Pinterest

As you may know, I really love Pinterest!  However, now that the novelty has worn off, I no longer spend hours upon hours on Pinterest, pinning tons of things everyday.  There are some days that I don't even look at Pinterest (if you can believe it!).  I still enjoy it a lot though, and these days there are three main areas I pin in: 1) lesson plan/classroom ideas, 2) recipes, 3) art/inspirational pictures.  Now, I have a personal pinning policy that I started use. I read a blog post (I really can't remember where or I would link to it...) about a woman who was no longer going to use Pinterest because she felt that it was not ok to use other people's images without their consent and without giving them credit.  Well, I was too much in love with Pinterest to stop using it, so I decided to only pin images that take you back to the original source (disclaimer: I may have a few lingering pins from before I implemented this policy - I am not perfect... but I try).  This is harder than you may think.  Many images are links to nowhere or just to another site that has several pictures.  Others are links to people's blogs who tried a recipe or project they saw on another blog, so I follow their link back to the original and pin from there.  I feel that this is my best pinning policy because this way, my pins link back to the original author (giving them credit) and I am ok pinning their images because I know it is possible to block pinning capabilities if you do not want your images pinned.

Now, all that was to say that I recently pinned a chocolate berry tart recipe.  It was originally very disappointing because I saw a beautiful, mouth-watering, delicious-looking picture of one on Pinterest that was a sad case of it being a link to nowhere.  But after seeing it, all I could think about was making a dark chocolate berry tart, so I did some googling.  I did not find the source for the beautiful, mouth-watering, delicious-looking chocolate berry tart, but I did find another recipe for cute, little, yummy looking mini-tarts.  So I pinned that instead.  I happen to have cute tart pans that I have been waiting to try out, so this is the perfect recipe for me!  Here is my link in case you want to check it out: http://www.loveandoliveoil.com/2012/08/no-bake-blueberry-truffle-tartlets.html.  I will let you know how they turn out!

(photo from loveandoilveoil.com)

Yay Pinterest!

I have to share something cool I found through Pinterest.  My friend pinned a beautiful leaf drawing from this website: http://www.art-is-fun.com/search-this-site.html.  I loved the picture, so I looked through the website a bit to see what it was all about.  It is a site that gives you drawing and painting lessons.  While browsing through the pages I found some things about Prismacolor colored pencils (which are my favorite drawing materials).  The site recommended that when sharpening Prismacolors you should hold the pencil and turn the sharpener instead of the other way around.  I had never done it that way so I started giving it a try.  It has worked so much better! The lead breaks much less frequently and seems to give a nicer, sharpened tip.  So yay for Pinterest and yay for the Art is Fun website!

Busy, busy

February turned out to be quite a busy month!  But I did manage to do a little art along with planning a friend's bachelorette party :)  I also got back on a bit of a Pinterest kick, which led me to a ton of new recipes, which got me on a baking kick.  I have to say, I found some really great recipes (particularly the cinnamon swirl banana bread) but I have satisfied my baking itch for now.  You can see my cooking board on Pinterest if you are interested! 

The idea for this painting has been floating around in my head and I finally put paint to canvas! 

close up of the top

Happy New Year!

Hello again :)  I got lost in the business of Christmas and the wonderful, inspirational, time-wasting, fantastic website known as pinterest.com.  If you have not seen it yet, you should, but be warned: you may end up spending LOTS of time looking at all the amazing things on it.  I have been trying to get away from just looking and pinning things and start actually trying to cook some of the recipes and make some of the crafts.  To that end, I made 35 origami balloons today!  

 

They were easy to make once I stopped creasing all the folds.  I had a few unsuccessful attempts of blowing up my balloons before I figured that out.  Once they were all made, I put them on a string of white Christmas lights and hung them in the kitchen.  I think they look great!  

It adds some nice color to my kitchen.  I have several other things from Pinterest that I am eager to try - I will keep you updated on how they turn out!