pinterest – Long Island Chick

Don’t Let Sandy Play the Grinch – Craft New Christmas Ornaments!

Kathleen — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 13:39:48 +0000

The devastation wreaked by ~~Hurricane~~ Superstorm (or whatever they are calling it) Sandy is sobering. But, not only did people lose their furniture, boilers, sheet rock, cars etc., they lost their memories – family photos, keepsakes and Christmas decorations. While some things just can’t be salvaged or replaced, you can create new heirlooms. Now we all have our favorite standbys like the tricolor bead candy canes (don’t have any? come on, you know you do!), I wanted something different so I searched my favorite site, Pinterest, for some inspiration and came up with a bunch of beautiful ornaments you can easily make (and they don’t look like something that came out of a Kindergarten classroom either). Here are a few of my favorites:

These felt stars are easy and adorable to craft (from Purlbee) and are the epitome of the primitive look. You could easily make them into a string garland or incorporate them into a primitive theme (along with salt-dough ornaments below) with some burlap garland!

I absolutely adore these wood ornaments with scrapbook paper modged podged on (from Brown Paper Packages) – another easy project:

These swirl nail polish ornaments (from Beautylish) are gorgeous:

My kids have made salt dough ornaments before and with the stamping here, they make a nice personalized ornament (from Design Editor):

It would be a great idea to host an ornament crafting party to make these for friends and neighbors who lost their Christmas Ornaments. These are all fairly easy to make and you could definitely crank a bunch out over some hot cocoa (maybe with some schnapps). I hope you are as inspired as I am!

Happy crafting!

Tweak Your Pinterest Experience

Kathleen — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 11:16:29 +0000

Those of you who know me are aware of exactly how I feel about the Social Media gurus who recently “discovered” Pinterest. I have been pinning over a year now and had realized right away what a gem of an application it is. So all the BS they brought to the table about Terms of Use etc really annoys the crap out of me. Where were they a year ago and seriously, have they ever read most of these sites TOUs? They are all extremely one-sided and protective of the site’s owners – that’s what lawyers do – protect their clients. DUH!

I had used Microsoft Office’s OneNote exclusively to file away all those interest discoveries before Pinterest came along but now, I only save to OneNote things that I absolutely want to keep on hand. Remember: if the post or site you pin from is removed, your pin will no longer function. If you a really love a tip, recipe etc. make sure you make a hard copy whether electronically or the old fashioned way – print it.

Anyway, I digress. The one thing I do appreciate about the social media gurus finally jumping on the band wagon is that now developers are creating apps and extensions to further enhance the pinning experience. I wanted to share two with you today that I think are worthwhile to the avid Pinner:

Customize Your Board Covers

Pinterest recently added the ability to select and reposition a particular pin for the cover of your board. There are two ways to do this: Go to your Boards page and mouse-over the board you want to edit and click “Edit Board Cover”. Next, select a cover pin and drag it to the exact position you want. You can also choose a board cover while you’re browsing within your board: Just mouse-over any of your pins to select it.

Pinterest Pro

This free Chrome extension (you are using Chrome right – not that crappy Internet Explorer?) adds a few cool tweaks to your pinning experience such as the ability to right click any image on any website and click “Pin to Pinterest” to instantly pin from anywhere on the web, hover over pins and instantly get a zoomed in version without having to click through and creates a Popular pin dropdown — click the pinterest icon in your toolbar to see a random list of popular pins. Definitely a worth-while addition!!

Have you come across any cool apps or extensions? Please do share! Need an invite to Pinterest? Comment below and I will be sure to send you one!

Upcycle Those Pesky Plastic Bags!

Kathleen — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 17:56:41 +0000

Jessyratfink at Instructables has posted a tutorial to turn those plastic bags I normally ~~throw out~~ recycle into a really nice basket. So start saving our environment and create some nice baskets to store your ~~crap~~ kids’ toys and other miscellaneous things in!

Guess where I came across this tutorial? Hmmmm….you guessed it – Pinterest! Pinterest – you do know by now this is my all-time favorite site, right? Be sure to follow me to uncover other little gems like this one. If you make a plastic bag basket, please share!

Ready For Some Spring Cleaning?

Kathleen — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:20:56 +0000

So the clocks “sprung” ahead this past weekend and so our thoughts turn to those of Spring…Cleaning! Does that get you excited? Yeah I know, not so much. But, it is a good time to declutter and deep clean. Think of all the germs that have been gathering in our homes and incubating during the winter months. Time for some fresh air and a clean home.

One of the biggest things I am battling, besides the clutter monster, is soap scum. This crap is just impossible to get off!!! Even elbow grease doesn’t do the trick! I hate seeing that gross film on the shower tub and enclosure. Hell, I can’t even see well through the glass at this point. Yeah, I know that is pretty gross. Well, I’ve been trying different products with no luck. Some of them stink so bad, I nearly passed out before I escaped the bathroom and, of course, the soap scum remained. So I was perusing Pinterest the other day and of course, a fellow soap scum hater came to the rescue That is how I found Jen at Life, Crafts & Whatever with her magical soap scum killa recipe.

Pretty easy too: White Vinegar (magical stuff really) and Blue Dawn Dishwasher Detergent…heated up. Spray it on that disgusting soap scum and it magically disappears. Seriously. That is it. I am going to try it and post my results. I don’t know if I am brave enough to take “before” pictures though. Take a look at Jen’s “before” pictures – mine would be not much different.

Let me know if you tried her recipe and your results. Do you have your own recipe or trick to getting rid of this stubborn problem?

My Favorite Pinterest Pins for the Week of March 10th

Kathleen — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 16:41:12 +0000

I am an admitted Pinterest fanatic and I wanted to share with you my favorite pins from the past week:

Sweet Italian Sausage With Penne Pasta

I do so love pasta and this just looks absolutely delicious! I have found so many wonderful recipes through Pinterest – can’t wait to try them all!

Childhood Memories

I love these posts of things we did that we not might have remembered. The game of not allowing a balloon to reach the floor brings back so much memories. My kids played this too!

DIY Chip Clips

To me, buying chip clips is such a colossal waste of money – the damn things always seem to break or just mysteriously disappear! Now, instead of throwing out those crappy hangers you get from Target, upcycle them!

The Ultimate Vanilla Cupcake

Ok, it has a golden crown and is up on a beautiful pedestal – it must be the ultimate vanilla cupcake! This blogger went through a lot of trouble to try different recipes and even involved readers in taste tests. I am definitely going to have to bake this one!

Monsters!

I love the look of these monsters – will have to blow the dust off my sewing machine!!!

So there you have it, a small sample of what I discovered this week on Pinterest – stay tuned for next week’s segment!