Okay, so today’s experiment was wild – tried making these fancy “butterfly locks” after seeing ‘em on some old furniture. Grabbed a regular padlock from the garage toolbox first. Figured it’d be easy to jazz it up. Wrong.
The Messy Start
First I hacked off the boring metal loop with wire cutters – sparks flew everywhere, scared the neighbor’s cat. Then came the real headache: bending copper wire into butterfly wings. My pliers kept slipping, smashing my thumb twice. Looked like a drunk spider web at this point.
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Stuff I ruined during the process:
- Eight feet of copper wire (kinked beyond saving)
- One perfectly good padlock (now just a weird metal brick)
- A kitchen timer (sanded the wings too aggressively)
Glue Apocalypse
Used gorilla glue to stick fake gemstones on the wings. Big mistake. That stuff expands like demon foam – swallowed three gems whole. Scraped it off with a butter knife while yelling at the glue tube. Ended up with glittery alien boogers all over my workbench.
Frankenstein’s Butterfly
Finally jammed the wings onto the lock body with epoxy. Forgot epoxy sets fast as lightning – wings froze crooked like a broken moth. Spray-painted it gold anyway. Paint drips made it look like the butterfly got caught in acid rain. Called it done before I yeeted the whole thing out the window.
Took four hours for this glittery abomination. Might use it as a Halloween decoration. Moral of the story? Some Pinterest projects should stay on Pinterest.
