Show and Tell: May Gift Projects

The theme for the monthly Pinstrosity challenge in May was Gifts! Check out how these pinners used Pinterest to find and make gifts for people in their life:

Hi! I am Veronica . I live in southern Utah. I am a high school senior who is graduating with my associates degree at the same time as my high school diploma. Due to me graduating 4 times between April 22 and May 21, I was bound to receive a few gifts. One of these gifts was from my violin teacher who has been amazing and is an important part of my life. She gave me a beautiful bracelet and, to thank her for every thing she has done, I wanted to make her a canvas based off of this saying. 

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/132504414012430416/ 

This is my step-by-step guide to a mod-poge paper/vinyl canvas.

Step one: Go to Joann's to buy a canvas. Only buy canvas because you are sure you have paper and modge podge at home.

Step two: At home, pick out paper you want and find mod podge.

Step three: Realize you don't have mod podge and head back to Joanns.

Step four: Prepare canvas using this pin: 

http://thesassypepper.blogspot.com/2010/03/tutorial-mod-podge-canvas.html 

*I didn't paint the edges because I like my edges "raw". I just painted mod podge onto the canvas.

Step five: After prepping the canvas,  mod podge the paper you chose onto the canvas. Do this quick to minimize bubbles. Massage bubbles out. Whisper sweet words to the very stubborn bubbles to coax them out. 

Step six: Apply two top coats. In between each top coat massage as needed. While drying, place books or heavy objects on the canvas. *I used textbooks because I am a college student. Might as well get some use out of them, right? 

Step seven: Freak out at how many bubbles there are. Massage and rub even more.

Step eight: Wait. Bubbles eventually subside.

Step nine: Apply vinyl. I used my mom's cricket to cut out saying and music notes. 
This is the final result. I rather like it!

Next up, Robynne! 

Hi Pinstrositeers!

I managed to complete the monthly May challenge! Yay me!

My brother and his wife are having a baby (Born May 28th! Woohoo!), but I couldn't make it to the baby shower. I was pretty bummed, and wanted to make up for my absence. I figured a hand-made-with-love gift would do the trick.

However, I decided all of this on a Friday, and the following Sunday was my last chance to get it to somebody who was going to the shower. So I had a wee bit of a time crunch.

My inspiration came from this pin, but I actually used the instructions from several different websites.

My first project was four of these burp cloths out of minky and coordinating quilting cotton. 

Then, since I had leftover minky, I made one of these changing pads, with a few modifications. I used bias tape to tie the change pad closed, rather than velcro, and I used minky instead of terry. 

Next up, I made two adorable reversible bibs from here.

I loved making all of these. The bibs took a little bit of mental power, but the rest of it was quick, easy and fun. I managed to finish all of it with plenty of time left over.

Thanks for inspiring me to turn to Pinterest!

Show and Tell: March Challenge Projects

It's time to show you the projects we were sent for March's challenge revolving around Spring! Click on the names of each submitter to be taken to their blogs.

Lindsey: 

Behold the vibrant happy Peep centerpiece pin, Easter Peeps Centerpiece:

(via)

I may or may not have pinned it LAST EASTER and forgotten about it for a year.  Womp womp.  But when I saw it again in the past month while perusing spring-y things to get me out of the winter blahs, I saw it and got excited all over again.  Furthermore, with it in mind as I ran errands this week, I was able to put together my own take on it.  TA DA!

I changed the color of the Peeps because the ones at Target were blind-your-eyeballs pink, and that with pink flowers would be too much for me.  I really love pink/orange color combos but never do them in my home, so this was the perfect, temporary way to go with that color combo without any of the commitment. :)  As far as the flowers go, Safeway didn't have the crazy Gerber daisies but did have these great carnations in the exact shade of bright, SPRING pink I wanted.  Bam!  And that's how you bring Spring into your house... a year after pinning it.

FranklyCassidy: 

I'm from Pennsylvania, and it seems that each week brings another peek of spring followed by freezing temperatures and another 6 inches of snow. So out of frustration, I got together with one of my gal pals to have a spring party!

We wore bright colors and filled a pin board with ideas. While we pinned about  a hundred things, we focused on two pins that turned out beautifully: Lemon raspberry whoopie pies and a lemon-raspberry sugar scrub.

