5-Minute crafts or 1-Hour craft?

December 6, 2019 — by Michael Wong and Amanda Zhu

Popular YouTube videos inspire writers to make creative cards

It’s been all over YouTube recently — the quick and ingenious use of different household materials to create new things.

Amanda: Because my birthday and Michael’s half-birthday are coming up, we wanted to get something for ourselves. After all, we have to look after ourselves, otherwise no one else will.

Michael: We actually procrastinated too long, so we didn’t have enough time to buy anything good. Instead, we settled for the next best thing: a card.

Amanda: But who wants to spend $1.99 at Target for a birthday card that could be (theoretically) easily made at home? Not us! So, we decided to do one of those 5-Minute Crafts videos that we always come across online.

Michael: We tried to make a card with a sprinkle-covered popsicle on the front. To do this, we needed a piece of paper, hot glue, a popsicle stick and sprinkles. 

Amanda: The concept seemed easy enough: glue the popsicle stick to the paper, draw the shape of the popsicle with hot glue and finally, throw sprinkles on top — all within five minutes. 

Michael: We faced our first problem when we began using the hot glue gun as a crayon. When Amanda lifted the glue gun, the glue wouldn’t come out because she tried too soon. She got impatient and set the gun down on the table without thinking (as always), with the nozzle right on my hand. Unfortunately, it was pretty warm.

Amanda: Luckily, Michael is “very strong” and claims to “not feel pain,” though that is very questionable. Regardless, our next challenge came with the sprinkles. Because we were trying to meet the 5-minute deadline (we were already 10 minutes over time), Michael mindlessly grabbed the sprinkles and threw them onto the hot glue on the card the way the woman in the video had done.

Michael: Oops. The sprinkles got all over her table and floor, and we had to excommunicate her dog so he did not get food poisoning. 

Amanda: A half-hour in, we finally finished cleaning up, our glue had dried and our card was complete. Despite some sprinkles randomly flaking off, our card looked very similar to the one in the video, with a shape that resembled a popsicle on the front. Michael: Naturally, we did it all over again so each of us could get one! By the time we completed the craft, cleaned up and waited for the glue to dry, we were much closer to the one-hour mark than the 5-minute target.

Amanda: Without Michael, I might’ve actually met the five-minute deadline.

Michael: Umm, I’m the one who brought the artistic talent here. You couldn’t tell what the object on the front was before I reshaped it.

Amanda: I literally made the whole thing. You warmed up the glue.

OK, maybe we just aren’t as talented as the people who make the 5-Minute Craft videos, but despite our burned hands and dirtied tables, at least we now have birthday gifts for each other!

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