Not the right Goo

I love me a good messy art project where you can get up to your elbows in paint and fling goo around and just have fun. There's something quite fulfilling in creating something and going whole hog. The submission for today's post has me itching to get painting! 

Rhya sent us in a project she tried from Pinterest. She read the directions, tried tweaking it to what she had at home (come on...we all do that with something every now and then...even you "I always follow the directions exactly" people surely try to improvise once in a while), then tried it with the supplies called for and sent us in all her results. I love the whole process and that she jumped in with both feet right away. Here's what happened:

The Original Pin

http://www.sweethappylife.com/2012/activities/preschool-activities/painting-with-watercolors-glue-and-salt/

Isn't that cool?! I think it is anyway. It makes me think of the Batik fabrics that are so popular right now. 

Rhya saw this and decided that that was the project to tackle for her Spring Break. The instructions called for clear Elmer's glue, but since Rhya alread had mod podge on hand, she thought she'd try that before running out to the store and getting the clear glue she only needed for this one project. She said, "Maybe I'm an idiot for trying it with mod podge, but hey It dries clear, I figure it would work....No.  nope.  Not at all.  Also, I thought this would be a really easy project, which it is, but I was over confident and used my big canvas to start with....*smacks forehead*"

Here's what she did:

"First step was easy, cover the canvas or watercolor paper generously with the watercolor paint; this allows for the salt to really soak up the water and paint. I figured this out on my first try. you need a heavy coat of watercolors when adding the salt, if it's not watered down enough the salt doesn't take in any of the paint."

"Then spotting the little stencil in the corner I decided why not use it? Make it less abstract....(that didn't really work) What happens when using a stencil with watercolor:"

"I still thought it was cool, so I kept going, trying to give this more texture (even though that's what the salt and glue was for)."

"Now the mess of attempting to use mod podge.  I didn't know How to spread it on the canvas, because I couldn't squeeze it out of the bottle like the site told me. So, I just poured it out in globs and then tried to spread it around...."

"Looks real nice doesn't it?. . . . oh yeah and I poured some of the kosher salt and then I saw some gliter laying around and said, what the hell I'll add that too."

"Went out for dinner for 2 hours came back to this:"

The Pinstrosity

"Doesn't look nice at all.." she said. 

"At this point I was like, okay substituting mod podge was a bad idea, lets go try the Elmer's Glue the original post said to do.  Bought some from Michael's for $1.29 (also bought some "chocolate" colored glitter). And tried this project on a super small scale. Threw on some watercolors, not paying attention to color combination.""

"NOW the glue starts to work its magic, and you can see the salt in their soaking up the Paint.  I think this looks much closer to the original."

So Rhya finally got the method figured out and decided to give the project another go to see if she could get a large scale "painting" that she liked. Do you hear the applause for her giving it another go? I do. I love that she kept trying!

The next day Rhya was able to come up with this Pin Win:

http://alflaylawalayla1001.blogspot.com/2013/03/watercolorsalt-elmer-glue-success.html

So moral of today's post? Try and try again. Oh and eat ice cream. I'm sure that moral is in this story somewhere. In fact...I think a small bowl of Peanut Butter Panic for breakfast is just what I "need" for breakfast. 

Oh...and I just saw this and thought it went well with today's post and with life in general (I needed the reminder today too):

Happy Friday everyone.

In A Jam

Occasionally we will find a diamond in the rough here on Pinstrosity. Lucky for me, today was one of those days! Kasia (pronounced ka-sha) found herself with some  a lot of strawberries!! Here is her story, complete with an experiment and her own conclusions! We love these kind of emails! She has put in the work and figured out how to tweak the pins she used to her own "taste" (pun intended).

So from here I will turn it over to Kasia!

 

The Original(s)

http://www.eatingbirdfood.com/2012/05/easy-strawberry-chia-seed-jam/

 

Kasia used two pins, and experimented with both, check it out!

 

http://fooddoodles.com/2012/08/12/in-my-kitchen-this-week-3/

*Let me preface this post by saying that both of the above recipes worked wonderfully for the original bloggers, they liked the jam and shared the recipe on their respective sites. This is on Pinstrosity because someone tweaked the recipes of each of these and it didn't turn out how they were expecting.*

 

The Pinstrosity

 

"...To the meat of my submission... or should I say berries.

