Martha left out a few steps

So I stumbled across this cute crepe paper carrot idea on Martha Stewart.com and I thought it would be fun to make them for my daughter's preschool class as an Easter treat.

Crepe Paper Carrots How-To - Martha Stewart.com

1. Loosely wrap orange streamer to form carrot shape, making it thicker at top. Tuck in gifts as you work. Press end of paper down into top.

2. Fold green crepe paper in half across its grain. Download leaf template, and trace onto folded paper. Cut out; bunch up. Tuck leaves into carrot top; secure with dab of hot glue.

Look how easy and effortless it sounds right? Well as I got started I realized that Martha left out a few steps. So for the sake of all crafters I've decided to rewrite them so they're more accurate.

1. Scour every store in the city for orange crepe paper. Because most places only carry a select few colors and orange is not one of them.

2. Assemble your items to go inside of the carrots. I chose sidewalk chalk, mini bubbles and smarties candy.


3. Start wrapping. Okay, this seems like an easy thing right? Wrong. Just think back to high school when you were on the prom decorating committee. What's that? You weren't on the prom decorating committee? Okay, well then think back to high school when you TP'd that skank Sandy Collin's house because she was trying to steal your boyfriend (rotten eggs and flaming bags of dog poo are uneccessary). Anyway, my point is that when you start wrapping the crepe paper around things, it gets all kinked up because it's still attached to the roll right, and then you've got this huge mess of kinky crepe paper, which is not nearly as fun as it sounds.

Sure you could just cut off a length of it and start wrapping but then you never know if you're going to have enough and then it's still long so it starts getting all kinked up too and it's trailing on the floor and you're whipping it around and the cat thinks it's one hell of an awesome game and she inadvertently claws the crap out of your foot while chasing after it and you have to quickly explain to your 7 year old how Sh$%Fu@# is a small island in the carribean, and that he should never mention it's name to anyone because all the islanders hate America, and well it's just a social taboo.

4. So now that you've gotten the hang of it you start wrapping the actual items that will go into the carrot. You spend half an hour trying to figure out the best way to wrap them and then determine that there's no way you're going to get those Smarties in there so you just start eating them until your hands start shaking from the sugar rush. But that's okay because it distracts from the massive blood loss from your foot.


5. At some point you're going to wish that you were more adventurous in high school/college and wrapped your own, um "cigarettes" because that skill would come in handy for this project. If all else fails though you can go on Facebook and ask your cousin for some tips (we've all got one of those cousins don't we?).

Anyone got a light? I've got candy if we get the munchies later.

6. Now it's time to add on the green top. Fire up the glue gun and try to accomplish the task without burning the crap out of the tips of your fingers and having to explain to your 4 year old how "sonofab%^ch" is the Scandinavian word for "sweat socks".

7. Stand back and admire your work.