A few weeks ago, we conducted a reader survey so that we knew what you wanted more of. We heard you loud and clear on the DIY projects! I’ll be honest with you – I am hands down, 100%, without a shadow of a doubt more of a buy-it-yourself girl than a do-it-yourself girl. I said it. I sit in front of glue, paper, scissors, and glitter all day long. So at the end of a long day or when I’ve FINALLY made it to the weekend I don’t want to be crafty. I want to split a bottle of wine with Kat and watch Scandal. Or get retail therapy at J.Crew. Or do ANYTHING other than artsy, thrifty, clever Pinterest things.

With that said, I am more than willing to expand my horizons and enter into the DIY world for the sake of our readers! We’re kind of nothing without you guys so I gave it a go. It really only goes downhill from here. I found this cute DIY confetti bowl on Pinterest and thought it was right up my alley for a DIY amateur. How hard could it be to mod podge something to a balloon, let it dry, and pop the balloon?

I had the insane idea that I would make this my own version and use gold leaf flakes instead of confetti. How cute would a little gold bowl be on a vanity or by a sink for jewelry?! So I got to work with my materials: a balloon, gold leaf flakes, mod podge, and a paint brush.

Things seemed very tedious at first. Like, holy crap I’m going to need to do a million layers for this thing to resemble a bowl. But I kept at it. All. Day. Long. I mod podged the hell out of this balloon. To give you an idea of a time frame – we were able to play the entire Twilight Saga in the background. Bella and Edward met, fell in love, survived a lot of battles, got married, and had a baby and I STILL wasn’t done with this thing. Every time I thought I was getting close, I’d spot another place where the balloon was peeking through.

And on the seventh day, when it seemed like I finally had a solid gold layer, I rested. The balloon and I spent 10 days apart from each other after that. Mainly because I was so annoyed I spent an entire day on this DIY project but also because I could tell it wasn’t dry yet. This had been such a complete disaster that Kat filmed me popping the balloon so that we could send it to Joanna and Audra. (They were kind enough to periodically check in on the status of my bowl.) Pardon my awful video quality. If I had known the video would be this funny, I would have tried harder. Click here to see the big reveal.

I won’t leave you totally hanging. If this post really has you wanting to make a cute dish, check out these from pro DIY-ers.

1. Kelli Murray | Gold Leaf Paper Mache Bowls

2. V Juliet | DIY Confetti Bowl

3. Two Zero One | DIY Gold Bowl

Aaaannnd if you’re more of a BIY girl, that’s okay too! Here are some cute decorative dishes that only require a credit card and shipping address.

1. West Elm | Textured Metallic Dip Bowls

2. Panselinos | Paper Mache Gold Leaf Bowl

3. up in the air somewhere | Small Zag Dish

So my first attempt at a DIY project was a fail but that’s okay. I’m not giving up yet. Stay tuned for more hit or miss DIYs from me!

DIY Fail: Gold Leaf Bowl