The whoopies were inspired by this pin, but we tweaked the cake recipe substantially and followed our own recipe for the filling. The sugar scrub was an exact following of this pin, and is also amazing! 

There may still be some patches of snow outside, but both of our spirits were lifted by a taste of spring!

Eilonwy:

My articulated 1990s Stacey (Barbie's younger sister, junior to Skipper) was a major find over Christmas. But she had no clothes... until now. I modified the real-life Starboard skirt pattern to make her a very spring-like Easter outfit.

Pin: http://www.simplesimonandco.com/2011/07/the-starboard-skirt-tutorial.html/

The whole story with more photos: http://smallerplaces.blogspot.com/2015/03/articulated-stacey-gets-easter-dress.html

I'm glad the Pinstrosity challenge lit a fire under me to tackle this, as I finally decided that the answer to my sewing frustrations is that in April I'm going to tackle a doll garment every night that I get home at a reasonable hour. That should provide enough practice to get me past the worst terror and confusion!

Marquette:

I recently bought me a new Spring/Summer dress and wanted a fun belt to accessorize it with. After going through my boards I found the perfect belt! It was springy and fun and I figured it could go with many of my skirts and dresses to add a touch of spring. It was more of a booger to make than I thought it would be, but I finished it! I wasn't sure I liked it at first, but it's grown on my more and more!

(via)

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 

Pin: http://www.yourmodernfamily.com/ice-cream-bread-recipe/

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.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/46161964907103699/

http://gormandizewithus.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/grapefruit-waffles-with-chocolate.html

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! 

Show and Tell Saturday: A is for...

Today I have all of the "A is for..." January challenge projects! Food, art, and fun!

We'll start with the first one sent to us!

Kate tried her hand at making Alfredo Sauce from scratch for the firs time:

"I've never, ever made alfredo from scratch for some reason, so the January "A" Challenge was perfect when I decided the other day that I was craving some alfredo sauce at home. This "Chicken Alfredo Baked Ziti" pin made it sound easy and had great photos too.  My kiddos pitched in with the preparation and it turned out pretty great.  We omitted the parsley flakes, and used rotini instead of ziti... and we may have been a little overzealous with the amount of noodles we added, because it was a little dry if you like your noodles saucy. (This was likely from too many noodles cooked up by my almost-4-year-old-helper.)  The alfredo sauce itself was creamy with a good flavor.  Night one was a success!  For leftover night, we added some alfredo-from-a-jar upon reheating in order to make it saucier, which helped a lot. We will save this pin and try again with extra sauce on the first night. Happy "A" challenges! -Kate"

Joanne decided this challenge was perfect for trying out various Alcohol Ink projects she'd seen over time on Pinterest (you can see more of her story and photos on her blog):

Carolyn tried out a new Apple Pie recipe in her birthday present pie pan. You can read her story and how she decided on this scrumptious pie (I know it's super yummy because I happened to be at her house the day after she made it and inexplicably there were still leftovers!), and where to find the recipe, on her blog:

Eilonwy put her sewing skills to the test for some Aqua Apparel (get her full story and the inspiring pins on her blog):

Diedre decided to take the "A is for" theme literally and recreate a pinterest pin of a whole learning experience for her 3 year old son about the letter A. She explains the sensory bin and how she put it together on her blog. 

Marquette: And then finally I have my project to share with you. My A is for project is Appliance Art. Like Carolyn, I decided to combine the January Pinstrosity challenge with the Iron Craft challenge. I have seen pins on Pinterest about painting your fridge, but we're in a rental and our fridge isn't ours to paint. So I went to an often ugly part of our kitchen...the microwave. My microwave went from this: 

To this:

You can see more of my process on my blog as well.


And there you have it! Those were all the "A is for..." projects we were sent. Fun, huh?! I love seeing creativity and courage come together with trying out these pins you find! Way to go everyone! 

Gluten Free Thanksgiving Cake + Patterned Frosting Decor

Hello all!
We spent this last Thanksgiving with Chip's family, most of whom are gluten free. I like being able to bring dishes that everyone can enjoy, and the past few years I have brought a gluten free cake. This year I decided to decorate the cake because why not? I get the urge to decorate cakes every once in a while and this year I wanted to do something different! I scrolled through my neighborhood Wal-Mart and got a few ideas here and there and went home with a few new items and got to work.