 

I love homemade jam. I love the sweet, I love the fresh, I love that it doesn't take too much time and that it tastes oh. so. delicious. Growing up I'd make homemade strawberry and raspberry freezer jam all the time, but when I moved to college the only time I'd get some is if I stole it from home. Now I'm clear across the country from my home and am severely craving fresh strawberry jam. 

 

One of the local grocery stores was selling strawberries for a $1. Yes, I kid you not, a whole pound of strawberries for $1. I bought 5 pounds. It was almost everything my husband could do to keep me from running to the baking goods aisle to find the pectin. Without even looking at the price, I grabbed one box and continued on my merry way excited for all the jam I was about to make. 

 

That night I got started, but come to find out I had WAY more strawberries than the box called for. As I thoroughly enjoyed a slice of bread smothered in fresh homemade strawberry jam I reviewed the receipt and found that the pectin I bought was $4.19 for 1.75 oz! I was trying to justify how delicious the jam was with how expensive it was to make. I was expecting it to be significantly less than store-bought jam, but it added up to be just about the same price...just millions better tasting.

 

I was telling a friend from church about it later and she got really excited as she explained her solution: to use chia seeds as the thickening agent in jam. I had never even heard of chia seeds before. She told me the recipe was simple: 1 cup of mashed berries, 1 tbsp of chia seeds, and sugar to taste. She said that as the chia seeds dissolved in liquid they make this jelly like stuff, with it being cheaper and easier than using pectin, and I should get the same results. So I looked it up.

 

There are a lot of slightly varying recipes but everyone said they loved how it tasted, that it was so much more healthy*, and that the seeds weren't even noticeable in the jam. So I concluded that I needed an experiment to test what everyone was saying.

*because you could sweeten it with artificial or natural sweeteners to taste, and you weren't using pectin--I don't know why pectin gets a bad rap, it is in every fruit, just found in more quantities in citrus pith and pulp...maybe it's because it gets processed? I don't know. Anyway.

 

I got about a 1/4 cup of chia seeds from the bulk foods section in the local grocery store (picked up some cheaper pectin for just in case) and went home to test them out. I followed these two recipes...kind of.  

 

Now before you say uh-oh and know where this is heading I'll explain my tweaks. 1. I just used strawberries, 2 I just used regular granulated sugar (because I like it, a lot, ok?) 3. I didn't add any water because I wanted the chia seeds to just soak up the strawberry juice. 

 

First, I added sugar to the berries so they would macerate. Pic 1

Then I added the chia seeds. Pic 2

Then I turned the heat on the one I was cooking and simmered it really low for about 10 minutes. (I read that chia seeds burn easily and I wanted to avoid that at all costs) 

I kept on comparing them and the cooked strawberry chia seed jam had gelled up nicely in 10 minutes, but the raw jam was still pretty watery after an hour. Pic 3 (cooked jam) Pic 4 (raw jam)

Then for taste test: 

I immediately realized I don't like cooked strawberry jam. I felt a lot of the flavor of the fresh strawberries disappeared. 

Also, the texture was like raspberry jam, meaning I was picking seeds out of my teeth for hours. 

This morning I tested the jams again. Both had continued to thicken, which was good for the raw jam, but the cooked jam was more like a paste. Both were still seedy so I guess they don't completely dissolve like I was told. 

 

So, to conclude my experiment: chia seeds work for thickening jam, if you don't cook the jam it will take longer to gel, you can choose how much sweetener to use instead of having to follow the directions for pectin, and if you don't mind having seeds stuck in your teeth, it is a more cost effective way to do it. But I think I'll stick to buying pectin. 

I think I'd rate it on a GCT scale of a 2, because it worked, but not to my preference or expectation. Either way, I have LOADS of strawberry jam to enjoy now."

 

So there you have it! Her experiment results! I am sure I have a bunch of Jam-ers out there, what's your input?! Let us know!

TGIF Pinstrosipeeps!!!

 

 

 

 

Tomstrosity: Saving Shoes

Do we have any Toms fans out there? I know Em loves her Toms shoes. She wore a pair she decorated herself for her wedding:

http://marquettephoto.blogspot.com/2011/04/em-chips-wedding-part-1-mesa-arts.html

Toms and knock-off Toms are everywhere right now. Nearly every clothing store I've been in (including Wally World) over the past few months has had some sort of Toms style shoes. Recently we had our first Toms Pinstrosity submission, or as Kristin called it, the first Tomstrosity. Kristin had a pair of highly loved and highly used Toms that she wanted to repair and waterproof. In her search to save her shoes she found the following two pins. 

