In the beginning of my lurid affair with Pinterest, I used to use it to save pretty images. It was a virtual scrapbook. I would use the images as inspiration for projects. At some point though, Pinterest changed and it became this great hive of tutorials on just about every subject imaginable. Pinterest has become so helpful that it is my most used app on my phone, way ahead of F.book or even my photo editing apps.
Here are my Top 10 favorite pins for your enjoyment:
1. This pin came from The Amateur Gourmet and is her “Best Broccoli” tutorial. I was so intrigued that I pinned it and made it the same day. Now, many times, Pinterest recipes are a dud. This was a smash, out of the park hit. Justin declared it to be good enough to feed guests. That says a lot. I agree. I made no changes from the original.
2. These are Ergo carrier drool covers for the straps. I know that I just lost 1/2 of you with that last sentence. I found a great tutorial for how to make your own at Lu Bird Baby.
The Ergo is a baby carrier that I put Audrey in when we are just doing regular house stuff. I am a huge fan of baby wearing and wore Audrey in a wrap or carrier just about every day during my maternity leave. (I really think that is why she is such a chill baby now.) Anyway…babies love to chew and drool on the straps and instead of having to wash the entire carrier after each wearing, you snap these cute little straps on and when you are done, you throw them in the wash. Huge time saver!
See…she’s always smiling and check out those drool covers!
3. Next up, another head scratcher for all of you non-Moms out there, Lactation Cookies from Rumble In the Kitchen!! You can just skip to the next one if you would like, go ahead. I don’t mind. Okay, for those of you who hung around, these things are a life saver.
I’ve made these a few times now to get my supply back up after being sick and for a new mom friend returning to work. They get it done! My changes from the original: more chocolate chips, some cocoa powder, coconut flakes and up-ing the amounts of ground flax meal and brewer’s yeast. You won’t taste the flax or the brewer’s yeast in the recipe. Even though they will not, I repeat, will NOT make you lactate if you are a guy, I could not get Justin to try one. Oh well, more for me.
4. I’ve had a sewing machine since high school and I can only recall a handful of times that I’ve actually used it. One of those times was to make an adult sized bear costume for Halloween when I was a senior in college. (Clearly I never got the memo about how Halloween costumes were supposed to be “sexy”.) Making the bear suit required me to buy a pattern and actually follow it. Apparently I had sewing machine amnesia because as soon as that project was done, I completely forgot that I knew how to sew and put the sewing machine away for almost a decade (wow, I’m getting old).
Seeing all the great stuff on Pinterest lead me to Dwell on Joy’s sewing 101, which had just the right amount of info to jog my memory and get me sewing again.
5. Do you have any idea how much clothing people give you when you have a child? I honestly had no clue. If, as an adult, you had this much clothing, you would need several walk in closets to accommodate it all. Thankfully, because everything is so wee and adorable, you can fit it. Keeping it all organized, well, that’s a whole other story. As you may remember from our closet makeover a few weekends ago, we made a lot of headway in the battle of cute outfits. That still hasn’t put a dent in Audrey’s dresser situation. Baby Deco came through with a great pin showing how you could take the Ikea dresser organizing bins and use them to sort out your onesies from your leggings.
As soon as I have some free time (HA HA), I’ll be back to Ikea to pick up this set.
I worry that when you come over my house, you can smell that I have dogs. There, I said it. I don’t ever want to be that house that smells. We do a lot of vacuuming and we run an air purifier 24/7 to hopefully keep our olfactory systems happy, so layering in some soft smells (not masking, laaaayering) is the name of our game. These two Pinterest tutorials have been great for that and they both get A+ for not filing my house with pretty smelling chemicals.
6. Holy Cricket is up first with their great tutorial on how to turn your old plug-in air fresheners into a healthy and safe essential oil defuser. I haven’t tried this one yet, but plan on tackling it this weekend or one night after Audrey goes to sleep. I’m planning on doing a lemon/grapefruit combo for one and maybe a peppermint for another.
7. Next up, my favorite, stink pots. Wait, I don’t think they are actually called stink pots, but in a very literal way, that’s kind of what they are. This pin had some great recipes. I don’t go too nuts with these guys, I take some orange peel, some apple peels, cinnamon and water. The same pot will last for weeks if you re-fill with water as needed.
A word of caution if you have “dudes” in your home, you need to warn them that it is not edible. How evolution has managed to keep the male half of the species alive is beyond me sometimes.
8. When I was in my INSANE nesting phase of pregnancy, I knew that if I didn’t cook and freeze enough meals that we would surely starve to death and die. Clearly I was a bit…hormonal and perhaps…crazy, but I sure did appreciate having a freezer stockpiled with easy to prepare stuff. In our house, Justin does most of the cooking of dinner these days and he has done an amazing job. What helps though is doing meal planning.
From the Test Kitchen Of Melissa Fallis, I pinned her Freezer cooking #2 tutorial. From that pin, I made a ton of meals and am a forever devotee to making twice baked potatoes in bulk and freezing those suckers. We had enough twice baked potatoes to make it through the first 5 weeks of maternity leave and they were delicious and super easy to reheat. I love you Melissa Fallis, I love you hard.
9. I feel like an amazing super woman when I make my own bread. It is a feeling similar to Tom Hanks “I made fire” moment in Castaway. I MADE BREEEEEAD! I don’t know why. I just do.
This great pin from Make and Takes was my first foray into bread making. It was a deeply satisfying experience. The bread was delicious and I would definitely make it again.
10. This last one was kick in the pants reminder pin just for me. I love being gossipy and it is such a bad habit. Instead of discussing events, I love to talk people, regular people, celebrity people, family people. It is a hard habit to break but I’m working on it and I keep this pin around to remind me. Be better, Kate.
So there you go. My Pinterest TOP Ten. What are some of your favorite pins?
-Kate
