Friday, March 27, 2015

Last Minute Easter "Wreath" Idea/Pin Win

Hello!
I have been MIA due to a myriad of life events, alas I am here today though! Easter is next weekend, maybe your in-laws are coming over and you are less than seasonally/holiday ready décor wise?? Or you feel like some craftiness can get you in the Easter season spirit! I haven't decorated for Spring/Easter at all but I LOVE this pin that Susanne sent us and I thought I would share. For those of you who don't feel crafty, take after Susanne and get brave! The results will be darling :) (...and in the off chance they aren't, send them our way and we will commiserate with you!).

The Original
A beautiful and unique piece for the Easter season, and or any other time of year for that matter!
The Pin-Win



"When I saw this Easter "Wreath" I got all excited because I thought “I can handle this!”  If you know me I am not such a crafty diy kind of gal.  So challenge accepted.  I did however call in back up, my friend who is the crafty kind of gal especially when it comes to wreaths.  I had all these long twigs sitting downstairs that I didn’t know what to do with so we broke them into the size of sticks we wanted and to give it that rustic look.  In doing the craft we noticed that the twigs we were using were way thicker than the original picture in the pin but that’s what we had so we went with it.  Here’s our results.  We left off the little flowers throughout as both of us preferred the more simple look.  We were both pleased with the results.   I would say it was a Pin Win, wouldn’t you?"

We sure would Susanne! I love it! And, I love that it isn't just for outdoors during Easter, it can be an inside piece as well!

So for all of you looking for a last minute project, look no further! The twigs you can get at Walmart in the floral department (next to crafts) or any craft store and you could use fresh or silk flowers for this arrangement as well. Most of the other supplies are household items and Susanne said this took her less than an hour to complete.

Happy crafting!



Monday, March 23, 2015

DIY False Lashes

Beauty products can be so expensive! However, there are some that you can DIY it up and get great results. Some....are a little more tricky. 
The Original Pin
http://www.chezlin.com/misc/diy-fake-lashes/#more-563
Those lashes are amazing! She gives step by step instructions of how to do your own DIY lashes at home (visit the blog for more explanation).




So Katelynn gave this tutorial a try and her results didn't quite match the original...

The Pinstrosity


Ah, this makes me giggle. Huge props to Katelynn for giving this a try. I'm terrified to try most beauty related pins on Pinterest, I'm a chicken. Maybe Emilee and I will have to sit down one day and test a bunch of them, once with me doing the testing as a "regular joh-smoe" and once with Em as the licensed cosmetologist. I can guess which ones will turn out better, bahahaha.

Friday, March 13, 2015

Cherry Pie Cookie Cups

Julie, aka The Pinning Pirate, sent us a fun email not too long ago. I loved her opening line. "It has been a very long time since I've submitted anything because quite frankly, my skills in the kitchen just keep getting better but as life proves, we all fall down. We fall down hard." Isn't that the truth. I know it happens here at our house, although mine usually involves burning things (right now it smells like burned pig from the bacon I charred beyond recognition the other day...poor bacon. And it was good bacon from the butcher too!). The more you practice, the better you get...but that doesn't make you immune from mishaps. 

I was on a roll one day pinning stuff for the official day of love. I saw these cookie cups and thought that this would be an easy weekend recipe. They look SO good!


(via)
The gist of it is to roll sugar cookie dough into balls and put it into a mini muffin pan. I bought pre-cut sugar cookie dough in a 24 pack so it was really easy to get proportions right because it was already done for me. All I had to do was roll.

While I was doing this, my 31 year old husband was running around the kitchen poking me in the belly, back, butt, anywhere he could poke me that I couldn't immediately slap him. Being 8 months pregnant, he knows my reflexes are no longer cat like so as I'm yelling at him to go somewhere else, leave me alone, get a life, he's just standing out of my reach pretending like he's in the wild west with guns that he's spinning on his fingers and blowing out. OMG.

Small interruption here: I was laughing pretty good by this point. This sounds like it could have happened at my house. I had Cameron come read this and he laughed and then stood here and poked me. Okay, back to Julie. 