The Original Pins

 

http://ashleyannphotography.com/blog/2012/02/15/diy-custom-repaired-toms/ 

originally from this blog (which is now longer not available): http://homesteadsurvival.blogspot.com/2012/11/how-to-waterproof-your-canvas-shoes.html

And here is how the combo ended up for Kristin:

The Pinstrosity

Kristin went and read the directions to see what was needed, but with the nearest good fabric store at least 2 hours away she winged it in places (story of my life). Here are her "tweaks" that she made while trying to fix the holes in the shoes:

• "I didn't have an iron on patch, so I smeared glue on a small square of canvas and patched the hole from the inside."
• "I didn't have anything with a hem that I was willing to cut apart, so I folded the edge of my canvas and used the glue to make a seam."
• "I was paying attention to how to glue the fabric on the shoe itself, but the toes were harder than expected."
• "Even worse was trimming.  Hers is super neat.  I swear I tried, but it just ended up raggedy anyway."
• "She just glued, no sewing.  I just glued, and it's coming up at the edges now, a couple months later.  I sewed the worst part, but it was really tedious trying to sew through 2-3 layers of canvas with your hand inside a stinky shoe."

"So, I fixed my Toms.  I was happy.  Then it started to snow, and I stopped wearing them.  Then I started bringing them to work, so I could take off my snowboots and wear something comfy while I was just at the desk or walking around inside.  This was nice, until I became too lazy to change my shoes when I was just going to walk a little bit outside.  My feet were getting pretty wet. I saw the waterproofing pin and was like "Genius!"  I mentioned it to my outdoorsy friends and they were all "I use beeswax for waterproofing all the time," and let me use their tube of bee goo.  I'm still not 100% sure what the name of it is, due to the duct tape, but it said it was 100% pure beeswax.  I washed my shoes, getting the dirt off, but they were still pretty stained.  I waited forever for them to dry, then smeared the bee goo on.  My buddy said to use the hairdryer first to warm up the fabric, then smear on the wax.  It worked okay, but it was really slow going to switch between heating and waxing, and I was getting wax on my roommate's hairdryer.  For my second shoe, I smeared the wax on first, then heated it, and that seemed to work just as well."

"The wax definitely discolored my shoes, and left some waxy buildup on the surface of the toes that is just not coming off.  I'm thinking maybe you can't use these two pins on the same shoes, because the wax just didn't soak in very well where the fabric had been glued together."

"As for whether they're functional...they do seem at least waterproof-ish, but it's barely snowed since I waterproofed them.  They also got a significant hole in the back, so water leaks in there quite a bit.  I'm thinking about glueing another canvas patch on the inside, then maybe trying to cover the back." 

"Or maybe just calling it a day.  I'm starting to think the biggest failure of all is getting overly attached to an expensive pair of shoes that falls apart really easily.  (But they're so cute...)"

We all have that pair of shoes that we just don't want to get rid of because they are so comfy or cute or versatile, or our dog dug it up in the neighbors yard and we couldn't bring ourselves to take it back over to them. I've tried to fix dying shoes before and I just didn't have much luck with it. If fact, I'm wearing slippers that has a whole so big between the side and the sole that I can stick my hand through it (but somehow my feet are still warm), yet I don't want to throw them away yet. Shoe repair can be tricky with all the curves, edges, and materials. If you're trying shoe repair for the first time, definitely try getting the materials your directions call for. Then find a time when you have time to sit and carefully work on the project. 

As far as waterproofing goes, if you want a natural waterproofing job, beeswax really is the best bet. If you end up with chunks or funny textures after applying the beeswax you can try throwing them in the dryer for a few minutes to help melt the wax and get it soaked in. If you live somewhere warm (and where your shoes wouldn't magically disappear) you can leave them outside in the sun for a little while (obviously not for long amounts of time of the sun will really discolor your shoes). The more you can get the wax into the fabric of the shoe the better. If you don't care whether your waterproofing job is natural or not, there's a great waterproofing spray in the camping section for spraying down tents and canvases. We've used it on totes, shoes, tents, shade covers, etc. and it works great. Smelly at first, but effective. It may discolor your shoes slightly, but not horribly so. 

Saving your shoes can be fun, but it can be frustrating sometimes...especially if it doesn't work out in the end. Just remember Kristin's words to us, " I'm starting to think the biggest failure of all is getting overly attached to an expensive pair of shoes that falls apart really easily." 

