October 31, 2020: Halloween Fail

Products Used:

Well We Can’t Win Them All

I went into this project imagining an adorable fall look pumpkin setup with our last name to set outside our apartment door. What I got instead was a pretty spectacular Halloween fail. I’ll be honest when I say I’m kicking myself for this one. Why did I imagine anything would stick to real pumpkins? They’re smooth and fleshy. What sticks to these things?! (I’m actually asking here)

This Halloween fail was going smoothly at first. I was able to successfully weed all of these beautiful mandala letters (designs are found in Cricut Design Space). Getting these beautiful designs to stick to the freaking pumpkins was a a nightmare! I’ve had fails in the past that I have powered through and made work in the end. This one defeated me.

Stupid Pumpkins

I want to preface that I did wipe the pumpkins down with alcohol before trying to adhere anything to them. Apparently that did not matter…at all. The vinyl refused to stick to the pumpkin. It would not release from the transfer tape, even when coaxed off with tools. Laying it directly onto the pumpkin with no transfer tape didn’t work.

Since I was crafting while talking to my mom over the Portal device, she saw how badly it was going and suggested using Mod Podge as a base for the letters to better adhere. That actually worked…for about a minute. When I accidentally lifted some of the design that had already been placed, it pulled the dried Mod Podge up with it. So apparently even Mod Podge won’t stick to these things.

By that point, the C design was lost to the damage and was sadly thrown away. Left with an O, an L, and an E, I admitted defeat. The pumpkins have won this battle. But I have a feeling the war is far from over!