Not long ago, I overheard two women discussing Pinterest and its sudden, enormous popularity.
“Everybody pins all this crap,” one said, “but nobody ever makes any of that stuff.”
(EXSQUEEZE ME?!)
“And even if they did, it would be a complete disaster! None of those projects ever turn out like they’re supposed to!” the other one laughed.
WELL!
I am so very sorry if you failed fifth-grade art class and the bulk of Pinterest projects far exceed your skill set, MA’AM, but some of us ARE ACTUALLY CAPABLE OF FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS and would have a much harder time cooking dinner, entertaining our children, thinking of birthday gifts, getting dressed in the morning and finding excuses to use glitter every day if it weren’t for Pinterest.
So there. NYUH.
(Yes, I realize it’s ridiculous to get this defensive about for-God’s-sake PINTEREST, but that’s the world I live in.)
It’s true, though. Crafting relaxes me, so I do Pinterest projects every chance I get. A good 85 percent of our current dinner menu rotation consists of recipes I’ve pinned, and everything from my friend Haley‘s last birthday gift to Harper’s baptism reception decor are complete Pinterest rip-offs.
If you’re unfamiliar with Pinterest, it’s pretty much like the bookmarks menu on your web browser. The difference is that instead of relying on an abbreviated text description to remind you why you saved this or that link, you have a photo from the website to jog your memory. Beyond that, a person’s various “boards” – the categories under which they file each “pin” – serve as virtual inspiration boards. That may not mean much to you, but for those of us accustomed to wasting copious amounts of color printer ink to print pictures to tack onto overcrowded cork boards that fall on the floor all the time, this is extremely helpful.
Below are some of my Pinterest projects and my assessment of each. In other words, I wasted my time so you don’t have to.
You’re welcome.
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1. Gift card in a DIY snow globe
Grade: B
I did this with a World Market gift card for Haley’s birthday last summer. It was easy enough, but I ran into two problems. First, because it wasn’t Christmas, I obviously didn’t want to use ornaments, but it was difficult to find small, birthday-appropriate objects that floated (AND that looked good in a snow globe). Second, while hot glue is not water soluble, something about the water kept the glue from adhering well to the jar’s lid. It came loose once, so I glued it back, crossed my fingers and prayed that it would hold at least until Haley opened her gift.
2. Wedding card album
Grade: A
This called for a ridiculous number of supplies, so I didn’t follow the instructions to the letter, but it still came out extremely well, and it’s an excellent way to organize cards you want to keep besides just stuffing them in a shoe box that you’ll never look in again. And then your kids will curse your name after they have to move you to a nursing home and clean out 50,000 boxes of crap from your attic. At least this way, they’ll feel kind of bad for chucking it in the trash.
P.S. Unless you want the plain silver ones they sell at Office Max, binder rings are a pain in the ass to find.
3. Frame for bathroom mirror
Grade: A+
We did this in Harper’s bathroom, and it was STUPID easy. The only (somewhat) tricky part was we had to use a Dremel to shave down an outlet cover.
4. Sock bun
Grade: A+
I did this one this morning, as a matter of fact! Took less than 10 minutes. I like messy hair with a lot of texture, though – if you insist on smooth perfection, it’ll take considerably longer. While I’m still a huge fan of Beth Jones and her Carrie Bradshaw bun, this was WAY faster and much less damaging to my hair. A fantastic way to squeeze one more day out of my hair before I have to wash it.
P.S. If you’ve got the greasies, use a little spray-on dry shampoo – not only will it tame the oil slick, it makes your hair a bit sticky, so it’ll hold better!
P.P.S. Nothing against footwear as headwear, but skip the sock and get yourself one of these.
5. Emergency Preparedness Kit
Grade: A+
I don’t know any Mormons, but if I did, I’m sure we’d get along famously. (Well, you know, except for that whole “devout Catholic” thing.) If you’ve ever had the displeasure of listening to Glenn Beck for more than three minutes, as I do each time I eat dinner at my parents’ house, then you know that emergency preparedness is a big part of Mormon culture. They believe that not only should you be prepared to sustain your own family, you should have enough to help your neighbor as well. I LOVE that! Especially given that I’m pretty obsessed with preparing for the zombie apocalypse and assessing my home in terms of its defensibility against velociraptors.
And no, I’m not a firearms-stockpiler who’s obsessed with The End Times (see above re: Catholic). But having evacuated New Orleans just in the nick of time before Hurricane Katrina hit, I am intimately familiar with what happens when one is ill-prepared for a disaster (see prior post re: anti-anxiety medication and enough money spent on therapy to send Harper to college four times in a row).
As it turns out, I was a little better prepared than I thought I was. Last Saturday, I set about assembling my kit, and here is just the stuff I already had on hand:
The idea is not to go and buy everything all at once (which would not only cost a fortune, it would also make you look like a paranoid lunatic to anyone observing you loading up your grocery cart), but to buy a little week by week. So our kit, while off to a good start, is far from finished. Here’s what we bought during Week 1:
If you promise to be nice to me and not make fun of my emergency preparedness kit, then when World War Z breaks out, I might give you some bottled water to stew your rat for dinner.
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I know some people say the whole Pinterest thing is way too June Cleaver and exists solely to make people feel inadequate, but they can think whatever they want.
