Pinstrosities, Pin Spins, and a Pin Win for the Wall

While most everyone gets the cleaning bug in the Spring, I for some reason don't feel the urge to clean and redo my house until the Fall. Cameron too oddly...neither of us are Spring Cleaners, we both feel the itch to clean and create in the Fall. I just love the feeling of the Fall air, the light, the colors, etc., and it makes me want to bring that all in my house. However...I don't want to bring that all into a nasty messy house so then I finally get the motivation to deep clean and to put rooms back together. We're one room away from having the house completely clean (left the laundry room for last...ew) and it feels so good. We're looking up Fall and Christmas decor ideas to add to the house and I even put on the cinnamon apple wax scent block things to fill the house with yummy odors. This is the one time of year I feel domestic, so I'm taking advantage of that. I feel like I'm backward from everyone else...anyone else a Fall creator rather than a Spring Creator?

We received an email early last month from Sarah with a submission of projects she did for phase 1 in her bedroom decor and reorganization project. She got the bug to redo her room, decided to jump on it, and ended up with 2 Pinstrosities, 2 Pin Spins, and a Pin Win. 

Here's her story:

Hey Ladies!!  I haven't submitted anything in a while (since the two 'contests' you did a while back), but lately I have been in a very crafty mood (meaning I've actually been doing some of the projects from my Pinterest board!)!  It started with my need to decorate.

You see, I'm fairly comfortable with the amount of decorations we have up in our apartment.  I feel like our living room, bathroom, and kitchen/dining area are fairly cozy.  But I have never much liked our bedroom.  Here's why:

Gross, right?  It's just so blah and thrown together - mismatched pillow cases, my plastic bin as a nightstand, nothing on the walls - I hate it.  So after months of searching, we finally agreed on a bedspread!!  It wasn't girly, too boyish, and was a relatively gender neutral color (orange), but bright enough that it didn't drag the room down.  Plus, we waited so long to buy it that by the time we did it was on clearance!

I have been waiting an entire year (since we got married) to decorate that room, and now that we had a real bedspread (and thus, a color scheme to 'design' around), I could finally start!!!  With my Husband being gone on Tuesday nights for his GRE Prep class, and me needing to fill my time up with something besides perusing Facebook and watching 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch' (although to be honest, I think I still had it on in the background.  I don't like to craft in silence.) I finally had time to get crafty.

I used these three pieces as my inspiration:

Links here for the Glitter wolf, and here for the Idaho print. The last one is all over Pinterest, but I couldn't find the link.  Especially annoying because I know I've been to the site before.  It's some Swiss (I think) company (in Switzerland) that sells these for like $300(USD) each.  Yikes!

Once I figured out what kind of glue to use (rubber cement), the white on white canvas was easy.  If you want to do this project, I recommend painting all of the letters white before gluing and spray painting - I definitely would have missed spots with the spray paint and my letters would be brown on white - not nearly the look I wanted.  Here's how it turned out:

The Idaho was pretty easy too.  I used painter's tape and painted the blue lines on.  For the actual state I just printed out a picture of Idaho, taped it onto some foam board and cut it out with an exacto knife!  Then painted the whole thing white.  After some trial and error, I used rubber stamps for the words, and carefully painted the orange onto each letter and hand-printed the words!  I used rubber cement on this one too:

It doesn't look it here, but the lines are Navy blue

(Fun fact - did you know that rubber cement is intended to be put on both objects you want glued together, then dried for a few seconds, and then pressed together?  It works much better that way.)

I wanted a third piece to kind of even things out a little, so my husband and I planned we would craft for Date Night (I had to twist his arm a little).  We took inspiration from the glitter wolf (above), and really wanted to do a glitter R (for our last name).  The 'tutorial' on the website seemed easy enough, but when we gave it a try, it turned out like this:

               

Terrible.  I really wanted to do white stripes on the white canvas (to tie the three pieces together), but did not anticipate the glitter sticking all over it.  I used a lint roller to see if I could get the glitter off, and the parts that were painted were actually way easier to get off - the actual canvas will have glitter stuck to it until the end of time.  When we were filling in the R with glue and glitter, we kind of came to a crossroads right there where the top and the tail meet the line, so we figured we would just let the whole thing dry overnight and fill in the middle once we could get the excess glitter off.  Well, you can see how that turned out for us.

