Pintastic? Not so much...

My name is Anne and I'm a Pinterest junkie.  I have spent many hours mindlessly, blissfully scrolling through page after page of recipes, home decor, crafts, nail polish art and hairstyles that would make Frederic Fekkai jealous...that is if anyone could REALLY do that shit.

I will say that I have found MANY useful things on Pinterest, for example did you know that if you cut up a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and drop a few pieces in your toilet that bald headed genius cleans that shit for you (literally)?     Or the perfect way to hang a picture is to use painters tape to line up the holes?  Amazing...my walls no longer look like a firing squad went ballistic in my living room.

I have found fantastic recipes as well.  Cake batter pancakes?  Hell to the yeah bitches!!  Salted caramel pretzel bark?  Sweet baby Jesus...if you haven't tried that there is something fundamentally wrong with you.  Not even kidding.  I mean seriously, if a recipe calls for TWO STICKS of butter you know it has to be fanfuckingtastic.  I love you all SO much I'll share the link because you need to make this.  And eat it all.  Immediately.  And then make more and send it to me.  It's almost my birthday.  And you love me.  Trust me. If you aren't already on your way to the store I'm a little pissed off.

But for each fabulously useful or delicious thing I've found, I've stumbled across ten times as many things that did not bring me to a near orgasmic state.  Quite the opposite in fact.  I'll admit I've looked a few things and wondered who the hell could REALLY do that or make that?  But then logic is brushed aside by pure stubbornness because if anyone can do it goddammit, it'll be ME.  I'll show all of those naysayers and make my fingernails look like an argyle covered work of art while braising a pork tenderloin, making no sew pillows for my couch, and creating breathtaking wall art for my baby's nursery...while breastfeeding...and doing a needlepoint...and mod podging SOMETHING. Yeah, not so much...

Here I am going to share with you some of my most epic Pinterest fails...the ones that I'm willing to admit to, anyway...

Homemade ice cream in a baggie...

Yeah, I should have run for the hills as soon as I realized exactly WHAT needed to happen with this here recipe.  BUT I was gigantically pregnant (and clearly oxygen was not flowing to my brain properly) we had just moved, my kids were bored out of their ever loving minds, and I wanted to spend quality time with my kids before spawn #4 arrived.  All of the above = recipe for disaster.

I should have just called a halt to proceedings when the 7 year old insisted that HE be the one to pour the half and half into the first ziploc.  Bet you can guess how THAT turned out huh?  Good thing I bought two containers of half and half.  So the 11 year old poured while the 7 year old mopped up the floor and bitched about how life isn't fair, homemade ice cream sucks, why can't we just go to McDonalds, and that mom is the devil (not certain about that part but sure sounded like it)  So THEN the 4 year old said she wanted to get the ice...well, she has a hard enough time getting ice out of the ice maker and into a cup so getting it into a floppy, uncooperative plastic bag was soooooooo not gonna happen.  But I was too fat, cranky, hot and miserable to fight her and we were having bonding time dammit.  So fast forward to 48 bazillion ice cubes all over the floor...so now I have a crying 4 year old standing in a puddle, a bitching 7 year old on his hands and knees basically just pushing half and half everywhere, and the 11 year old standing over them laughing.  I SHOULD have just called a halt to the project right then and there.  But we were fucking bonding and I was going to make homemade ice cream with my babies dammit. WITH SPRINKLES  And then came the shaking...well, if you put three children together and shaking a giant ziploc bag full of liquid is the activity of choice OF COURSE they are going to fight over it and OF COURSE the fucking bags are going to explode in the ensuing battle.  So does homemade ice cream actually turn out?  No idea...my floors are STILL sticky and the 7 year old was grinning ear to ear as I handed out cones from McDonalds.

Handprint family tree...
                        

SO cute, right?  Yeah...not the one we did.  It looked like my children were having seizures just as they were pressing their hands onto the paper.  OR have giant man-hands.  Or both.  We ended up with Godzilla-esque, rainbow smears across our family tree.  I figured that the end result would lead people to question our DNA even further so it never made it into the frame.

DIY ruffled baby shoes...
                                         

TO.DIE.FOR.CUTENESS.  I gasped when I found this one.  And rubbed my giant belly and smiled blissfully at the thoughts of my sweet baby girl toddling around in the precious little shoes that I would make for her.  I would make her some in every color, of every fabric, to match every little outfit hanging in her closet...with bows, and buttons, and flowers.  Let me just say that I MAKE CLOTHES FOR OTHER PEOPLE.  They PAY ME to sew for them.  I should have had this one nailed, right?  Something went horribly, terribly wrong.  Epically wrong (is that a word?  it should be...fuck you red squiggly line spell check)  They were not the cute itty bitty samplings of ruffly goodness you see posted above.  Mine would have fit perfectly...if my little princess had been born with 12 inch wide, webbed, flipper feet. Thankfully she was not...

Rainbow Pinwheel Cookies...
                          

When Dr. Seuss' birthday rolled around, I thought these would be SO cute for my daughter to bring in to share with her preschool class, along with a copy of The Lorax.  These are so very Seussical and mine were going to look EXACTLY.LIKE.THAT  I was going to be THAT mom...the one who walks in with my rainbow pinwheel cookies on a plate and triumphantly present them to the children who will jump around me cheering and shouting my name.  Luckily I did not tell the preschooler of my plans because they failed.  Epically so. (used it twice so now it's totally a word)  I wish I had taken a picture, but in hindsight it's probably for the best.  They were unappetizing piles of discolored turds.  Mine were not the perfectly coiled, twirled, and sprinkled puffs of color.  Mine looked like a unicorn had snacked on a Care Bear and then shit the whole mess out onto a cookie sheet and threw on some sprinkles for good measure.  Not pretty.  And if you know anything about colors, you know that all of the above colors mixed together do NOT make anything appealing, further solidifying the shit-like resemblance.  So I COULD have brought them in along with the book "Everybody Poops" but I didn't think that her teachers would appreciate that.

I have had other disasters that would make Betty Crocker and Martha Stewart cringe in horror.  Painting nails in a checkerboard pattern is NOT that easy, not all cute little mod-podged, be-ribboned, buttoned frames turn out quite so attractive (unless you tell people the preschooler made it...THEN it's adorable), certain homemade sauces are NOT meant to look like curdled, spoiled baby formula, it IS possible to burn off your own fingerprints, I won't tell you about the hairstyle I tried on my 11 year old...we're still waiting for the bald spot to grow back in, and if a project LITERALLY has your blood, sweat, and tears all over it...don't hang it on your wall.  I'm just proud of myself for actually trying some of the things I've pinned.  I've spent hours upon hours upon hours on pinterest (great way to pass the time during a 3 am feeding) and I feel like I should have something to show for it.  So while many projects have failed miserably, it's not going to stop me from wasting hours of my life pinning things, ideas, and recipes that may or may not EVER happen.  So here's to Pinterest, all of the time I've wasted pinning, and the projects that made me feel horribly worthless and inept aren't going to keep me down.  Pin on and someday I WILL find success...