Ryan and I understand.
Your crafty
Kel
It ALL looks great, although I have to say myfavorite is the bathroom mirror frame — it looks just like the humungo , (super heavy) mirror I have hanging in the guest bedroom! Great job!!
I just wanted to say you’re awesome and I like the way you think. I’m totally with you!
This: “If you promise to be nice to me and not make fun of my emergency preparedness kit, then when World War Z breaks out, I might give you some bottled water to stew your rat for dinner.” seriously made me laugh out loud. Mark is all on board with this, despite being a good Catholic boy as well. There has been talk of self-sustaining gardens and canning as well as firearms. In other words, we’ll shoot the rat if we can share your water to cook it.
How the $!@*& did you make the sock bun? I’ve pinned two different tutorials on Pinterest and neither make sense to me and leave me in tears and desperation. Help me!
Is this one of the ones you tried?
http://www.stylelushblog.com/2012/02/the-sock-bun.html
If that doesn’t help, I’ll make my OWN tutorial! The Guy’s been dying to use his flip camera anyway. So far, the only thing he’s recorded on it is part of Harper’s birth, and I won’t let him play it back.
I hadn’t seen that one and it is the best I’ve seen. Thanks! I pinned all this sock bun stuff, and then chopped several inches off of my hair, so it may be too short for the sock bun right now, but I will give it a try soon!
I don’t know what I did before Pinterest. I would be digging through old church cookbooks for recipes for dinner. I’m not saying these aren’t a good source, but Pinterest is so nice for quick and easy recipes. Church cookbooks have too many ingredients!
I’m all about simplicity!
The stewed rat comment made me LOL….very funny!
Loved, as always! I generally only try recipes bc I don’t make time to do the other fun crafty stuff (and we like food at our house!). I may have to branch out and start trying the hairdos and crafty projects I’ve pinned too now that you’ve inspired me!
Emergency preparedness is just good common sense, especially with Mother Nature going crazy like she is.
A lot of people stock up on supplies, like water, batteries, candles, canned goods and whatnot, but one area that often gets overlooked is cash.
Consider if there is a wide-spread event where the power is down for a prolonged time. That could mean no ATMs, debit card/credit card readers. While it is possible that a merchant could process charges with paper slips, like in the old days, they might be too busy marking up their goods to deal with that. It will be a total “seller’s market” and they can do what they want.
I’m not saying to sock thousands of dollars in your mattress, but when reading the tealeaves, I’d hit the bank at the first sign of major instability or impending doom. And it can’t hurt to have a couple of Benjamins stashed away in your sock drawer. Could buy you a couple tanks of gas if you have to get out of Dodge with limited notice.
Signed, A Former Professional Disaster Planning and Emergency Preparedness Guy
I don’t know what I did before Pinterest either! I have a TON of crafts for Amelia, Mom and I to do and do them almost every Friday night! Pinterest works great for me because I too can pull off the craft/food/etc BUT I would never be able to come up with something on my own. Following instructions=good. Creativity=no so good.
You did a great job on your projects… especially that mirror frame! Also, I think you should wear your hair in a bun like that ALL.THE.TIME! It looks so cute! Okay, maybe not ALL the time because you have awesome hair so it always looks good down too. But seriously, that BUN is just CUTE, CUTE!
PIn On, girl, Pin on!
THAT IS THE BEST RYAN YET.
God, he totally understands us.
This is SUCH. AN. AWESOME. IDEA. by the way. Sorry I’m screaming so much, but it’s exciting. Dude, you could make a whole blog out of actually doing Pinterest projects. And Kelly, it would make you money. And bring you fame. I am not joking.
You had me at “money.”
I bow down to the queen of Pinterest. And totally agree with Katie.
I do the pinterest projects too!
And I agree with the binder rings being hard to find! I did use the plain ole silver ones, I was looking all over this town for them. No go.
I learned how to do the waterfall braid, make pinwheel pizzas, and make a bobble blanket. And many, many other things. I’ve made probably 4 or 5 pinterest things per week.
Only pin things that are possible for you to do, people. Don’t pin a gourmet meal project if you’ve never touched a stove in your life. Try anything with crescent rolls first. It’s hard to fail at crescent rolls.
Amen Kel. AMEN.
Sock buns. Oh man. Those bring me back. We HAD to do those in the Army. Lame.
You look so beautiful, did you know that? You do.
Come to my house and pintrest the crap out of it, would you?
LOVE this. I agree with Katie – rocking the projects completed on your own has potential.
I totally didn’t get to what “sock” was supposed to refer and followed your link to find out – aha! See, rather than use an old pair or buy a special doo-dad for it, I’d probably buy a new pair of cheap socks to use.
A lot of my planning involves how I’d get OUT of the house in the event that the other 5 trees in our backyard decide to fall on us during a storm. I also *always* keep a cd with our wedding and honeymoon pictures in my purse. I know, that’s going a bit far, but I loved them so much – I’d be devastated if we lost them unnecessarily.
I think my response to Pinterest has been a little different than most – instead of doing the crafts I pin, I’ve actually been inspired to be inventive in my DIYs around the house. I’m working on getting pics & a few posts out there about them… someday.
Great job, Kelly!