Needless to say, this third canvas was a HUGE disappointment.  The next day I embarked to make another version - this time painting the R onto the canvas.  I had this great plan, but in the end my second attempt looked like this:

Another HUGE disappointment that I was NOT going to hang on our wall.  The hubbs finally convinced me to do the same thing I had done with the Idaho canvas and cut the R out of the foam board and glue it on.  I didn't really want to do that because I wanted all three canvases to have a different texture to them.  But in the end, this was actually the easiest way to do it.  Only two failed attempts were able to help me see that.  Here is our final R:

And here is our finished wall display:

Not too shabby if I say so myself!  So we have one pin spin, a pin win, two Pinstrosities, and... I guess another Pin spin!  :)  I'll try and update you when our room gets finished.  Last week we bought cuter pillow cases, bought some upholstery fabric, and I sewed pillow shams!  I'm trying to keep good track of them so that I can submit it!!  :)

I love how the colors pop! These complement each other so well! Thank you Sarah for sharing your projects with us. It makes me want to go home and get working on the fall decor ideas we've come up with. I'm so tired of working on baby stuff, working on new fall items just sounds like so much fun. What projects have you done to decorate your home with? Send them our way! We'd love to see them. 

Show-And-Tell Saturday: Ten Pin Plan Report

If you remember back to the 16th of this month (or look back if you have to), I came up with my 10 Pin Plan. This was a list of 10 pins I was going to test over two weeks and then I'd report to you today on the successes, failures, and in-betweens. I've been working hard to get all the pins done and I'm excited to share the results with you! 

So, in the order that these pins got done, I give you my Ten Pin Report: 

Pin Report #1:

http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2009/07/crockpot-italian-chicken.html

My friend made this recipe way before I did and said that it was so salty that they had to throw it away. It sounded so good from the recipe though that I still wanted to give it a try. So I did. The recipe calls for 1-2 cans of cream of chicken soup. I figured that was where a good amount of the sodium was coming from, so I did half Cream of Chicken and half Cream of Mushroom soup (I don't find Cream of Mushroom to be as salty as Cream of Chicken). I knew that would change up the flavor some, but if it made it so we could eat it, that was fine. I do know that some brands of Cream of Chicken soup have a higher sodium content than others as well, so when you're making this, take that into consideration. Another thing we did, following a tip in the recipe, to cut back on the salt and to thin the sauce/gravy down to a more preferable consistency was to add some milk.

In the end, the flavor was good and it wasn't unedibly salty. You definitely didn't need to add salt, but it wasn't inedible. It reminded us of a mix between the gravy for Hawaiian Haystacks and cheap alfredo sauce. It really wasn't a bad meal at all, just not one of our uber favorites.
I thought about taking a picture, and I probably should have...but really it looked about like the picture (only we had ours on rice, not pasta). It's just a cream sauce with chicken. Another picture would kinda be overkill. That's how it looks. 

Pin Report #2:

http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2012/04/how-to-clean-your-top-loader-washing.html

Again...I didn't take a photo. Partly...I didn't think to take a before shot, so it doesn't do much good to show you the after shot as you won't know the drastic improvement. But...this works fantastically. It's not uncommon for me to forget a load in the washer and have to rewash it because it went sour. After enough times of doing this, along with the general grime build up, my washer looked and smelled less than pleasant. Not something you want to put clothes in to try and get them clean. Now, my washer smells so nice and fresh, the clothes came out smelling fresher than they have for a while, and it looks so clean and wonderful! This was really easy to do and it's made a difference in my washer and laundry. I'd recommend it!

