Pin 44- oatmeal #fail

Friends, I love oatmeal! After multiple attempts of trying different kinds... I'm on board!
I've also been very into my crock-pot lately.. things have gotten busy. This leads me to--

Pin 44-
Kelly & I eat breakfast at different times, and we both like a hot breakfast on a cold day. I found this pin; of apple dump oatmeal and thought it would be perfect. I went and bought apples, and prepped everything. It was easy to follow with minimal ingredients. I opened the pin completely, and there were no additional instructions. I was worried about using 4 cups of water, but on first time recipes I always follow instructions exactly. With some hesitation, I went to bed to let this cook overnight.

Excited to try the oatmeal the next morning, I woke up and was surprised that the kitchen didn't smell like cinnamon and apples. I opened the lid and the oatmeal looked watery and the sides of the crock-pot were burnt. I scooped it in a bowl took a bite and really disliked it. It was bland, watery, mushy and even with stirring and re-cooking for awhile there was no saving the oatmeal. The photo below is what I made and looks identical to the pin photo.. but wasn't tasty at all.

Keep your fingers crossed for a successful pin next week!

Day 43- greeting card organization

First up-- I'm going to switch to Pin Numbers instead of "Day 43." We'll be doing a pin-a-week starting today! The next entry will be Pin 44.

Next-- Here's how the shirt from Day 40 came out:

The spot is still on the bottom right and noticable. I'm going to try my regular stain remover next and see what happens.


And now.. Day 41.

Friends, I couldn't bring myself to complete today's project! I set all my items up and with the demonstration pin. Here's the pin and the directions ( that bind cards together with a binder ring), but I was using cards I've had even from my 15th birthday. I began to read the cards and realized that some of the hand written notes inside would get a hole through the writing. Some of these were from my grandma who's passed away and I just couldn't hole punch threw her words! I have the cards organized in a bag by event and then in chronological order and decided to keep them this way. They are still organized and I can read every word. Here they are all nice and sealed in a a Ziploc :)

Days 41 & 42- cleaning paint brushes & cooking stain

Day 41-
On a spring cleaning binge I found paint brushes that hadn't been cleaned properly. There were two brushes- one that was a mess and another that wasn't too terrible. I took a BEFORE photo here:

I have this pin that says to soak the brushes in vinegar for 30 minutes and they will come out like new. Here's the AFTER photo my friends. How do you think these look?

Day 41, fail. I wound up tossing the yellow paint brush but salvaged the other.



Day 42-
I loved the grilled cheese pin for day 40 so much I made it today for Kelly. While I was doing this I somehow got a giant grease stain on my new shirt! NEW! I saw this pin that says to apply chalk directly to the stain. I did just that and the shirt is currently in the wash. I'll post a photo tomorrow of the end result.. but here's out the stain looked before the wash:

Alright my loyal readers, we're switching to a pin a week. My schedule is going to pick up and I'm likely going to be posting one accomplished pin on Monday's.

Happy pinning :)

Days 39 & 40- confetti and grilled cheese

Day 38 stretches helped! They aren't magical stretches, but they did relieve some of the pain. I did more of them today and my shoulders feel more relaxed.

Onto day 39! I've seen quite a few pins on how to reuse paint chips to make confetti. There's an example here.  I'm trying out different wedding colors ( leaning toward yellow and green) and bought a Martha Stewart heart hole punch at Michaels and made these in about 20 minutes. Since paint chips have a variety of shades, it gives it a full effect. Festive and cute :)

Day 40-
With the chilly weather everyone wants comfort food. I pinned this awhile back that makes an adult grilled cheese. It's a grilled cheese made with mozzarella and a side of marinara. I prefer provolone and made this super simple recipe. It was amazing! I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy it but it's reminiscent of grilled cheese and tomato soup, a favorite. Here's how it came out (I promise, the photo doesn't do it justice!):

Day 38- yoga stretches for sore neck and shoulders

After holding stress in my shoulders, I've gotten quite a few knots. I decided to try a message yesterday, and I asked the therapist to work on my shoulders to really get the knots out. I'm very sore today and remembered I had a pin that would help with this.

Day 38-
I used this pin that uses stretches to relieve soreness. The first position "Shoulder and Neck Stretch Against the Wall" didn't work for me. I couldn't get myself situated correctly, and felt very uncomfortable. Seated Clasping Neck Stretch gave me some relief as did Behind the Back Neck Stretch. Overall, a good find. My only problem with this pin.. lots of pop ups in the website after you click through.

I'll let you know if these truly helped tomorrow! 

Day 37- a simple note

Wanted to do a very simple craft today and combed through the best of my pins. I reviewed about half of them here, at my main board. I came across a handwritten word (LOVE) pin that teaches you to write it without picking up a pen. It's very simple, and I left the small token for Kelly. My only suggestion is to practice a couple of times, it will cause less splotching in the final product.

Days 35 & 36- registry and contest

I've been on a break from work and have a had time to work on wedding planning. Yesterday was a big day, and I worked on the registry.

Day 35- registry tips
I'm not sure what brides did before Pinterest.. so many great ideas and helpful tips. I've organized my wedding pins into one board here. I used a helpful pin to work on the registry. It gives 7 tips; a few for in the store and a couple more for after you've finished. The most useful to me was #2: Do give yourself plenty of time to walk around. We did take time to really take things in and decide what would work best in our new home! I am happy that we've settled into the new place quickly and really made it our. It made it much easier to decide on items we really needed. Day 35--a very helpful pin!


Day 36- wedding contest
Pinterest has plenty of contests for you to enter. If you're trying to win paper products, wedding items, new jewelry, etc. Quite a few pop up on my feed every week and I found this pin of winning a photography package and couldn't wait to enter. The contest host puts instructions into a pin and very often you are to make a board using their pins to create inspirtaion. This promotes their company and gives an opportunity for their pins to hit different audiences. It often has very creative pins that would would use anyway, so it's a win win situation!

Hope you've had a successful weekend, readers!