Mix it Up Monday

It's Monday! Emilee mentioned in her last post about changing things up a little on Mondays. We thought it would be a good way to jump start each week and to add a few new little flavors to the blog without changing it completely. So today is our first Mix it Up Monday. What will we be featuring on these Mix it Up Mondays? 

• Full tutorials for projects we are frequently emailed. We can just sit and explain how to do something in a big obnoxious paragraph, but it always helps to have a visual of the whole process set-by-step. Some of the projects currently on the list are the bleached shirts, the hair bow, and Oreo pops. 
• Guest posts from various writers. We have our first few lined up and we're excited! 
• A man's point of view on Pinterest and Pinstrosity. Our dashing and daring husbands have agreed to jump in every now and then to give their perspective on life, pins, and projects. They even have a few Pinstrosities of their own to share. 
• We're thinking about doing a post every now and again with a Show and Tell of Pin Wins and Spins that we have been sent. We still encourage you to send your Pin Wins over to Pin-n-Tell, but we do occasionally get one sent to us. As Pin Wins aren't really the focus of this site we don't post them too often, but maybe an occasional show and tell would be fun. Yea or Nay?   
• Some Mondays we all just need a bit of cheer and motivation. Sometimes it may be an encouraging thought and a humorous photo we found on Pinterestt. Warning...we do have a quirky sense of humor.  We may even post up an old favorite...like this one that's fits today's post well: (just wait, you'll understand):



http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1987/04/06

• More of our personal Pinstrosities. We're not immune to having Pinstrosities by any means. We started this site to make fun of ourselves and all of our Pinstrosities and it has turned into such a fun community of Pinstrosipeeps. We love getting all your submissions and we try to feature them as much as we can; consequently we have tried to cut back on featuring our projects. But trust me, we still have Pinstrosities. Every does. Some just don't want to admit it. I'm sure Martha Stewart still has her share of things that don't work perfect the first time...but in her business it doesn't really sell well to show those ones. That's why we're here...to show it's normal. 

We have other ideas in the works, but that is what we're starting with for now. I'm excited and I hope you are too!

For the first Mix it Up Monday I was hoping to have something awesome all lined up and ready, but this weekend ended up kicking our butts (notice the lack of posts last week). The tutorial we were going to film just didn't happen. However, I did have an interesting weekend with a few "disasters" of my own. They weren't really disasters...one was a wardrobe malfunction and one was a Pinstrosity. I'll tell you about them.

So Thursday I got to work and was standing at the front of the store talking to my boss about what we needed to do that day when all the sudden I realized that my behiney felt quite breezy...and I wasn't wearing a skirt. While trying to stay engaged in the conversation I knew I needed to figure out what was going on. So I covertly smoothed out my shirt in front and went to smooth it out in back and discovered that the cheeks on either side of my nose were now not the only visible cheeks on my body. Visible cheek count was now up to 3. I think I made a weird noise or face because Judy stopped and looked at me funny. I couldn't help but laugh and I said, "I just found a rip in my pants." And so I turned around. She died laughing (so did I, so it's okay). I have NO idea when or where or how that happened. I'm really hoping that it happened after I took the tour of the childcare center that I will be taking school pictures for here in a month. Luckily I wore a long sweater today and tried to just pull the sweater down. It worked for about an hour, but the split started to grow down my leg and finally even the long sweater wouldn't cover it. So now I am the proud owner of a pair of gray Jeggings because WalMart was out of my size in all jeans (in our town...WalMart is just about it for choices...and I needed something cheap and fast). 

RIP favorite white pants. :( At least they died awesomely and with good humor. 

My Pinstrosity came the following day. Well, actually this one spans two days. It was one of those projects that seemed an awesome Pin Win at first and then it deteriorated. Let me show you what I was trying to do: 

The Original Pin

http://www.cakestudent.com/sweetheart-cherry-pies/

I saw that pin last week and instantly saved it. I love making pies and these looked so easy and pretty. A group of us were all getting together Friday night to dance (because how often do you get the chance to dress up and dance with your sweetheart once you leave high school? not often). We were trying to keep things as easy and cheap as possible so we just asked people to bring a small plate of finger food as their "entrance fee". That way we didn't have to spend a ton on refreshments, but there would still be some munchies at the dance. I decided that I wanted to make these little mini pies, but I didn't have fresh fruit or ricotta cheese so I knew I'd have to improvise. I did have a bag of frozen mixed berries in the freezer and I found we had a block of cream cheese on hand so I figured I would combine them to make a creamy center. 

