’re looking for something specific, I’d give them a try.  You won’t be disappointed.

Just a side note, Moleskine doesn’t even know I’m writing this post.  I just really love and believe in their product AND I wanted to show you how my awesome idea turned out terribly then finally was salvaged by some pretty tape!

So how did I do, dear reader?  Is my fail still fail, or did I save it?

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