Step 1: Start a new Pinterest account. The old one is full of inspirational quotes and complicated recipes. This new account will be useful. You will not pin anything frivolous or overly complicated. You definitely won’t pin pictures of rooms you don’t even have in your house, like a sun porch connected to a giant, outdoor kitchen.

Step 2: Pin 873 pictures of rooms you don’t even have in your house, like enormous laundry/work rooms with built-in dog condos and wrapping paper stations.

Step 3: Search “fall wreaths” on Pinterest. Pin roughly 137 wreaths, but do not look at any of the tutorials. Who has time for tutorials?

Step 4: Head to the craft store with a general idea of what you need, but under no circumstances are you to take a specific list. Lists are for sissies.

Step 5: Wander around the craft store for so long that the plain clothes security guard, meant to look like an average craft store shopper (if the average craft store shopper is a middle-aged man), begins to shadow you. Ask Mr. Security if he prefers a straw wreath form or a Styrofoam one, and launch into a seven-minute monologue about the difficulty of choosing the correct form.

Step 6: Watch Mr. Security shuffle off. Victory over the tyranny of craft store security is yours!

Step 7: Really, what kind of wreath form does one buy? WHAT KIND??

Step 8: Go with straw. No, wire. No, Styrofoam. Ew, the foam breaks off everywhere. Back to wire. No, probably straw. But what diameter? How big is your front door? Not that big.

Step 9: Choose fall colored silk flowers. Put them back, because they’re all wrong. Pick them up again, because they’re on sale today.

Step 10: Burlap ribbon. It’s everywhere. You’ve seen it on at least three different aisles in three different sections of the store. Burlap must be a big deal in the crafting world, and now, you must have some. Put seven different colors and styles of burlap ribbon in your basket.

Step 11: Spot burlap hydrangeas. That’s right, hydrangeas made of burlap. OMG! Grab those babies before some other crafty miss gets them.

Step 12: Return ugly silk flowers to their original location. Or to any location with silk flowers. There are so many silk flowers in here. You’re now disoriented from spending three hours wandering the aisles of the craft store.

Step 13: Grab any and all other ribbons (It’s all on sale! On sale!) and accessories you may need, ever, like for your entire life.

Step 14: Hand over your credit card to pay the exorbitant total. It’s possible buying a pre-made wreath would be cheaper, but don’t think about that. You’re about to make something with your own hands.

Step 15: Return home, and take a short break with the beverage of your choice. Craft stores are exhausting.

Step 16: Find your glue gun.

Step 17: Gather your other tools and materials. Huh. What exactly do you need to make a wreath?

Step 18: Wire cutters. Definitely need wire cutters to lop off the long stems on the burlap hydrangeas.

Step 19: Find a wad of cash in your husband’s tool chest while looking for the wire cutters. Wonder why there’s a wad of cash in the tool chest, but decide not to dwell upon it. Instead, keep the cash and feel better about the exorbitant amount of money you just dropped at the craft store.

Step 20: Wrap wreath in burlap ribbon. Be thankful you bought two rolls, and feel silly for ever doubting yourself. Feel even sillier about the 27 minutes you stood in front of the burlap ribbon section, picking up and putting down the same roll, trying to decide if you need one or two rolls. Note: You’ll need about 30 feet of burlap to cover your straw wreath form. (Look at that! Actual helpful information!)

Step 21: Glue down that ribbon with enough hot glue to hold the Titanic together. Too bad they didn’t have glue guns back then, right? Too soon?

Step 22: Forget that hot glue is hot. Really beeping hot. Shake burned fingers and cuss for a minute.

Step 23: Time to attach the hydrangeas.

Step 24: Look for giant pruning shears, because wire cutters are not strong enough to cut off fake flower stems.

Step 25: Consider that it’s probably not a bad thing you aren’t able to locate the giant pruning shears, because you just dropped the wire cutters near your foot. Things probably would not end well with you, fake flowers, and giant pruning tools.

