Trying things that you’ve never done before out is pretty fun. You really don’t know how much you’ll like the thing and how far you’ll get with it. A good friend of mine mentioned that she registered for a stained glass workshop and received a bunch of supplies they paid for and never used. Stained glass seemed cool, plus I wanted to make a small gift for someone, so I invited them over a few times just to show me the ropes and lend me their tools. It was also a good opportunity to catch up, seeing how I hadn’t seen my friend nor her SO in over a year.
Though we all ended up working on separate projects, it was still fun working in the same space together. It ended up being a fairly solo project, with the exception of occasionally asking for help and pointers during certain steps. Soldering was a pretty sweet skill that I ended up learning during this process. We met up two or three times at first, and I ended up finishing the rest of the work on my own. Feast your eyes on the result.
Looks like shit, right? I got impatient, wanted to finish it quickly, and ended up being severely disappointed. I didn’t expect to be happy with the end product the first time around, but it was definitely a lot more discouraging than I expected; all that time and effort ended up being wasted.
Wait, let me retract that last statement. The result itself turned out rather lackluster, but expecting perfection after only trying something out once could be expecting a little too much from myself. Plus, all the time spent on the first product wasn’t wasted at all. My first attempted resulted in familiarizing myself with the process and getting a better feel for how I could actually create what I wanted. My second attempt consequentially took way less time, and look at this beauty.
It’s something that I’d be actually proud to show someone. Sure, there are some things I’m still not satisfied with, but my friend brought up a good point: as the creator of something, you’ll know all the flaws and can be extremely critical. Ultimately, I made it because I wanted to make someone happier, and my only hope is that this gift helped me accomplish that goal.
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