When done, I was supposed to "gently" press down the center of each cookie. I had no idea how much pressure was too much pressure and I was stressing out over what to press down with. There was a bottle of sprinkles on the counter so I just turned that over and started mashing. On to the next step...

Fill each cookie cup with 1 tablespoon of cherry filling. I pop the can and just like expected, here comes the 3 year old. I swear his sense of smell is shark like. Put cookies and cherry filling in front of a 3 year old and tell him he can't have any yet and oh...my...GOSH!! I tried to run in the pantry and pull out a snickerdoodle but no. NO! That won't do! The fits my kid can throw are  amazing. We settled on him scooping leftover cherry filling into a cup that went into the fridge for no reason. He doesn't know that though so we both survived without incident.

I put the cookies back into the oven for 5 more minutes and made the icing. After the 5 minutes were up, I let them cool for a bit before removing them from the muffin tin.

Let's just say that I wasn't going to let the icing go to waste...






Yeah. I guess I pressed too hard?

Julie finished her email like this: "If anything, my husband's giggles at seeing the final product was worth the disaster. I am currently working on another recipe that is waiting to cool in the fridge and I have a strong feeling that you will be getting another, much worse, submission."

If someone didn't know I run a blog for Wayward Pinterest Projects (oh man...the Prodigal Pinterest Project...that's got some potential there...) they'd think I am horrible for getting excited when I hear that someone's project might not have worked out. Maybe Pinstrosity has warped me.



Sunday, March 8, 2015

Show and Tell: February Challenge Projects

It's time to show you the projects we were sent for February's challenge revolving around the weird, obscure, funny, and bizarre holidays and observances of the month!

First up we have this submission from Elaine for "Ice Cream for Breakfast Day":

Hey there!
I read "Ice cream for breakfast" on the February challenge post and instantly  thought of the "sooo easy" two-ingredient ice cream bread pins that dominated my Pinterest feed for several days. 

As if he read my mind, my husband brought home cookie dough ice cream (full fat, full sugar, full calories) and the instant gratification junkie in me panicked. Ice cream? In my freezer? Readily available? ALL DAY?? Then, I tasted the ice cream and found I was not pleased by the paltry cookie dough chunk to ice cream ratio.  It was seriously lacking in the dough department, but I still couldn't have an entire gallon of ice cream taunting me from the freezer.  What better way to eliminate a dessert temptation than to turn it into an equally tempting baked good??

So, I found this recipe, gathered my supplies, and set out to bake bread using nothing but ice cream and self-rising flour... Oh wait.. We only had all purpose flour in the house. Whoops. So a quick substitution search revealed that all I needed to do was add baking powder to the flour. Simple, right? Only, apparently adding fractions isn't my forte and I flubbed the baking powder by adding too much.  Too late to turn back now.

The recipe calls for softened ice cream, and I figured that since the carton  was sitting on the counter while I set up, preheated,  measured the flour, unsuccessfully attempted mental math, added too much baking powder, and greased the bread pan, it should have been soft enough.  I measured the ice cream, plopped it in a bowl, added the flour, and combined them using my hand mixer.  It was challenging to blend at first, as the ice cream was still frozen in the center. The consistency seemed drier than it should have been, which i attributed to the "hardness" of the ice cream. Perhaps had it softened for longer, two cups would have yielded more ice cream? Or is my knowledge of physics on par with my math skills?

I dumped the dough into the pan, set the timer for 35 minutes and enjoyed the surprisingly delicious aromas wafting from the oven.  The finished product was golden on the edges and firm to the touch. It seemed a little too dense and flat, which is probably a direct result of the flour flub (darn fractions). 

The chocolate chips did not soften much, but the ice cream dough bits melted into caramelized gooey holes in the bread. I didn't dislike them.  It had a dense, slightly vanilla flavor with hints of chocolate.  Nothing was overwhelming in the flavor; if anything is was a tad on the bland side. The bread was slightly crumbly on the edges and stayed moist for 3 days.  I munched on it for breakfast a couple of mornings and snuck slivers throughout the day as snacks. 

