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Posts Tagged ‘Pinterest’

Inspired…Again

It turned out to be a snowy night.  I have myself seated on the deep plum-colored velveteen couch in the room I call the East Wing.  I can see the snow falling through lace curtains, mocking the beginnings of my “spring” cleaning and the wish to hang laundry on the clothesline.  By morning the ground will be white…again.

But what’s the use of complaining about weather?  There’s nothing we can do about it, so we might as well find some comfort in it.  In the cozy cocoon of the East Wing I decided to conduct a review of my Pinterest boards.  There’s stuff there I forgot all about and opening those links it made it feel like Christmas (especially with the snow falling outside!), unwrapping each treasure as if it were new.

I have a piano in my parlor that I don’t use much.  What do you think of transforming it into something like this?

An old upright piano transformed into some useful storage space. Ingenious! *photo by Tomorrow’s Antiques*

How about this display for my hand-poured beeswax taper candles?

Stoneware, crochet thread, pearls and beeswax. What a lovely vignette! *photo by Tarnished Royalty*

Of course you can’t forget to pin some inspiring recipes.  This Onion Fried Chicken recipe was a real winner with Husby and me.  And it isn’t fried at all!

A savory chicken dish from Taste Of Home *photo by Taste Of Home*

So tonight, as the wind blows and the ground is refreshed with yet another covering of cold, wet snow I’ll sit in my little East Wing, get re-inspired, and start fresh tomorrow.

I don’t obsessively pin things on Pinterest, but if you’d like to see what inspires me you can find my boards here.

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Pinning!

I’m serious now.  I’m going to start cooking for me and Husby more than I have been for the last many years.  You see, Husby took over the cooking one year when I was especially mental about upcoming craft shows.  That was before I had the planning and production down to a tee.  But since then I’ve let him do all the cooking.  All…of…the…cooking.  Like the poor guy doesn’t have a life of his own.

So with this glorious week I’ve had off work I’ve been scouring the interlinks finding recipes that are day-job-friendly and am pinning like mad for my own quick reference.  There are a lot of recipes for two, which makes a lot of sense for me and Husby.  For those recipes that make enough for an army, I can take some over to my parents’ house so my mom doesn’t have to think up things to make, as she’s had to do for the past fifty-five-plus years.

If you’d like to see what I’ve been pinning on Pinterest, check out my Stirring Up Goodness board.  If you don’t have an account there, sign up already!  It’s free!

I mostly use Pinterest for my own personal use, not so much as a social media platform.  But seriously, if you want to find good stuff, Pinterest is the place to find it.  Stuff, stuff, and more stuff.  Ideas galore.  Recipes to die for.  Craft projects.  Redecorating ideas.

Go for it!

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One of my favorite things to do in my business is going out to festivals and shows to display and sell my wares.  There is no substitute for genuine and spontaneous responses to my products.  Responses can range from boisterous laughter at a magnet to a sneer of distaste at the sniff of a candle.  The opposite can be true too ~ some people look at the magnets with blank stares, not relating at all to my sometimes warped sense of humor, yet will ooh and ah over candle scents.  All feedback is valuable.  But there’s a new response in town, one that wasn’t around when I first started doing shows over fifteen years ago.

Picture-taking admirers. They loved the magnets but didn’t realize a real person made them and deserves the consideration of getting permission to take a picture. *

I’m not the only one who has witness people taking pictures at my craft booth.  Just last week I talked to a woman who hand-painted sayings on colorful sign boards and she said the picture-taking public is starting to get on her nerves.  I’m kind of on her side.

Could it be that I’m getting too old to appreciate the high-tech nature of our society?  In this age of Instagram is it unreasonable to expect people would refrain from taking photos of the hard work of artisans without bothering to buy that work, much less acknowledge the artisan him/herself?  Will our work serve only to fill up the boards on Pinterest while our pockets grow lighter from lack of sales?  After all, why buy something when you can just take a picture of it?

What do you think?  Is it too much to expect someone to at least ask of they can take a picture?  Do you think this photo-snapping behavior is acceptable, especially at the expense of artists’ and crafters’ livelihood?  Should it be flattering that someone wants to share our work with their hundreds of Facebook friends?  Or should we have our guard up against copy cats and cheapskates?

* For the record, the above-pictured picture taker did in fact buy a magnet, but only after I confronted him. 

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The Inspiration

I use Pinterest as a filing system.  I hope that’s why it was invented because it works really well.  The internet is filled with craft ideas, recipes, household tips and all sorts of other things I’m interested in.  When I see something I like I’ll “pin” it and pretty much forget it.  Until that one day when I decide to remind myself of all the things I pinned.  Then I get all inspired and eager to try something new, or sometimes even buy something new. I found some cute little chocolate/pretzel Easter treats on the internet a long time ago and pinned them.

When the Easter season rolled around I decided to try to make them.  After all, someone else did the hardest part of thinking of the idea.  I just had to execute the already brilliant idea.  The original recipe said to use yellow candy melts for the fill, edible black pearls for the eyes, and orange chocolate-covered sunflower seeds for the beak.  I used vanilla almond bark tinted with yellow food color for the fill and for the eyes and beak I used decorating gel.  I also didn’t look at the picture before I started painting on the eyes and beaks so I didn’t have the embellishments in the right position on the pretzel.   The results made me laugh out loud.

Eyelashes?

Quite sad.

Very serious.

As singular little chicks they didn’t look quite right and I just kept laughing and laughing.  My little chicks looked much better when they were in a group.  You could kind of tell a little better what they were supposed to be.

I took my little Easter chick treats to my mom and dad’s house for Easter.  They were received with great enthusiasm, even though I didn’t do it exactly like they were shown on the site I pinned because 1) I made a treat from scratch that beared a slight resemblance to an Easter icon and 2) everyone in my family loves chocolate and pretzels no matter what they look like.

I hope your Easter was a happy one and that your sugar coma is short-lived.

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It’s All The Rage

By now you’ve probably heard of a little thing called Pinterest.  I recently joined and I still don’t understand all of the nuances, but can clearly see how a person can get addicted.  It’s an entire universe of ideas, videos, photos and websites in a format we in the older generation would equate with Reader’s Digest condensed books.  It’s a virtual bulletin board that can hold an infinite number of thumb-tacked reminders, without the thumb tacks.

With Twitter and Facebook I pretty much have my hands full with the whole social network thing.  I’ve decided to make Pinterest my own.  Except for the one little board I call Auntie B’s Wax Featured Items, which is a small sampling of what I have to offer in my Etsy shop to anyone who’s interested, I’m pinning things for my own reference and enjoyment without regard to impressing anyone else.  I’m not pinning to win friends and followers, i.e. racking up the big numbers; however, I’m hooking up with people I think have impeccable taste, cool DIY projects or great things to sell.  For me, Pinterest isn’t about who’s hot, it’s about finding things that are awesome to me.

In the interest of being a well-rounded blogger I’ve added a Pin It button at the bottom of my posts, as well as a Follow Me On Pinterest button on my sidebar.  You won’t, however, find every single thing I pin posted as a status update or a tweet.  My pinning is limited to Pinterest and will not spread to Facebook or Twitter.

I’m looking forward to increasing my knowledge of Pinterest and finding out all it has to offer.  I’m also look forward to having enough time to add to my boards and incorporate some of the “pins” into my life, home, and business.

Got some great boards you want me to see?  Let me know, because I really like cool stuff.

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