The Pinstrosity

I whipped up my pie crust recipe (seriously, it's so easy and yummy...tastes way better than the frozen ones) and used a cookie cutter to cut out the hearts.

For the filling I mixed 4 oz. cream cheese, a spoonful of my grandma's awesome homemade Prickly Pear Jelly, about a cup of frozen berries and a small squirt of berry pomegranate MiO. The filling tasted amazing. I was so proud of myself. 

Doesn't that just look appetizing?

I know...my pans aren't beautiful. I need to test out that cleaning a cookie sheet pin I've seen all over the place. But really...it does the job stains or no stains, so I don't really care too much. 

I then placed half of the hearts on a cookie sheet and dropped a small amount of filling on each heart with a spoon. I wasn't sure how much the filling would spread, so I tried to keep it conservative-ish.  

I then carefully placed another crust heart on top, trying hard not to squeeze the filling out (but I didn't succeed with all of them as you see below).

I dipped my fingers in water and then carefully pushed the top layer of the mini pies down to join the two pieces. I was trying to seal the edges and give the heart more of a 3-D shape.

I threw them in the oven and baked them at 350 for about 8-10 minutes. When they were done I pulled them out and immediately sprinkled powdered sugar on them. 

The sides separated some, but I only had one ooze out bad. I was pretty excited. Cameron thought they were a little flavorless, but he eats a pie for the filling...I eat the pie for the crust! Next time I'll try and beef up the filling some, but it wasn't bad this time. This looked like a Pin Win to me. And they were...for an evening. People ate them and enjoyed them at the dance, but I did end up with a few left over. The following morning I had an early morning fundraising event with the girls from church so I figured I would bring the leftovers so I wouldn't eat all of them by myself. I had one that morning, and they seemed okay, but they didn't taste as good as the night before. I blamed it on having a dusty mouth from working outside that morning. Fast forward to that evening...we finally got home after a long day and I brought everything in out of the car. I pulled one of these out of the bag and started chomping down and stopped mid chew. It was disgusting. I thought it must just be a weird one with maybe a bad berry or something, so I threw it in the trash and grabbed another one. Same disgusting taste. It tasted like a bug died in my mouth. Cameron tried one and he said that one was gross. So we threw them all away. I don't know what happened between the dance and the following evening, but it wasn't good. The only thing I can think is that they should have been refrigerated because of the cream cheese, but I've made cream cheese filled cookies before and they were fine out of the fridge for 3 days (couldn't tell you any longer after that because they were all gone).  I definitely want to try this again and try the original filling recipe and then see if I can get mine to work right. 

You know...sitting here typing up the mini-pie story really makes my mouth water for a good meat pie. Maybe I'll go experiment with making mini-meat pies...that sounds so yummy. Oooh, and I even have shredded chicken in the freezer. Done. Mini Pie Experiment #2 coming up...

Stuffed Cookies

Today, you get two Pinstrosities in one post! It's like we're taking an awesome submission and stuffing it inside another awesome submission to create a bigger and more awesome post. Hey...that sounds oddly like those cookies we've seen all over...

The Original Pin

http://picky-palate.com/2011/01/06/oreo-stuffed-chocolate-chip-cookies/

I remember seeing these on Facebook before I got on Pinterest, but they've been big for a while now. That recipe above is Jenny's original recipe and was one of the first stuffed Oreo recipes to go crazy online. Go check it out. 

Since then though, people have tried variations on the recipe and some have come out fine...some not so much. Here's one that didn't quite work:

The Pinstrosity

Stephanie sent in the above photo and this is what she said, " I used a different chocolate chip cookie recipe so that could have contributed to the failure, but also when I put the trays in they were tilted which caused the cookies to slide."

Different recipes sometimes work out great and other times it can bite you in the bum. We've seen a lot of pictures online with stuffed cookie results like Stephanie sent in. It's happening to a lot of people. What's the issue? The wrong kind of dough. If you remember back to our Cookie Bowl posts, sometimes you really have to have a specific dough for these to work. Some Chocolate Chip Cookie recipes will work, and others won't. Generally, chocolate chip cookies spread quite a bit while cooking. This works great when you're making Chocolate Chip Cookies. This doesn't work so great when you're trying to make a cookie bowl or a stuffed cookie. What can you do to combat that? Try out Jenny's recipe, she tweaked it so it won't run all over. If you want to try out a different recipe, do a test bake first. If it spreads too much, it probably won't work. DON'T use store bought Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. It will not give you happy results with stuffed cookies. 

