Pinterest: Productive or Procrastination?

I like to think of it as productive procrastination. If you don't know what Pinterest is (and it seems that the ignorant population is rapidly decreasing as the popularity of Pinterest has boomed in the past few months) I'll give you a brief rundown.

The best way I can think to describe Pinterest is that it's a visual organization of internet bookmarks. Some bookmarks, or pins, you create yourself. You can also search or browse through other people's pins by general category, such as DIY & Crafts, Food & Drink, Kids, Pets, Art... etc. When you run across someone else's pin (internet bookmark) that you like, you can "re-pin" it to your own page. Your personal page is divided into categories called "boards" that you create yourself. On my personal page I mainly pin to my crochet board and crafts for my kids board. I love this method of storing and organizing internet bookmarks. Previously I would bookmark a site from my internet browser, and then promptly forget about it, or forget what it was when I went back. If you want to create your own "pin", there's instructions on how to add the "pin it" button to your internet's bookmarks or favorites tab. While you're on the website, click your "pin it" button and select a thumbnail to display on your board. Add a caption describing the website or why you pinned it and select a board to display it on. Voila! Limitless inspiration at your fingertips.

The key is to not only pin every awesome idea you run across, but to actually FOLLOW THROUGH with them. I've been making a concerted effort to do more with my girls. I want to do more than get through the day, I want to have a fun day. The little crafts and play time ideas that I've run across through Pinterest have made this so much easier. Once I got into the habit of doing more, it wasn't such a chore when N wanted to pull out her watercolors or play doh.

Here's a few of the pins that I have completed!

 Cloud Dough from Play at Home Mom

Metamucil Flubber from about.com

Water Beads. These are actually squares in progress (we did both), but everything was squishy, slippery fun!

We put everything on the lightbox thanks to Play at Home Mom (again!)

Cute dress up butterfly wings adapted from My Poppet

It's not snot, it's home made hand soap!

8 complete crock pot meals, I'm so excited about this one!! I'm actually making my first one tomorrow morning. Yum! I especially love these recipes because they are heavy on the veggies, and super low fat.

I swear I do fun things with little D, too, but she's not as easy to photograph, haha! That girl doesn't stop moving, and if she sees the camera, she wants it. Bad. Anyway, I've been making it a point to accomplish more awesome with the wee ones, and Pinterest has been a good inspiration. A lot of the activities I've found use things that I already have around the house. Super handy!

I realized last week that my first blog was February 17th last year. Happy Birthday, Blog! I think I'll take the next few days to evaluate where I am and what I've accomplished during the last year. My head is definitely in a better place now than a year ago, and for that I'm glad. The girls are growing up (*sniff* *sniff*) and every day gets easier. I'm glad for everyone's support and all that mush, but I think I'll get into that next post. ;)

Little Girl's Sweater Dress Tutorial

A few months ago, I ran across a tutorial for a toddler's sweater dress here, at Smashed Peas and Carrots. This chick has a fabulous blog with lots of fun DIYs for the kids! When I decided to make a few for N, I discovered that I could simplify it by several steps and make a larger dress for a pre-schooler. It would also work as a tunic size for older kids.

I started with a goofy short sleeved sweater that I would never wear and found a dress that fit N well.

 Trim sweater on the sides, leaving 1/2" seam allowance.

Trim down arms to a little girl width. I left mine wider, so I didn't measure, but you can lay the dress' sleeves on top to get a measurement for the width and length. Since the sweater I used was short sleeved, I didn't have to worry about length. Make sure you follow the line of the original sleeve, rather than cut it off square.

Choose a stretchy stitch on your sewing machine. I have a Husqvarna Emerald, and it has a "stretchy" setting, so I used that. A simple zig zag stitch would work just fine, though.

Fold the sleeves so that they're inside out and pin the seam. When sewing, be sure to leave 1/2" unsewn at the armpit side to attach to the dress!

Turn the body of your sweater inside out and attach your arms. There are two ways to pin the arms on. You can leave them inside out and pin to the dress like Smashed Peas and Carrots did, or you can turn them right side out and lay them inside the dress to sew. I decided to try the latter this time, and I thought it worked out really well. I tried to take a good picture to illustrate what I did. Basically I lined up the edge of the arm with the edge of the dress and pinned from the inside of the arm.

It seemed a little less awkward for me to sew it this way, but either way works just fine. Start at the armpit and sew up, over the shoulder, and then back down to the armpit, rotating the sweater as you go.

Ta-daa! This is the finished arm and unfinished side seam. To sew the side seams, leave the dress inside out, pin the sides secure and just sew from armpit to the bottom hem! I always have a little hole in the armpits where the seams don't meet completely which I hand sew up with just a few stitches.

Here's a shot of the finished dress! I've found that sweaters are very forgiving, so you don't have to be too exact. I'm not a very good sewer, so I leave a wide seam allowance and then I go back to trim it up. Definitely give the original tutorial a look if anything's confusing.

N loved it and wore it to school the next day.

Haha, I can NOT get a serious picture out of this girl!

Nice and stretchy to play in.

OK, all done. Can we go outside?!