Not being in elementary school doesn’t mean an end to the Valentine’s Day exchange. Instead of hand crafting a Valentine for every classmate, a plan was hatched with her lunch table to exchange treats in honor of the day.  She had her heart set on sharing cupcakes, which I willingly agreed to help with while tuning out the part about a DIY cupcake holder idea she’d gotten from Pinterest in which to present them.

I didn’t mean to drop kick this project over to her father, I really didn’t. Turns out I totally spaced on picking up the required small plastic cups at the store while I was getting cupcake & dinner supplies. A few texts to her father quickly corrected the situation (A loop I was totally left out of). After we’d made the cupcakes & had dinner, she set out to make the cupcake carriers. It seemed simple enough. Use a paper hole puncher to punch holes in small plastic cups, thread ribbon through said holes and voila! A DIY cupcake holder! Turns out, getting the hole punch through the cup was much easier said than done.  After she couldn’t get the punch to work, she went to Daddy for help.  Next thing I knew, he had gone to get the drill.

This is why I never do those projects labeled as “Easy DIY”.  They are never easy.  Her first clue should have been that the original link doesn’t work.  I know she probably didn’t even bother to look at the original link though, because the pictures speak for themselves.  Bless her heart, she looks at pictures and walks away thinking she can do it.  Who reads directions anyway?  Certainly not us. We are not direction reading people when we can follow pictures on the internet.

And so that is how a simple hole punch project became a lesson in using power tools.  I was in my thirties before I ever used a power tool.  I am not one of those women who think I can build anything.  I can cook it, I can sew it, I might even be able to knit it, but build it?  No. Building things requires precision that I admire in others, but am just not able to execute myself. I need wiggle room. I have trouble drawing a straight line in CAD, which has settings so that your lines are impeccably straight and yet I still cannot make them aline. That’s how challenged I am by precision.

But Edie girl?

Focus, determination & precision are her middle names.