I thought maybe I would try one the latest trendy patterns with some of the gold food spray paint that I picked up at Wal-Mart, I also got some pink icing (the canned kind), and gold sprinkles.

Here is my process!

I googled "Fleur-de-Lis pattern" and scrolled through till I found what I wanted. I then copied the image, put it in word and changed the size until it was where I wanted it. I printed it out and cut the inside pattern out with an Exacto knife on a cutting board. Some of the thinner pieces of paper between patterns broke or I accidentally cut through them and I had to tape them back together. This process took me about 20 minutes and I did about three-ish rows. It was a little slow and painful, but I thought the end result would be worth it!!

Here is the pattern I used:

 

 

Here is the pattern on the cake, this was a gluten free yellow cake with store bought chocolate (GF) frosting. I crumb coated the cake, set it in the fridge to solidify a little for a few hours, then iced it again,  refrigerated it again, then pulled it out and decorated it immediately so that the icing would still be cold and stiff.

 

 

 

I used the Wilton Gold Food Color Mist Spray paint (bought at Wal-Mart). I followed the directions and sprayed at about 6-8 inches away from the cake in short strokes. Don't do it too thick or it will run and smear your design.

 

Here is where I Pinstrositized. Next I attempted to make my own chocolate Fleur-de-lis, put it in the freezer and then quaintly put it on the cake. All did not go as planned, first off I didn't melt the chocolate enough, second of all I cut the hole in the piping bag too big and this was the result. "Is that poop or chocolate?"

Also, there is a Symphony bar in the side of this picture but I didn't use that for melting, (I used melting chocolate for that), the chocolate bar was for consuming while baking. Have to keep my strength up ya' know.

 

I messed with the chocolate for a good half hour before I gave up and decided to use the pink frosting for my big fleur-de-lis. I cut out a larger pattern ( I did it by hand, which also took me forever, I should have just printed out a larger one) and traced it with pink frosting, and filled it with gold sprinkles.

 

 

The whole thing turned out great and tasted really good, I got lots of compliments on it. With that being said I need to fine tune my chocolate skills as seen from above. Anyone have any tips for me with decorating chocolate??

 

Happy Monday all!

 

 

 

 

 

Em's Halloween Show-and-Tell!

Hello!
Marquette shared her Halloween costume show and tell the other day, and I thought it would be fun to share ours too!! Happy Wednesday all!!

 

Chip and I went as Bill Nye the Science Guy, and Miss Frizzle from the Magic School Bus for all of our Halloween festivities!



(I had chalk all over me buy the end of the night from our sign lol)

 

We went to our church trunk-or-treat and had a themed trunk for all of the kids at the activity.

These pictures are really awful because it was dark, I apologize, but you get the idea...

 

We had candy and glow sticks. We had a little game for the kids, if they could throw the ball into the last row of jack-o-lantern cups they got candy AND a glow stick (if they didn't get the ball in the cup after a few tries they still got candy).

We had fun playing science lab all night.

It's hard to see here, but the jars are all filled with glowing bugs and we had science books, and skulls in our "Science Lab".

 

 Here is Dr. Nye in his element ;)

 

For our costumes I found the dress at a thrift store, it was a gosh awful pink before and I used fabric dye from the craft section at Wal-Mart to get my awesome purple color. The dye I got was a cobalt blue, but the blue plus pink made purple! I'll take it!

Next I cut out and hot glued all the felt pieces onto the dress. I drew everything by hand with a  marker, then cut them out and glued them on.

My wig was a child's Disney Merida wig that I pinned up, I used Chip as my mannequin!

 

 

For Chip's costumes we borrowed the coat and prop goggles, I bought him the bow tie and he wore his Sunday clothes. Done.

 

We had a really good time and I've been wanting to do Miss Frizzle (whose first name is Valerie, who knew??) for a while.

Just so no ones feels like we have a handle on the holiday season, I just cleaned our car out yesterday. True story. Real life!!

 

Hope you all had a great Halloween! On to November!! Woohoo!

 

 

Show-and-Tell Saturday: Sprucing Up Your Keyboard

I just bought my first few rolls of Washi Tape not too long ago. The plan is to use them to create color in the room without painting the wall of our rental. I still want one more color, and I'm not sure what design I want to do on the wall yet...but I'm scheming.

