putting Pinterest to good use

I don't know if you have all discovered it or not, but not quite a year ago i joined the crazy addiction called

 .

for the first several months after discovering pinterest, i spent my evening hours "winding down" for bed, happily and rather obsessively "pinning" things on my pinterest boards. if you aren't familiar with pinterest, it is basically and online filing system. if you find a picture or article or idea that you like and think that you would like to remember in the future then you can "pin it" or file it away for later use. it is fun though because you can see what other people have "pinned" so you can "pin" their ideas as well. 

when i first heard about pinterest i didn't think that it would be something that i would really like that much. i mean, i have plenty of my own ideas, and i have google when i can't be quite creative enough... but once i finally decided to venture into this strange new craze called pinterest, i had a hard time finding my way back out of it. 

in fact, i spent SO much time "pinning" that i rarely found time to actually do any of the projects or make any of the recipes that i had pinned. after weeks and weeks of my online hoarding, i managed to get things into perspective and i started putting my pins to good use.

i followed this necklace tutorial:

pom-pom necklace tutorial

mine looked like this:

i made a bracelet out of an old t-shirt following this tutorial... {kind of}

braided t-shirt bracelet

this winter my husband and i had soup night on wednesday nights, so i was able to use many of the soup recipes that i had pinned. i blogged several of our favorites... though i have to admit that i inherited my mother's habit of changing every recipe before ever trying it the original way. we did find a couple new favorites on pinterest that didn't make the blog though.

italian wedding soup

buffalo chicken soup

 i found pinterest to be incredibly useful when i threw my very first Thirty-One

party 2 weeks ago.

If you haven't heard of thirty-one gifts, it is a company that has lots of really cute, very practical and affordable bags and organizing containers.
you can check them out here:
thirty-one catalog

i wanted to try some new appetizers and desserts for my party. i feel like i tend to fall back on the same familiar recipes for every event that comes along, so it was great to be able to just look through the recipes that i had "pinned" over the past few months and have lots of fun new options.

here are some of the fun recipes that i made for my party:

chicken wonton tacos

cheesy sausage wonton stars

antipasto kabobs

this recipe has been one of my favorites that my mom has made for years:

double decadent brownie torte

for christmas i received a williams-sonoma mini tart pan from my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. i had been waiting for an opportunity to use it, so i was very excited to try it out for the party.

i used the williams-sonoma crust recipe:

mini tart crust recipe

i made my very first lemon curd for in the tarts and i was really disappointed that it didn't set up right... so i will admit, i cheated and bought lemon curd.

and i have to admit that i was most excited to try out this punch recipe:

raspberry-pina colada punch

this claimed to be the only punch recipe that you will ever need.

it was very good, but i think that i will collect a few more. ;)

the party was SO much fun! and everyone seemed to enjoy the new snacks as much as i enjoyed making them (and i am once again indebted to my sweet mother for showing up early to help assemble the appetizers before the guests arrived. she is my hero when it comes to entertaining).

and finally, i have to share my very favorite pinterest moment.

my husband and i went to the beach to celebrate our first anniversary 2 weekends ago.

one afternoon it was rather cloudy, so we decided to do a little shopping. we walked past an adorable dress boutique. i glanced in the window and i stopped immediately!

i saw this dress:

  i had it pinned on pinterest about 3 months ago. i had tried to buy it then and it was out of stock, so i actually had determined that i was going to try to make it. i had thought about it many times in the last few weeks, so i was probably a little too excited to find it in that little boutique. 

my sweet husband insisted that i get it, and i was more than willing to comply. :)

hope that if you haven't yet discovered this fun little world called pinterest that you will check it out soon. and feel free to start following me. 

pinterest