One variation on the whole stuffed cookie idea, and one which helps the whole spreading problem, is this one:

The Original Pin

http://www.sugarloco.com/2012/09/stuffed-cookie-cups-recipe/

What's fun though...they didn't stop at just Oreos. Check this out:

http://www.sugarloco.com/2012/09/stuffed-cookie-cups-recipe/

Jenny @ Sugar Loco posted these cups online for all of us to drool over. I think there must be something about the name Jenny that makes you a cookie genius...or maybe it's just a coincidence. Either way...these two Jenny's are cookie geniuses. This Jenny has the problem of the spreading dough fixed by baking the cookies in muffin tins. 

Stephanie (a different Stephanie than the first Pinstrosity in this post...today is full of double names!) and Hannah found this recipe and decided to give it a try. Here's their story:

"One day my friend Stephanie and I decided to try and make the stuffed Chocolate Chip cookies that are supposed to be baked in a muffin tin. We instead tried to bake them on a cookie sheet, but made them in the exact same way as on the original pin. Not being a professional baker, I thought the cookies would keep the cup-like shape that they had before being baked.....WRONG!"

The Pinstrosity

"Instead we ended up with what I think look like chocolate chip pancakes, with a piece of a Reese's in the middle. Another thing that may have made a difference is that instead of using an entire candy bar we cut them into fourths. Because the candy bar pieces were so small, they rose to the top of the cookie. Although they didn't turn out as planned, they still tasted okay! Our cookies started off at half-dollar size but we ended up with 4-5 inch pancakes."

So when you're playing around with Chocolate Chip cookie dough and working on new creations, just remember that the dough will spread. You either need to contain it (as in the cookie cups), or tweak the recipe some. 

I'm Not Laughing Taffy...

Does anyone love Laffy Taffy as much as I do?! I LOVE Laffy Taffy, it's one of those foods where I say "Oh i just want one...", and then I end up eating every single one, minus banana. Anyone want my leftover untouched banana Taffys?! Gross. 

Maribeth seems to like taffy as well and she decided to try a recipe she saw on Pinterest (Famous last words... "I saw this on Pinterest!"). 

Here is her Pinstrosity!

The Original

http://www.dvo.com/newsletter/monthly/2012/august/funtimes.html?CID=aug_news12

That looks sooooo good right now! Of course I don't have any on hand, so I will just have to salivate over virtual taffy instead. Bahumbug.

Here is Maribeth's version:

The Pinstrosity

Here is how it started, so far so good...

Then this...

Then this...

Here is her bleeding heart Taffy. :(

It really does kind of look like a heart! 

So no it didn't work...and why not? Let's break it down.

According to the directions, you are to use a candy thermometer, however Maribeth didn't have one, so she used a meat thermometer instead. This would definitely have something to do with her sad taffy. She also said because it was a meat thermometer, she feels that she was unable to read the temperature as accurately. 

She then explains that it also cooked too long, and ended up looking like glass.

as soon as she touched it it turned to gunk, (the second picture), and she was unable to pull it. 

Let's start at the thermometer. There is a difference between a meat thermometer and a candy thermometer. One intended for meat is metal, and will range from 0-220 degrees (Farenheit). Whereas a candy thermometer is glass and will range from 40-440 degrees, quite a difference huh?!

The boiling point of candies is usually higher than 220 degrees (Fahrenheit), therefore a meat thermometer really won't do the job, especially for this recipe where if you cook the Taffy too long it ruins it. 

There is always a chance also that even if you are using a candy thermometer it could be inaccurate. To test this follow the directions seen here. It might be good to test your candy thermometers every once in while so you don't ruin Grandmas famous divinity right before a big family event...yes let's avoid that please!

One thing to remember when making candies, or fudges caramels anything like that is that the temperature is key. Any deviation at all will almost always end in a mess, I think that is exactly what happened here. 

Based on the comments from the original site, it looks like this is a really hard one to get just right. A lot of people had trouble with this.

 Growing up on the side of a mountain had its drawbacks with candy making, where we lived we had an elevation of 7,300 feet. The elevation has some weird effects on candy making, like divinity or caramels. The weather can also play a part, which sounds strange but is true!

If the air is too dry, or too humid is can really take a toll on your foods, so that is another thing to consider in this Pinstrosity. 

