Major DIY FAIL!! The Pompon Spore Glue-Spot Sweater

Mar 5, 2012 | Fashion

scanned from Vivi Magazine November 2011 (I think).  SLY sweater.

Over the weekend I was working on a DIY tutorial for the above SLY-brand sweater.  Hey, a sweater covered in puffy spores…I thought it was cute!!  I started photographing the steps, placing the craft store pompons onto my thrifted teal sweater with Aleene’s Jewel-It! Embellishing glue.

I put a little too much glue on some of the pompons and it spread out beyond the pompon edges.  I thought, “No biggie – it’ll dry clear and won’t be noticeable.”  Little did I realize it was QUITE noticeable.

And then I decided I didn’t like the look of the sweater with the pompons after all, regardless of the glue issues.  They looked too much like craft store pompons – i.e., krrrrrap glued onto a sweater – rather than the pretty felted wool puffs of the original.

So after gluing pompons onto both the front and right sleeve…AND waiting for them all to dry…I made the snap decision to undo all my work and rip them off to resurrect my sweater.  I don’t know why I changed my mind so abruptly.  Normally I am very sure when I embark on a DIY project.  But it seemed a pity to do this to this pretty sweater. And then…

O.M.G.  This Jewel-It! stuff is so permanent, I couldn’t get it off.  Hours of peeling, washing, scrubbing, and more peeling ensued.  I gave myself a blister on my thumb from all the scraping and peeling.  And still I cannot get the glue off.

From the advice of the company’s customer service line, I have spent most of today applying Goo Gone! to all the glue spots, and further rubbing and scrubbing and peeling and blotting.

I want to cry just looking at what I’ve done to this soft, pretty sweater that I was so thrilled about when I scored it at Goodwill.  In just the perfect on-trend teal, too!  In a nice, roomy, comfy size!!  Ugggggghhhh…

I managed to get one spot off (mostly)…so now I have 16 or so to go…

And my whole sweater reeks of petroleum now…

Theoretically, my black-spore-sweater-DIY would work OK on maybe a different kind of sweater, maybe one that doesn’t have any cabling and is stiffer like the one in the photo.  Totally DIY-able by gluing craft store pompons onto it, people!  And be careful with Jewel-It! cuz you just can’t get it out once it’s applied!!  Lesson learned.

Do any of you have any spectacular DIY FAILS like this one???  Do share!  I’m just heartbroken over what I’ve done to this poor, innocent little sweater…:-(

xoxox
Carly