Pin Report #3

http://www.ohnuts.com/blog/cinnamon-bun-pecan-pie-recipe/

This one I do have pictures for. I decided that I wanted to do the apple pie in the cinnamon roll crust because apples were on sale and it just sounded yummy. I had this pinned to test the crust out anyway. So I followed the directions to put the cinnamon roll style crust together. The directions said you can use pre-made crust, or make your own from scratch, so I turned to my trusty pie crust recipe (it really is simple and really yummy). I did a double batch of pie crust dough for the bottom so I would be sure to have enough and it ended up being perfect. It really was easy to put the crust together, the directions are simple. Here's what my crust looked like after getting it in the pan:

Then, this is the recipe I used for the pie. I'm not normally a huge apple pie fan, but I love this recipe and it's so easy. Cut up the apples, put the lattice top on, and then you make a caramel sauce and pour it through the lattice. SOOOOOoooo yummy and easy. For the lattice top I rolled out the plain dough, then spread some melted butter, cinnamon, and sugar on top. I then smooshed the dough back together gently (because you don't want to mix it too well), and rolled it out again to get a sort of cinnamon/sugar marbled effect going on. Then I cut my lattice strips and put the top on. Here's the pie right before going into the oven:

And here's the finished product!

So we know it looks cool, but what about the taste? Let's just say that I will forever do my apple pie crusts like this now. It's adds such a subtle but yummy yumm yummy flavor to the pie. And I apparently didn't get the bottom crust flattened as thin as I thought so I ended up with a thicker crust (which I LOVE) that is extra yummy to eat because of the cinnamon in it and the pie filling soaked in. This one is WELL worth the time it takes to make it. MMMmmmmmmm.


Pin Report #4

http://www.dumpaday.com/random-pictures/funny-pictures/funny-picture-dump-of-the-day-54-pics/

This one was hilarious. I drew the eyebrows on my nephew right before my baby shower started and then let him ham it up during the shower. His facial expressions were hilarious. But anytime I pulled out the camera, I got this face:


My sister and I tried and tried to get a good reaction when I had the camera out and he just wasn't going for it. But it was hilarious just watching him during the baby shower. Here are the 5 best shots I got of him during the day:

So this one is hilarious...but catching the hilarity "on film" may be another issue.


Pin Report #5

http://www.thesmallthingsblog.com/2012/10/casual-half-up-hair-tutorial-polka-dots.html

I have been waiting since last August to have my hair long enough to pin up, pull up, ponytail, leave down, etc., and finally it is reaching a doable length. But now that it's long enough to put up...I just don't know what to do with it. I've had this hairstyle pinned for a while now. Most half-up, half down do's make me look like I'm 11, but this one looked like a more grown up version of the half up/down do so I thought I'd give it a try. It looked simple enough. After getting the layering and texturizing my thick head of hair needed (thanks Em!), I knew it was time to try this out. From bed head to this do it took me about 20 minutes. That's brushing out my hair, giving it a light curling job, and then following her instructions. Here's what I ended up with this morning:

It really did go up pretty simple. I think I have thicker hair than Kate (the lady from the pin), but I was able to make it work and my layers were just long enough for this. Because I have a ton of hair, I ended up using about 8 bobby pins in the back to hold the hair in place. So the actual assembly of this do was pretty simple and doable. Then I decided I wanted to see how it held up during a day of laundry, dishes and sewing (don't you love the days where you get to play catch up because you've been gone all day every preceding day of the week?). Here's how it looked at 4 pm (6 1/2 hours later):

It's held up remarkable well. I don't know how it'd do out on a super windy or rainy day, but not many hair styles withstand that very well. But, for shopping, social events, church, etc., this would work out great! Yea for a new do!

