Pinterest - My new obsession

Ok, so I might be a little late on the train, but I am pretty obsessed with this website, www.pinterest.com.  I had read about it on some of the blogs that I follow and I just wasn't sure if I could commit to another social website to drain my attention from the things I should be doing.  However, I was truly mistaken, because it is awesome.  I strongly suggest you check it out.  The main point is that it is a website where you can track ideas you find on the internet, categorize them, and come back to them when you have time.  It has revolutionized the way in which I can keep track of travel, recipe, and decorating ideas.

All that being said, I would love to share some of my latest and greatest arts and crafts of the summer.

Project #1 - Invitations

I have always loved invitations.  I refuse to even become a member of evite.  When I plan parties, I pick out and mail actual card invitations.  I love picking them out, and more than anything I love planning what the invitation is going to say.  There is a special art to coming up with a catchy way to say all the details for the given party and it not sounding too repetitive.  My Kappa friends and I are planning a shower for our friend Jenny, so I of course decided to do the invitations.  I found the cutest invitations at www.polkadotdesign.com.  We are doing a mexican theme, and here is the final product, which I am very happy with.  My friend Sarah helped me with the saying below, I really wanted to use the word pinata, and she helped me with the jingle....I think it turned out great!

Project #2 - Anytime Wreaths

So after I got onto Pinterest, I found the cutest design for an easy wreath to make for my front door.  Literally it only consisted of needing two products:  a styrofoam wreath and ribbon.  The original blog post is from thelongthread.com (see post here).  I decided my mom would probably like one too, so me and my friend Haylee went to Wylie yesterday and had an arts and crafts afternoon with Nance.  My mom hates projects, but loves the results (lucky me since my sister and I are always the ones to help her do everything).  However, since this was a very easy project I thought she could handle it.

We went to Hobby Lobby (gotta love that store) and spent the afternoon cutting and tying ribbon around the wreaths.  I chose yellow to match the colors in my apartment, Haylee chose pink to go with her brown door, and mom chose leopard because well.....why not?  She loves leopard and will find any excuse to have something in leopard.  While the project was easy, it did take us several hours and another trip to Hobby Lobby to get more ribbon.  Here are some highlights of our fun filled afternoon:

 Haylee working on her cute wreath.  We had our stuff spread all over the floor, Nance did a good job of keeping it together and not picking up until after the project was complete.

 My half started wreath.  All we had to do was cut the ribbon into 16 inch strips and then tie each one onto the wreath.  Easey, but very tedious.....

 Halfway there!  

And now time for the finished products:

 Haylee's pink with her brown door, very girly and cute.

 My yellow on my green door.  Kind of looks like a sunflower, very pleased.

 Mom's leopard on her black door.  I LOVED the way the leopard turned out!

All three wreaths together.  

I love taking time every now and then to make sure to keep my creative juices flowing.  While I am not proficient with a sewing machine and can't do super complicated projects, I really do enjoy simple, yet unique decorating projects since my day job has me looking at excel spreadsheets for up to 12 hours a day.

I hope you enjoy your week and do something to keep your creative juices flowing!  (The above would be a great and cheap present for a family member or friend.  I think I spent $20 on my yellow wreath and it took about 3 hours to make.  I am happy to make one for you if you live close by, especially since Sarah Cloer and my sister have already requested one from me).

And be looking out for my end of summer recap for my favorite movies of the summer!  It has been a great summer filled with some hilarious movies (I apologize I am not a Harry Potter person so my list will be slightly different than the millions of Hogwarts fans).  However, I feel like my list will still be pretty solid.

Until then, Ciao for now!