Pinning It Down {7} Dryer Fire Safety

Click to see more!

OK, again, I wasn't planning on joining in this week, but when I saw this come up on Pinterest, this morning, well... I was kind of freaked out. Fire safety is something that I pay attention too. But especially fire safety advice that comes from a professional firefighter mom!

So, I pinned this link via Alice Cantrell to my "For the Home" board and immediately went to go clean my lint trap. I was fairly certain it needed to be cleaned. My kids do not always remember to clean it out after each load.

I was surprised that it wasn't as bad as I expected, but some definite beading action meant it needed to be washed.

I also pried up to top as recommended using the back of a spoon, no screwdriver necessary and discovered that things weren't as bad as I thought either underneath.

FYI... I did have to remove these two screws from the lint trap area in order to get the top open. Just in case your dryer is the same as mine.

There, now I feel better! Thanks Pinterest and the firefighter mom

 

Pinning It Down {6} Snap Crackle Pops!

Click here to see more!

There were so many beautiful Valentines Day boards out there, it was almost too hard to choose what to do! Let's do it all!!! No? Okay. How about just these...

After the kids finished their candlelight St. Valentine's Day breakfast, we started on the rest of the treats! Just like this fabulous tutorial from Lisa at Korean American Mommy, I made these yummy nummies out of rice krispie treats cut into an assortment of hearts with a candy coating.

I don't know if you can tell from the pictures, but I didn't dip the large hearts in chocolate. Instead, I used the candy melts to just coat one side. I didn't want to risk them coming off the end of the lollipop stick. (And I also noticed that the tiny hearts looked more like heart shaped blobs after I dipped them.) Once they were firmed up, I used a zip plastic bag with the corner snipped off to create the delicate mesh like lines. The trick to lines like these is a very tiny hole in the corner of the bag and a fast side to side almost scribbling like motion with you hand. (You remember how to scribble, right? : )Don't worry if you dribble on the waxed paper underneath. When the candy sets up, some of the lines will still be attached making for a really cool effect!

Sunshine said, "They look so elegant!" Elegant Rice Krispie treats? Who knew?

P.S. I had originally pinned this idea from a different website. It wasn't until I was putting this post together that I realized that it was just a "hey, look at all these fabulous ideas we found but didn't actually do ourselves " kind of website. That kind of annoys me, even if they do give credit to the original post. So, I deleted that pin and instead pinned the original post.

Pinning It Down {5} Tiny Baby Owls

Click to see more!

Thank you for all of your kind words. I am on the mend and doing much better dealing with the mastitis. I wasn't planning on participating this week, but since Sarah is and she has a much better reason for skipping (come on baby girl!) I picked something easy (and tiny) to pin down for this week. Although that avocado chicken salad Sarah made looks amazing and will just have to be made as soon as possible.

Look at this cute little baby owl! Seeing it elicited a collective "AWWWWWWW!" from three of my kids (big manly fourteen year old boys only say "awwwwww" when playing with their baby sister). I want to make one in every color yarn I have. I want to make a whole parliament of owls. (Did you know a group of owls is called a parliament? I didn't.) It's so cute!!! Shortcake already claimed this one for her backpack. Oh well... I guess I'll just have to make some more!

 

Pinning It Down {4} Baby Book of Colors

Click to see more!

I didn't think I'd get this one finished in time for this week's link-up, but a baby who took a super long nap, then stayed up way too late plus a patient husband who loves playing with silly-happy-I'm-not-tired-babies all worked together to help me make this happen.

I have been itching to make something for Cupcake lately. You crafty types know what I'm talking about. It's almost compulsive! Well, since I don't have the yarn I need for a blanket I have in mind, I turned my attention to this beautiful soft book of colors, because fabric scraps I have plenty of!

I was woefully lacking in oranges and yellows (guess they're not exactly my favorite colors) so rather than a rainbow theme like Baby Finn's book in the tutorial, I made just a book of colors and called it....

One thing I did different--- when you are ready to stitch the batting to the layered squares in step 6, I didn't just stitch the top, right side and bottom. I also stitched the corners on the left side, just about an inch each, so that there was still an open space to turn it inside out but the corners were already done. 