Pin Report #6

http://www.sevenelles.com/tutorials/day-3-the-coolest-spot-in-the-house-just-became-even-cooler-fridge-coasters-tutorial/

So I've had this pinned to do for forever. I thought it looked genius. I was hoping to just use what I already had at home to keep this cheap. I didn't have placemats, but I did have non-adhesive shelf liner. But when I pulled that out this past week, I realized it wouldn't work. It wasn't smooth top liner, it has built in holes. Like this:

So I could put that down on the shelves, but any liquid or anything would just flow through the holes to the shelf and then I'd have the liner and the shelf to clean. No thanks. Luckily I thought ahead and then measured the shelves before I want to Wally World. My fridge is the normal upright kind with the freezer on top and the fridge on bottom. Which means the shelves in the fridge are wide. Wide enough that they don't make placemats that big. I thought about doing a few placemats side by side, but I imagined them shifting around, spills going in the cracks and under the mats and then stinking. It just wasn't going to cut it. So then I thought about a tablecloth, but to get one that would work well was more than I wanted to spend on fridge mats. So I scrapped this project. I did try, but it just isn't really all that feasible in my fridge. If I had a side-by-side fridge with more narrow shelves, this would work just fine I'm sure. 

Pin Report #7

http://www.agirlandagluegun.com/2012/03/oh-walti-love-you-aka-disney-printables.html

It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to do this, and then I came up with an idea I loved. I have this ceramic "canister" on the kitchen window sill above the sink. We use it to hold our scrub brush. It's handy, but it's not the most beautiful thing:

So I thought I'd paint it with that ceramic paint I used on my mug garden project (update on that...it's going great! One succulent died. That's when I realized I'd forgotten to water them for a while...oops), but the other 3, including the bamboo, are thriving. I got out my light blue and started painting away. After 2 coats of paint, and not enough paint left in the bottle for a third coat, the canister looked like this:

That wasn't going to cut it. I just couldn't get the paint smooth with any kind of brush/sponge, and there wasn't enough paint to give it a thick enough coat that the original color didn't show through. So...that idea had to be scrapped. Luckily that paint washes off super easy before you bake it so I was able to just wash off the blue paint and restore the ceramic back to the gold/brown it originally was. 

But that left me still with an unfinished project, and I was bound and determined to make this one work somehow. I rummaged through my art supplies and found a 5x7 scratchboard that I hadn't used yet and decided that was it. So I got on the computer and played with fonts until I found what I wanted. I ended up with this "picture":

I printed it, covered the back in graphite, taped it to my scratchboard, and used a pencil to trace the letters and transfer the graphite to the scratchboard. Then I scratched away and this is what I ended up with:

I figured since it looks chalkboard-ish I'd put it by the awesome chalkboard piggy Em and Camille got me for my Birthday. And, it's right at the entryway to my kitchen which is where some of my least favorite chores happen (and I carry the laundry through there to get to the utility room...so I'll see it when I do laundry too). Plus, it helps hide our internet box, so that's happy too!

Pin Report #8

http://theseamery.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/fit-to-a-t-baby-romper-tutorial-part-2-making-the-pattern-and-cutting/

I went through my t-shirts, picked out the 5 I wanted to use, and came in eagerly to read the directions before jumping into this project. As the only garment of clothing I've ever made is a simple skirt, I wasn't sure what some of the terms meant and, I'll be honest, I was a little intimidated by the tutorial. So I looked around on Pinterest and found a similar idea that seemed much more along my confidence lines (perhaps doing one of these more simple patterns will give me the confidence to try this romper pattern). 

So, here's the pin that I switched to:

http://thismamamakesstuff.com/tutorial-rockin-baby-gown-t-shirt-refashion/

Their instructions were decently easy to follow, just pay attention to the words and the pictures. Here's what I ended up with after about 2 hours of work on it. That includes printing the pattern, cutting the fabric, sewing, a snack break, and running back and forth between the dining room table where my sewing stuff was set up and the living room where the computer is to read the directions. Now that I know how it works I'm sure these'll be super quick and easy to pump out. 

Pin Report #9

http://askannamoseley.com/2012/02/getting-rid-of-that-boy-smell-in-the-bathroom/

Well, I did this. My bathroom doesn't smell lemony at all. It just now smells like vinegar and pee. Maybe I'm missing somewhere else where the pee smell is coming from? I scrubbed the toilet, I got the floor all around the toilet. I got the wall/cabinet by the toilet. And I still just smell pee. Where else could little girls get pee?!