Step 26: Decide to wait for your husband to get home. He can cut off these stems that are apparently made of iron.

Step 27: Whatever. You are woman, hear you roar. Remove stem number one. Do fist pump.

Step 28: Jam the hydrangea into your straw wreath. Now apply globs of glue, just in case the wire isn’t enough to maintain flower-to-wreath bonding.

Step 29: Forget how hot the glue is. Again.

Step 30: Look at your progress and your mess. Debate calling it quits.

Step 31: Repeat steps 28 through 30 for the next two flowers.

Step 32: Be glad you only bought three stupid burlap hydrangeas.

Step 33: Attach adorable letter ‘S’ (Or whatever letter your last name starts with – you don’t have to have an ‘S’ name to make this wreath. This is a project everyone can tackle!) with super cute ribbon that was, say it with me, ON SALE.

Step 34: Apply even more hot glue. Wait, why won’t the glue come out?

Step 35: This doesn’t look right, either.

Step 36: Finally get enough glue on the wreath to withstand the apocolypse. Zombies don’t eat wreaths, do they?

Step 37: Allow glue to dry. Thirty seconds should do it. Who has time to wait around for glue to dry?

Step 38: Think about saving your ribbon scraps for future projects.

Step 39: Laugh and laugh. Future projects!

Step 40: Hang up that wreath! It looks okay from 10-15 feet away!

Total time: 23 hours. Hands-on time: 1-ish hours. Expect your time to be spent approximately like this, although you may need more time on Pinterest:

13 hours on Pinterest
7 hours in the craft store
1 hour making the wreath
1 hour doctoring hot glue gun burns
1 hour rocking quietly back and forth wondering, Why, why is crafting so hard?

Let’s get real, here. I’m not even cable access crafty, much less media empire crafty.

I have these grand ideas. I can conceptualize, but I cannot follow through with any level of success. What I need is a doer, a person who can take my crazy ideas and turn them into something beautiful. What I need is a staff.

Back to reality.

It’s possible I was briefly possessed by the spirit of Martha, because for some inane reason I signed up to make a Halloween-themed cake for an event at church and to make Mummy Dogs for school. On the same day. At the same time.

Decidedly uncrafty me was suddenly rendered Suzy Homemaker, Baking Goddess.

Since there was no way I could make both cake and Mummy Dogs and have them both delivered by 9:30 a.m., I made the cake the night before. And I got creative, people. Inspiration struck while grocery shopping, and I filled my cart with bags of candy, marshmallows and chocolate chips. I had a plan.

After slaving away and creating what I would consider a Halloween masterpiece unlike any other heretofore created in this house, I called my husband to see my handiwork.

Smiling the smile you give a crazy person when you don’t want to set them off, he said, “Oh, great ghosts. And what are these? Flowers? Some kind of tree?”

I stared at him in disbelief. Did he really not see it?

I ask you: What do you think these are? Keep in mind it’s a Halloween cake.

Cake toppers: what do these look like to you?

A prize* to the first reader who can tell me what these are, and convince me that they would have figured it out even if I hadn’t made it abundantly clear that this is a Halloween-themed cake.

The next morning I was up and baking mummies before my family started stirring. I felt very homespun. But I completely forgot to snap a shot of my Mummy Dogs before wrapping them in their tinfoil tomb. I swear they looked exactly like this. Really.

Pillsbury Mummy Dogs

Today I wonder:

:: Are you crafty? How do you manage it?!

:: Do your final projects ever fall a bit short of your ideas?

:: Oh, and is your husband a nut who wouldn’t recognize a pumpkin made of candied oranges if it smacked him upside the head? (Just wondering…)

*The prize. I will actually mail a prize to the first commenter who correctly identifies my adorable cake toppers, and I promise that it will not be one of my craft projects gone wrong. I’ll send you something cute, made by someone who received the Craft Gene. As I have already told you what was on top of the cake, this is the world’s easiest contest. You’re welcome.