Has anyone had success with this recipe?! Or have any ideas for Maribeth?! I think it was a valiant attempt  but I would suggest next time, watching that timer, and the candy thermometer closely for better results!

Happy Friday Pinstrosipeeps!

The Baconator!!

Every once in a while we come a reader who is bound and determined to make a pin work despite all the odds being against them. 

Today is one of those days. 

Kathy sent us this recipe for some awesome bacon chicken combo that didn't have near enough info to be feasible, with a  little stick-to-it-ive-ness  and a turkey baster there is nothing this woman can't do!

Check it out!

The Original

http://diaryofarecipeaddict.blogspot.com/2011/07/sweet-spicy-bacon-chicken.html

Chicken+Bacon...does life get any better? I submit that it does not. Anyone know who that is from?!

Here is Kathy's version, and how she got here:

The Pinstrosity

"I love to try new Pinterest recipes and was truly excited to try the recipe for Sweet & Spicy Bacon Chicken The picture looked amazing and who doesn't love bacon?!

Well, first of all, there were no measurements included in this recipe, just a list of ingredients, not specifying how much of each. But, no problem, after reading follow-up comments, I seasoned it according to my family's taste. I also pounded the chicken pieces first, because the chicken pieces were too thick to cook evenly (another tip I picked up from follow-up comments, as recipe did not include this procedure). I planned on baking this, as specified in the posted recipe (bake at 400 deg. F), although the blogger did mention that she prefers to grill it. After prepping as specified, I put it in the oven and was anxious to see the results.  About 10 min. before the chicken was supposed to be done, I checked on it (mainly to see if bacon was crisping). The[picture attached] will show you what I saw. All the chicken pieces were sitting in a huge puddle of grease (from both the bacon & chicken combined). I knew the bacon would never crisp sitting in a pool of grease like that and I didn't want the chicken to soak up all that grease either; so I used a turkey baster and bowl to remove the majority of the grease from the pan.  Three bowls later, the pan was mostly dry and ready to return to oven. I cooked it for an additional 10 min (which would have been 40 min. in total) but bacon was still not crisp enough. Since I didn't want the chicken to dry out like a hockey puck, I turned on the broiler for a few minutes and bacon finally crisped up the way it should. After transferring the chicken to a clean serving platter, the final result did closely resemble what the finished dish was supposed to look like.

Summary:  The [original picture], shows this recipe being baked on a cookie sheet. With that much grease accumulating during the cooking process, that would have been an oven-cleaning nightmare. The blogger said that she cooks this recipe on the grill. I can only imagine how many flame flare-ups that would cause with all the dripping grease. I'm certain we would have had a visit from the local fire department if we even attempted to grill this. After all is said and done, I will admit the flavor was not bad (but everything tastes better with bacon). I may even make it again; but I will retype the recipe to include "de-greasing" the pan during the cooking process."

I give major props to Kathy for fixing the recipe to her liking, and NOT having the fire department called! Not that the original had this problem, but at my house grease plus heat usually equals an emergency of some sort.

There is definitely something to be said for a woman on a mission, and it doesn't hurt that this mission included bacon at the end. This wasn't so much a case of a recipe being a Pinstrosity as it was a recipe that had a little tweak and turned out great. This just goes to show that a little ingenuity and some elbow grease (literally) can go a long way!

Well done Kathy! It looks delicious! My hubby and I will probably try this one out this week!

Does anyone have any bacon+chicken recipes that will rock our socks?! Let us know! we love your feedback!!

Happy Wednesday Pinstrosipeeps!

Bath Soap Crayon Flotation Devices

The best part of bath time as a kid was when mom let us pick a toy we could take in the bath with us. Anyone else have the awesome Fisher Price Marina? That was a favorite. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34254096@N05/7652386748/sizes/z/in/photostream/

But sometimes Mom just didn't want to deal with the inevitable mess that we made when we took toys in, so we just had to take a boring ol' bath (I don't blame her at all). So the bars of soap became boats and dolls and great objects to chuck at the siblings. We fought over who got the soap and who had to make a doll out of the wash cloth. I think one bath we ended up dissolving two entire bars of soap in the water. My poor mother, hahaha. 

Well, in an attempt to create a fun and clean "toy" for her kids bath time, Becky tried making soap crayons and sent us her story. Here it is, just as she sent it to us:

Becky's Story:

(Just so you know, this is my third attempt at sending this blasted pinstrosity. First I tried Pintrosity@gmail.com, then Pinstosity@gmail.com. Sending it has become a bit of a "pinstrosity" itself. Third time's the charm...) 

