DIY does not equal EZ

What I was ATTEMPTING to make..

So if you're remotely cool at all you've at least HEARD of pinterest.  And if you're super-cool like myself, you're mega obsessed w/ pinterest, pinning like a mad woman.  Pinterest has like 6 billion DIY crafty projects that all look oh-so-easy.  I'm all like YEAHHH what a great idea, and MAN so simple???!  But, uh, no.  I've been thinking I may try something crafty-craft as xmas gifts for people I don't know what to get. (i.e. Jake's family.)  I'm really into those cute little mason jars with foodie type goodies inside.  So tonight I decided I would scour pinterest for a little late night 5 minute project.  I decided I would make jars of peppermint stick cocoa, mocha chip cocoa and chocolate chip bread.  I headed to the grocery store around 10 p.m. and that's where the nightmare began.  As I've said before, JAKE does ALL of our grocery shopping.  So not only do I not know what a lot of the ingredients even ARE, but I sure as hell have no idea where to find them.  After carefully scanning each isle for my mile long list of groceries AND calling/texting a few people in my phonebook for help, I decided I could only find all the ingredients for ONE recipe, not all three.  I went with the peppermint stick cocoa ONLY.  Even with only one recipe, I still had to just guess on ingredient substitutions since I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for, and was getting quite bored already.  My phone died, and my shopping cart was shocking me about ever 2 steps.  Plus, there was a man with one of those floor buffers chasing me down every isle and the loud hum was extremely annoying.  So, $36 and and 90 minutes later, I was back home and ready to get to work.  So, did you know measuring dry ingredients is quite messy??  Annnnd, did you know trying to pour them INTO mason jar is even messier??  Uh, yeah. It is.  They also fail to mention on pinterest that it is REALLY FREAKING HARD to get everything to stack up evenly.  Maybe even impossible.  The last layer of crunched up peppermint was a b!tch and a half too.  I figured I'd put them in a ziplock baggy and hammer them.  Peppermint EVERYWHERE because it can puncture the bag very, very easily.  Awesome.  So, all in all I made 3 jars of questionable cocoa and a mess from hell. 

This will be fun to clean up

For realsies, I feel bad for whomever ends up with these "gifts!"  I've also decided that I would MUCH rather just purchase Christmas gifts from here on out.  No more DIY stuff for me, I want people to DIT (Do It Themselves).

Finished Product