The other night Sherry and I invented a playful challenge: using only items found around our house, each of us would create something — but with one twist. The objects you must include are chosen by your opponent. It wasn’t meant to be a serious competition, more of a creative exercise, but we agreed on a few simple ground rules to keep things fair and interesting:
- You can use any materials you already own, but the three items selected by your opponent must be incorporated into the final project in some visible way.
- The person taking the challenge may pick one of the three items before seeing the other two the challenger has chosen.
- No spending money — everything must come from what we already have at home.
- No matter how it turns out, the finished project will be shared on the blog.
We settled who would go first with a quick game of rock-paper-scissors and I lost, so I went first. I used my allowed pick to choose a bright length of string/twine because I figured it would be functional and could add a pop of color. I was leaning toward making some kind of art piece. Sherry, being delightfully dramatic, hid her two chosen items beneath a bowl and then revealed them.
We decided to videotape my attempt — mostly because some parts of what I ended up doing would be hard to describe on their own. The footage captures the whole process, including the moments that were supposed to be off-the-cuff. If you want to see exactly how it unfolded, watch the clip embedded below. If you’re still not convinced to press play, here are a few little teasers to tempt you:
- I called on Sherry to help at one point — though mostly that meant getting her on camera and showing off her beautiful baby bump.
- Both of our pets, Burger and Clara, make unexpected cameos on camera.
- One of the items Sherry chose came straight from the refrigerator.
- Sherry tried to talk me out of sharing the sound effect I added at the very end of the video. I promised it was genuine — the real sound of the project reaching its finale — and ultimately decided, “my challenge, my video!”
To my surprise, the craft turned out better than I expected. I had imagined something more basic, but the combination of items and a bit of improvisation produced a result I actually liked. I spent a few minutes trying to decide where to display it so it wouldn’t be accidentally ruined — a small concern, but a real one when you live with pets and a busy household.
After completing the project and watching the footage back, we both had a good laugh. And then, because we like to keep things lively around here, we decided to share the whole thing with a twist: it was an April Fools’ prank.
HAPPY APRIL FOOLS, Y’ALL. In truth, I’m not actually crafting with mayonnaise. We staged this to see if we could top last year’s cringe-worthy April Fools rap-fest with something equally silly. It’s become a bit of a tradition: a lighthearted prank to make ourselves laugh and to share the fun with readers. If you remember any of our previous “just kidding” posts, they were all in that same playful spirit. We love to poke fun and celebrate the occasional ridiculous idea — and then admit when we were only kidding.
PS: We’ll be back later today with a completely legitimate giveaway. No joke — it’s real and the prize value will be substantial.
PPS: If you missed the time Sherry shared a fun anecdote about a celebrity encounter in the past, we’ve written about it before and you can find that story among our archived posts on the blog.