Someone commented on my Mix-It-Up Monday post when I said I was going to do this that "Lemon juice and vinegar are both acids, so soda should fizzle when you mix it with the lemon juice; when the reaction is finished, there is no way for it to re-fizzle when you add more acid." The baking soda did fizzle when I added the lemon juice, but I was able to get it into a pancake batter-esque consistency, so I figured I'd just keep going. I let it sit for the 15 minutes it required, and then sprayed vinegar on it. It did fizzle again when I sprayed the vinegar on, so there was enough soda left in the paste to still do the work with the vinegar. But my bathroom still smells like pee. Either this didn't work or I've got some other pee problem area. Blech. 

Pin Report #10

http://www.thecampuscompanion.com/party-lab/2011/10/21/aurora-drink/#.UjdiOcaTiqg

I'm sure this is the one you've been waiting for. And I saved it for last, bwahahahaha. We had some nasty-gram comments (which we didn't publish because of the profanity content, as the disclaimer in our comment box says) saying we were dumb for thinking that galaxies would show up. I know the galaxies are photoshopped into the picture. But that's part of what we're showing. The directions of the pin do say this though: "it is a drink that is pink in natural light, but glows aqua-marine in black-light." So, the idea of testing this pin was to show that, yes, the galaxies are shopped in, and to see if the color change happens with the pinned caption containing the non-alcoholic drink (someone else will have to test the alcoholic version). 

I mixed up the drink (doing 1/9th of the recipe because it's just the two of us and if it was nasty I didn't want to have gallons of this on hand). So what did we find out? 

The mixed up drink under normal light:

Pretty and delicious looking!

The mixed up drink under a black light:

No galaxies. No aqua-marine glow. 

The taste? Kinda weird. Not one we'll be remaking. 

So I don't know if we need a more powerful or high-tech black light, if it was the non-alcoholic version that just didn't work, or if this never actually works...but it definitely didn't work for us. 


So there you have it! My 10-Pin Report. I actually didn't know if I'd get through all of them, so I'm feeling rather proud of myself right now. It helped that I knew I was going to have to report to you all...so thanks for that pressure! I hope you all have a great final September weekend! Hooray for Fall!!

Reruns

After we post up a Pinstrosity here on the blog, sometimes we never see another submission from that same pin. And then there are the pins that I'm sure we'll always be getting submissions on as long as we're running the blog. These are the classics and they never fail to make me chuckle. These submissions are like watching reruns of Napoleon Dynamite...that movie never gets old and gets more and more funny every time we watch it. So today, I thought I'd give you some of these "reruns" of old Pinstrosity classics and the fresh submissions we've received for them. 

The Original Pin:

http://queenvannacreations.com/blog//2012/02/01/ice-ballons/

Colorful ice balls. Great for lining the walk for a winter party. 

The Original Pinstrosity Post:

http://pinstrosity.blogspot.com/2013/01/food-coloring-explosion.html

There are easier ways to repaint your kitchen. 

This past January, after a lake effect storm up north, Jenn decided to give these a try.

"So here's my attempt at the ice ball thing. I had it all planned out.. even had a good balloon delivery system (BDS) to ensure that there was no chance that the food coloring ended up anywhere else in the house. Fun fact... I don't use liquid food coloring.. only Wilton gel... after the 1st one ending up all over the wall and sink I went to plan B... the toothpick delivery was amusing.. and the faucet is finally starting to run clear now. Yes dear neighbors, I'm the crackhead making multiple trips outside with no jacket in sub zero temps to deliver my little landmines to their happy homes in the snowbanks. Do you know what happens when you have wet hands and go to open the door back inside? Dude! I'd also like to blame you people for the looks I will be getting for the next few days with my purply red blue green hands.. but we both know that's not the 1st time... so I can't blame you for that one.

Pinterest ice balls the next day... its -8 and I tried them.. they are all very hard. I cut the balloon off the red one and it seemed okay... peeled it back to the immediate glug glug glug of the non-frozen inside pouring out..."

