Pinworks

 I'd bet most of you are familiar with Pinterest, that website of inspiration that can make you feel eternally crafty or woefully inadequate at all things...life. What started as a place to gather ideas and useful information has evoleved into a mecca of food, craft, style and humor that ranges from innocent photos of sleeping babies to obscene references to Justin Beiber. (Which may be totally justified. We're not here to debate that, though.) Like any popular site on the web, however, it has gone from great idea links (still some) to 'how can I lure people away from the good stuff and shove my crap into their cookies so I can rake up big hits and maybe plant a virus' links. Photography wizards post beautiful pictures of yummy food or cool crafts and you are intrigued. Awesome captions and frequent use of the words 'simple', 'easy', or 'quick' lure us into a false sense of "I can do this!" And so you pin and plan to have the most incredibly decorated house with the yummiest dishes at the fantastic themed party and won't that just put Martha Stewart in her place!
 But do you ever try any of the stuff you pinned? Lately, I've been reading a couple of blogs that are devoted to 'testing' popular pins and seeing how well they turn out. I enjoy the humor, although often the language is a bit off-putting and I especially enjoy it when a pin proves disastrous. I guess that's the cynic in me that wants to say--"See? I'm not lazy-- I just never tried it 'cause I knew that wouldn't work...".  Actually, the more pins I read, the easier it gets to pick out the phonies and I don't even bother with them. Like this one for baked apples:

                         Even a culinary catastrophe like me can tell those apples are not baked.
But then there are projects that are appealing enough to think--"Hey, that's cool and I don't think I need to even look at the original directions to make it!" Like this:

 I was immediately drawn to it because:
1. It's a rainbow;
2. Even Jacie wanted to make one right away and
3.-- It's. A. RAINBOW. I am a sucker for most things rainbow.
 So we bought a two-pack of 16 X 20 canvasses on sale at A.C. Moore, a bunch of crayons at the back-to-school sales, tacky glue and commenced our projects. We played with different layouts, glued the crayons in place and let them dry. Jacie asked to put a caption on hers. I thought it a great idea so I stole it. So, after a lovely warm evening on our front steps with our only hair dryer going for about an hour, we were left with these works of art:

                                                 Jacie's caption reads " live life in color".

   Mine. The caption is from the Harry Chapin song "Flowers are Red". This song is why I love rainbows.

 

Jacie and her art. Don't tell her I 'showed her off'.

 

It's a Pin-Win! Go for it. But look for a real baked apple recipe for your baked apples and ice cream.