Marla stapled a neon-yellow tarp to her living room wall and declared it “art.” By noon, she’d wrapped 37 yarn balls around a thrift-store lamp, muttering, “This is *not* a nest. This is a statement.” Her neighbor, Mrs. Pudelwick, peered through the window, squinting at a yarn-covered couch that resembled a giant spider’s breakfast. “Is that… *bath towels*?” she yelled. Marla emerged, hair full of blue yarn, holding a hot glue gun like a sword. “It’s called mixed media!” she said, as a rogue yarn ball bounced off Mrs. Pudelwick’s head. By dusk, the room was a labyrinth of string. Marla sat cross-legged in the center, surrounded by 200 scissors, 14 buckets of dye, and a half-eaten bagel. “I’m capturing the chaos of modern life,” she explained, as a yarn net snared her ankle. Mrs. Pudelwick sighed, tossing a sweater over the mess. “Just… don’t let it climb the walls.” The next morning, the neighborhood gathered. Marla’s creation—a tangled, glowing masterpiece—drew tourists. A child asked, “Is it a maze?” Marla grinned, yarn sticking to her cheek. “It’s a *challenge*.” The yarn maze remained for years, a testament to her belief that DIY art is 10% creativity, 90% screaming into a void while duct-taping 37 balloons to a bicycle wheel.