I've seen so many neat uses for Washi Tape in the past year! Adding flair to walls. Decorating notebooks and cards. Giving some color to bookshelf edges. Around windows. On boxes. Temporary cat collar. Okay, maybe not the cat collar. But it is used for some neat decorating! Today's Show and Tell Saturday is another decorative use for Washi Tape, submitted to us by Claire.

In the spirit of your "Use it Up Month", I decided to use up some washi tape I have (I have so much of it, it's so pretty, but I don't know what to do with it!) by decorating my laptop keyboard. The pin was fairly easy and quick to do - I picked a tape that was the same width as most of my keys, which helped a ton. There were problems, though. Washi tape is somewhat transparent, but it was still difficult to see the keys on a black keyboard with white lettering. So my "pin spin" was to use the washi tape only on the keys along the edges of the keyboard, and I think it turned out pretty cool looking! 

In addition, Washi tape peels off easily, so the tape started to peel around the edges of the keys a bit after a few days, a problem the original pin does acknowledge. Bottom line - this pin is easy, quick, and looks pretty darn cute, but is definitely just a temporary decoration.

Love your blog!

Best,
Claire

Show and Tell Lego Cake

Today's Show and Tell Saturday comes to you out of the submission archives! Take it away Cindy!

I have a pseudo win for you, from the Lego Cake you posted today. It's not nearly as pretty as the original pin, but I thought it turned out pretty great for an amateur! 

I didn't take process shots, but here's what I did and learned:

What went right:

• First, I did use mini cupcakes for the Lego studs, and they worked out great! Much tastier than marshmallows, I'm sure. I trimmed them to make them round, and made sure I baked them big so they'd be tall enough.
• I used gel frosting coloring, and a ton of it to get the color right. I think I used an entire jar of red.
• The pin as it is doesn't make cakes thick enough to really look like Lego bricks - I did two layers to get that look.
• Stacking the Legos of different colors was tricky (see leveling below), but paid off big time in the overall effect. Highly recommended!
• I used my own most reliable non-crumbly cake recipe - I knew I would be stacking these up, and didn't want to risk a cake-tastrophe.

What went wrong, and what you should do different:

• I'm picky about frosting which backfired on me - it's a cream cheese buttercream so it's hard to get really smooth and never really firms up well. I'd stick with something sturdier.
• This took WAY longer than I had allotted, so by the time I pulled the cake out to add the second layer of frosting after the crumb coat, the party was in full swing. Make this sucker the day before!
• I cheated on my leveling - when I sliced the layers in half, I tried just flipping it so the flat part was on top. This backfired, and you can see that the cakes still tip to the side and aren't really flat on top, plus the layers are visible where there were huge gaps between cakes. Definitely take your time leveling!

And of course, the verdict? 

My son, who was turning four took one look, and said, "it's not a REAL Lego cake" and left the room. I about cried after all that work! But after adding a Lego border and a few Lego 'candles' and minifigures for decoration, he declared it a success. 

Best part? Delicious!

Show and Tell Saturday:A Tuck and Cover Video

I saw  few great pins a while back for Tuck and Cover hairstyles and was excited to try them out. I had a little trouble getting them to work just right at first (not as good with hair as Emilee is) but I found my own variation that works for me. It is a combination of these two styles:

http://www.missysue.com/2013/01/tuck-and-cover/

http://www.missysue.com/2014/04/braid-7-tuck-and-cover-french-braid/

Want to see what I did? You'll have to watch the video. Oh boy...my favorite...me on video. Oh well. We all have to sacrifice for the greater good every now and then, right?


This is truly my go to style right now. It is so easy and classy. I've always been envious of the girls that can make a ponytail look classy. It just makes me look dumpy, and gives me horrendous headaches. This style is fast, keeps my hair off my neck, looks classy, and no headaches!

Another bonus, as mentioned in the video is how my hair turns out after it's been in the tuck and cover style for a little while. Here is what it looks like right out of the band after being up for about 3 hours (the left photo is what it looks like straight out of the band, and the right photo is what it looks like after I've broken up the ringlets a little with my fingers):

If I were to use larger chunks of hair than I did this time around I'd get more of the beach waves look. Fun, huh?! I am in love with this style. Give it a try!