Final thoughts? I probably turned an unhealthy treat into an equally unhealthy breakfast.  It wasn't amazing enough to immediately repeat. I would, however, try it again with a fruity or nutty ice cream. Butter pecan? Banana pudding? Endless options!

Pic 1: uncooked dough in the pan 

Pic 2: finished product 


Thanks so much!
-Elaine

Next up we have this submission from Carolyn for "Random Acts of Kindness Week":

Once again I combined this month's challenge with my Iron Crafter challenge.

In Pinstrosity we were challenged to do a pin for one of the many holiday's during the month of February.  I decided to do a series of random acts of kindness for Random Acts of Kindness week.  I wrote cards to friends.  Left a thank you note for the mail lady.  I stuck a card with a happy note on the window of a random car.  And I tried a new cookie recipe to give to a friend.  (Iron Crafter's challenge was to do/try/make/use something new.) You can read more about it here.



And now it's time for this submission from Eilonwy for "Grapefruit Month":

At long last, failure!

My obscure holiday was Grapefruit Month. http://www.oceanspray.com/club/newsletters/newsletter_feb07.htm

Since I recently bought a waffle iron, which makes everything look like a waffle, I thought I'd make grapefruit waffles, as in this Pin, but not for V-Day.

As I mixed it up, I was a little leery about the reliance on whole-wheat flour, the lack of corn starch, and the lack of any egg equivalents. I greased my waffle iron, followed the recipe (the only change I made was to use regular milk instead of soy milk, which should make no difference), and... ta-da!

Once pried out of the waffle iron, the waffle had really fantastic crispy edges, but... don't let the grapefruit pulp get in the batter (as the directions say to allow). Bitter waffles!

The second waffle turned into a gummy mess that I'm going to be spending days scraping out of the waffle iron. So "bitter waffles" may be my new euphemism for my emotions following kitchen disasters.



When I get the waffle iron clean, I'm making those nice cinnamon roll waffles.

~eilonwy

As for me, I celebrated "Read a Book in the Bathtub Day", but definitely did not take pictures. I saw someone pin for "The Glass Magician" and realized it was finally out (it's the sequel to "The Paper Magician"). So I went to Amazon, bought it for my kindle and celebrated the holiday. It was a pin win! 



Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Monthly Challenge: March 2015

This month will mark the official calendar start of spring (even if the weather doesn't always agree...hot in half the nation, cold in the other....what?!). In celebration we thought it would be fun to have Spring be the theme for the March challenge. 

Now, what exactly are we asking you to do again?

1. Browse through your Pinterest boards, and then your sister's Pinterest boards, and then your high school BFF's Pinterest boards, and then your cat's previous owner's Pinterest boards, and then even the Official Pinstrosity Challenge Pinterest Board (we'll be adding ideas to it all the time) and find pins that fit the theme that inspire you. They can be food, decor, costumes, aprons, painting color schemes, etc. This month's theme leaves things wide open! Make a flowery craft, use springs to decorate, bake up some spring yummy goodness, paint your porch fun spring colors. Find someway to incorporate spring! 

2. Once you've found some pins on Pinterest that inspire you, build on that inspiration!  You can follow the pin instructions to a T, or you can just work off your inspiration and go for a Pin Spin.

3. Take a picture of the outcome. We want to see the Pin Wins, Pin Spins, and Pinstrosities!

4. Email us your pictures, the link to the project you were inspired by, and any bit of the story you want to tell. You have until 8:00 AM (MST) on April 1st to send us your February projects.

5. Saturday, April 4th we will do a Round Up post and show you the projects we were sent in. If we have too many for one post, we'll do multiple Show and Tell Saturday posts!

6. All projects submitted as part of the challenge need to have been completed in March 2015. No submitting projects you did last year. The point of this challenge is to get you to actually use Pinterest to inspire your life!

7. Feel free to submit as many times as you want!