The "Rerun" Submission:

"So yea that will make people stare..heheh" I love that "bloody" balloon. Makes me laugh every time I look at it. Jenn did eventually have success though after 48 hours of the water balloons sitting out in the sub-freezing temperatures:

So, not a super quick and easy pin, but not unattainable either! 

What about those "[blank] in a jar" pins. We get quite a few of those. 

The Original Pin:

Rainbow cake in a jar! 

The Original Pinstrosity Post:

http://pinstrosity.blogspot.com/2012/06/sunshine-in-and-out-of-jar.html

Misty submitted our rerun of this classic Pinstrosity. She said, "Rainbow cake in a mason jar fail!  I think I added too much batter.  I wasn't sure exactly how close to the top it was supposed to be when I put it in the oven.  The pin said to use 3 tbsp of each color.  It didn't look like enough, so I added a little bit more.  Guess I'll learn to trust the recipes from now on. "

The "Rerun" Submission:

So we have the "[blank] in a jar" pin...what about the "[blank] in a mug" pins? Those are classics too. 

The Original Pin:

http://www.number-2-pencil.com/2012/03/06/chocolate-chip-cookie-in-cup/

The Original Pinstrosity Post:

http://pinstrosity.blogspot.com/2013/06/cookie-in-mug.html

Elizabeth tells this story: "I should've known. Anything that is "quick and easy" and can be cooked in a microwave? I'll be there. I wanted to make a quick delicious cookie but I should've realized that the "Brownie In a Mug" that I made in 5th grade would've ended up just as horrible. I made a brownie in a mug for my brother's birthday, and being the boy that he is, he will eat anything that has chocolate in it. Later that evening, he threw up. Coincidence? I think not. This "Cookie" ended up tasting like frito corn chips and tons of white sugar. It ended up as a crummy mess. The recipe stated that it needed only 40-60 seconds, but it was way undercooked when I pulled it out. I kept putting it back in, and now I have this."

The "Rerun" Submission:

"I think microwave deserts have a thing against me."

And of course if we are going to mention cookies, we can't leave out the ever present and totally awesome cookie bowl. 

The Original Pin

http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Sugar-Cookie-Bowls 

Sadly...too many people just read the pinterest pin's caption and not the recipe on the website and end up with this:

The Original Pinstrosity:

http://pinstrosity.blogspot.com/2012/03/cookie-bowl-mayhem.html
http://pinstrosity.blogspot.com/2012/10/cookie-bowl-mayhem-take-2.html

Cali sent us in this rerun submission. "So I thought it'd be a great idea to make these cookie bowls that I saw on pinterest to put a no bake cheesecake mousse into for my roommates and I to enjoy, but it just ended up being a ridiculous mess. Note to self, do not use a "just add water" pre made cookie mix if you are trying to be creative. I ended up chiseling off the cookie on the pan and crumbling it up to use it as a crust for my cheesecake mousse on the bottom of muffin paper. Whatever, still tasted the same so I say it's a 3 on the GCT scale!"

The "Rerun" Submission:

And then there's one of my favorites. This hails back to the very beginning of Pinstrosity with one of our first posts. 

The Original Pin:

http://blog.hwtm.com/2012/01/diy-tutorial-creative-yarn-chandelier/

The Original Pinstrosity:

http://pinstrosity.blogspot.com/2012/02/bunch-of-hot-air.html

Melanie says, "My friends and I just moved into a new suite and the blank white walls were desperately in need of some decoration. My suitemate saw this craft and asked if I would try it. I bought balloons and glue and got out my utilitarian brown yarn and skimmed the directions…big mistake. Turns out, in order for this to work, you need to mix the glue with corn starch and water. And you need to dip the yarn in the glue mixture, not coat the balloon with it. When I popped the balloon, the whole thing crumpled. It was a sad sight to behold. I hung it up anyway, as a testament to the necessity of reading directions."

The "Rerun" Submission:

Oh these make me chuckle, I love it! I could add so many more, but you probably weren't looking for an epistle to read today. That just means we'll have to do another "rerun" post in the future. Oh darn.

Have a Pinstrosity on your hands, but we've already posted someone else's submission of the same project? Send it to us anyway!