Pinterest Envy

I rarely peruse the "kids" section of Pinterest because it makes me feel like my kids are under-stimulated cave children who eat anything they get their hands on (I mean you really let your 18 month old play in a "sensory tub" filled with beans and you're NOT doing the Heimlich every 20 seconds? And edible play dough?  Remind me why we are encouraging eating art media again?).

But today, while everyone was napping, I found myself bored with the "food and drinks" section, so I hopped on over to "kids."  I got all excited to do messless finger paint with the kids and to practice their fine motor skills by putting stuff into other stuff.  So this is what our fun play time looked like before they got up from naps.



Then Little Sister got up first and immediately tried to open the Ziploc bags full of finger paint.  I couldn't find any tape to close them with, so that idea ended right there.  She did enjoy, however, putting straws into a milk jug.

And then Lila got up.  The game quickly turned into how quickly can you dump all the straws out and then leave the room and go upstairs so that mom has to clean it up.

I think I'll stick with looking at Christmas decorations.

20:1

Last night during an fabulously unexpected visit from Johnny's cousin Shana and her husband Tommy, Shana and I were discussing how much time we spend on Pinterest.  I decided that for about every twenty things I pin, I actually do about one of them.  Here's the one for this week.

I saw this pin a few days ago and thought to myself, "Hey I have a bulletin board and some burlap left over from this Christmas tree skirt (another Pinterest pin).  I should make that!"  Well it turns out that I didn't have as much burlap as I thought, so I decided to use some other fabric instead.  And here is how it turned out:

The bulletin board was free because it was a cast off from Johnny's work.  All of the fabric was free because  it was just scraps from other projects, and the upholstery nails cost $3.  I love me some cheap projects.

I just pulled the fabric around the bulletin board, stapled it to the back, and hammered in the upholstery nails.  Those little suckers were the hardest part because they kept bending every time I tried to hammer them.  I believe it was an operator error, however, because my arm muscles and aim are seriously lacking.

I tacked and stapled two pieces of burlap to either side of the top, tied it in a bow, and hung it on a nail.

Add a few pictures, and baddabing baddaboom, instant bulletin board.