As you can see, she really likes it! She's already read it, touched it, and chewed on it which is the equivalent of 2 thumbs up in baby speak. 

Her sisters had a ball with remembering where all the little scraps of color came from. 

A quiltie for a cousin, an Easter dress sash, a nightie gown, even a pair of pajama bottoms are in there.

Sleepy tired serious faced baby!

I used some adorable cupcake fabric that my SIL decorated her table with for Cupcake's baby shower for the cover. I have never made a quilt square before. Maybe a crazy quilt square wasn't the smartest one to start off with but I think I got the hang of it after a awhile. You'll notice that some pages are less crazy than others. Other than that, it was fairly easy.

Hey... speaking of stitching and fabric... did you sign up for the giveaway in the post below?

Pinning It Down {3}: Tin Bins

Click to see more!

Easy peasy organizing going on today. Altoid tin organizing bins! Just the perfect size for a label and holding some doodads in the junk drawer. (Oh good grief. First, I showed you my garage, now my junk drawer. What is wrong with me?)

Altoids are medicinal around here especially during allergy season, which in Texas lasts from January to November. Nothing induces a couple of cleansing sneezes like chewing an Altoid. Unfortunately, I had tossed a big pile of these helpful bins before I saw this great idea. So, I took the few I had and started using them.  I don't have a label maker so I just printed these on the computer and secured them with clear packing tape. I hope to add more later.

Bye now!
 

Pinning It Down {2}: Ribbon Organization

Click the button to see more!

I hadn't planned on participating every week in Sarah and Pam's link-up, just a few here and there when I could manage it, but it has been so motivationally inspiring that I just couldn't help myself. Plus this was an easy one (and I actually accomplished it a few weeks ago...shhhhh!).

I was excited by so many common sense ideas in this post that I pinned the whole thing and will probably come back to it multiple times. The wrapping paper on the ceiling idea got me thinking and looking for clever ways to store my ribbon rolls which led me to this post which got me so fired up that I jumped up to go do it without pinning it first (so I did that just now). Tee hee!

Well, combining the two ideas, here is my Pinning It Down offering for this week. It's a weird angle, I know. Imagine you have just opened the door to my garage and then looked up:

One rod for curling ribbon and one for fabric ribbon. 

OK... I cannot believe I just showed you a picture of my garage ceiling. Well, it's the little entryway into the garage, but still, it's in the garage! But that's where my craft closet is and that's where it will have to stay as long as the rooms are full of little people (and not so little people). I can live with that! :)

OH... I used two tension rods that I had sitting in my closet. One of them was thicker so I put the curling ribbon on it and one was thinner but it was still too thick for some of the really tiny ribbon rolls. We found (the girls helped me) that if you cut slits in the holes of the cardboard ends of the ribbon rolls, you could push those flaps in and make the hole big enough to slide onto the tension rod. Just FYI!
 

Pinning It Down {1}

I have been trying to love Pinterest, really I have but I just couldn't do it. I didn't understand why. I am a very visual person. It's a totally visual medium. Should be a match made in Heaven. I saw so many of my sweet friends loving it, making boards and pinning stuff left and right and here I was totally stressed out by it. "Oh well," I thought, "it's just not for me!"

Then Sarah came along and suddenly it made sense. The reason I couldn't get into it... if I don't think there is a darn good chance that I'm going to use it, reference it, make it or purchase it in a reasonable amount of time, then to me, "pinning it on a board" just becomes visual clutter and being a visual person, excessive visual clutter stresses me out. You might say, "But it's virtual visual clutter, not actual visual clutter," and you'd be in right in your mind... just not in mine. (No comments about me not being in my right mind!: ) I am sure most people don't have this weird hang up. 

Anyway, when Sarah and Pam came up with "Pinning It Down" I thought... I can do this! I can pin things that I really do want to accomplish or plan to accomplish. The added goal of blogging it and participating in a linky is just bonus motivation! So here we go...

I figured... start with something easy. A recipe! Australian Crash Hot Potatoes. Here it is, on my Pinboard, and here it is in my kitchen!

BTW... they were so incredibly amazing that my oldest asked to add them to his birthday menu plans at the end of this month. 

Yeah. 

THAT good!