Hello PinStRosity!

I can't say I've always wanted to make a pinstrosity of my own to submit to your site, as I'm usually pretty optimistic that my pinterest ventures will, well, WORK!

Unfortunately I can't say it went so well with my latest attempt at these nifty DIY bath crayons made from glycerin soap.

The Original Pin 

http://littlecrunchymama.blogspot.com/2011/12/getting-crafty.html

(Pretty ain't it?)

As the directions on the pin, as well as in the blog itself simply state, melt glycerin soap, add food coloring, pour into a mold (such as ice cube trays), let cool and pop out. And VOILA! Bright and shiny bath crayons any toddler would go crazy over. 

Here's the step by step of my failure...

1. I went to the store and picked up some glycerin soap. Not as easy as it sounds. Apparently the stuff is being phased out by all the super moisturizing shea buttery bars and the like. The only glycerin bar I found was Dove Cranberry Antioxident something or other.

2. I set one bar in a double boiler (I felt putting the bar over direct heat would probably not be a good idea.) But I found that the bar wasn't really melting so much as gumming up all over the bottom of the double boiler.

3.My sister suggested I try the crock pot. Slow gentle heat, but more direct heat than a double boiler. After about 2 hours in the crock pot, this is what came out...

The Pinstrosity

Total lumpy sticky mess. I was confused. I didn't know exactly what I was looking for, but I figured it should be a little more... liquidy and clear.

4. I decided to go back to the post and see what the blog said about how to heat the soap... MICROWAVE! Gotcha! So off the the microwave I went. Though the directions in the blog said nothing about how long or on what power level. I figured one minute at a time should do it. Well, it was a good thing I was watching because this is what happened after about 15 seconds... (Kinda hard to see, but if you look closely, you'll notice I gigantic soap explosion)

After removing from the microwave, I gave it a quick stir and it was still very much the same lumpy sticky mess as before.

5. At this point I decided to just get through it. I was all in. Pot committed. So I portioned the melted soap out into separate dishes, mixed in red, yellow, and blue food coloring to each portion, and then spooned the goop into an ice cube tray. Still holding onto the hope that they would be all clear and shiny after they solidify.

And not-so-voila. Here's the finished product...

They did NOT write on the bathtub or walls as expected, but fortunately my kid is easily entertained and thought it was fun just having them float around him in the tub while he tried to grab onto the slippery soapy cubes. So that's that. I hope you had as much fun reading this as I had creating this Pinstrosity. 

Our Take On It

First off, props to Becky for sticking with it and trying different techniques when the first didn't work. 

So now...where to find glycerin soap. It can be hard to find ready made glycerin soap bars in the beauty/soap aisle. It's just not that in right now. Where do you find it then? The craft aisle or craft stores. I've seen blocks of glycerin soap in Hobby Lobby, Michaels, and even Walmart. These are just the plain soap, no additives, which is exactly what you need for this project. You can find some that are already colored or that have fun scents already mixed in, but you can find plain soap as well. 

I'm thinking that maybe perhaps it was the soap itself that Becky used that made this not as big of a success as she had hoped...but I'm not positive as I don't know exactly what was in the soap she used. While you can find ready made glycerin soap bars in the soap aisle, some of them are not just pure glycerin soap...they can have additives (various creams or whatnot). It's possible that Becky's soap wasn't just pure glycerin soap and so it didn't melt and reset quite as the pin directed. 

The Microwave. I love it. I hate it. One day I can nuke my leftovers and they come out perfect...the next day I can nuke more leftovers for the same amount of time and either create new life or char it to pieces. Sometimes I think my microwave hates me (I learned not to put towels in there to warm them up for vicks vapor rub...burned a hole in them).  Often microwaves are set to automatically nuke at the highest temperature. For projects like this I suggest setting the heat lower and then only heating in 30 second intervals (stirring between each nuke). 

So if you try this out, definitely see if you can get your hands on the craft glycerin soap. Those packages will often have directions for melting it, but if not...go the slow microwave method. I know...none of us are patient, but sometimes it just works best to slow life down. 

If this seems like more work than you're wanting to do, here's another fun idea for you from a blog called "Playing to Learn". Super easy homemade Edible Finger Paints that they can use to draw on the tub and then you just wash it down the drain. 

 While it won't really accomplish the goal of your child getting clean in the bathtub...they sure enjoy it and it's less work than making the glycerin soap crayons.