Pinteresting

Here's a job I would like: Pinteresting. I would sit at the computer uninterrupted for an hour each morning, with a chilled Diet Coke and some delightful carb by my side, and pin things on Pinterest. Maybe I could be trusted with an important client project like "Pin all the best ideas for a nautical themed birthday party for a two year-old boy" or perhaps I would just be so admired as a pinner that I could pin and categorize whatever struck my fancy. Then, I'd go about my day as usual, taking care of the kids, doing school pick-up, heading to the park, making lunches, etc. At around 1:00 p.m., after Sweet P goes down for her nap, someone would come in and clean up the kitchen and family room, transition the laundry and occupy the boys for about ninety minutes while I got out my glue gun, paint, oil drip pan (yes, really), and ribbon and got to town turning my Pinterest dreams into realities. Actually, since I won't be beaten down by the thrice daily tidying of the kitchen, I will have the patience to let the boys join me in Pinteresting.

Some of you are nodding your heads like, "Oh, yes, I hear you MEP. I also am addicted to Pinterest and want to apply for a job as a pinner too."

Others are all, "What the hell is Pinterest?"

It's an online home for every recipe, design idea, craft project, gorgeous photograph, handy tip, inspiring quotation, or party plan you've ever been tempted to rip out of a magazine (and obsessively sort and save in binders you rarely open -- wait, that might just be me). Since all the cool stuff is there, you just "pin it" on virtual boards in categories of your choice. If your friends are on Pinterest, you can see what they're pinning and "repin" their cool finds. I love seeing what my friends pin and it makes me happy to think that so many people are seeking inspiration and outlets for creativity.

So, here's a recent example of Pinteresting at Casa MEP.

I repinned a friend's link to this template for a beautiful thumbprint tree, intended to be a wedding guestbook (guests place thumbs in ink to make leaves for the tree). The tree was meant to be printed out large-scale, but I cropped the image (did not need the text on bottom for my project) and pasted it into a word document and sized it as I wished.

I then threw the ink pads on the kitchen table and said, "Go to town, peeps!" Ha! I hovered a bit and strongly suggested they not use the blue ink and only the purple very sparingly because "don't we want our trees to look Fall-like and beautiful?"

Luckily, the boys ignored me and did their own thing.
Bub made a fist and pressed the whole side of his hand on the ink pad to create a flaming maple type effect. Love it.
Little Bit used the same fist trick and was drawn to the very blue and purple ink I had strongly suggested they avoid. The result -- a lovely, twilight effect behind his tree.
Sweet P needed a little help getting her small digits pressed into the ink far enough, but she caught on and enjoyed herself.
I typed each child's name and the season and year before printing. I think if I did it again though, I'd have handwritten those details in the corner to make the trees seem more like the pieces of beautiful art that they are.
I loved the final result so much that I popped them into some inexpensive frames from Michael's and cleaned off the mantle so I could display them.

New plan is to come up with a creative take on Thanksgiving and then Christmas to rotate into the frames. I think I might stick with digit prints for now and will, of course, search Pinterest for ideas. It will be tough though, to switch things out, because looking at the autumn fingerprint trees is making me so, so happy.

What about you? Do you Pinterest?

And, what are you waiting for? Follow the link above to the tree template and get cracking!