Pinterest Challenge - Little Gold Books Baby Shower

Over the weekend, my mom, sister and I threw a baby shower for my sister in law. We had such fun! There is nothing like creating together as a family. In search of inspiration for a shower theme, I turned to Pinterest and discovered a Little Golden Books shower created by Aesthetic Nest and posted on Pizzazzerie, I pinned it and knew I had my theme.

My brother, sister and I had a large collection of Little Golden Books which we loved, and conveniently, my mom had kept for the grandkids. We pulled the books out, used them for decor at the shower and had several conversations about which books were our favorites (Poky Little Puppy is my personal fav - in fact, that book was so worn out that mom bought a new one so she'd have it on hand for my niece and nephews.)

Using the printables provided by Anneliese on Aesthetic Nest we created a mini book garland for the gift table and made bags of freshly popped popcorn for favors.

To decorate the food table, and for my shower gift, I created a set of Little Golden Book onesies with the covers of some of our favorite books ironed on. I'm secretly hoping he'll grow up to be a book lover like me!

To feed our guests, I turned to another pin for inspiration, Veronica Yem's Waffle Bar. We kept three waffle irons going and enjoyed watching each of our guest testing out different topping combinations.

I'm struggling to remember party planning before pinterest!

"To save what you love."
Drew Andrews - I Could Write A Book Pin It

Pinterest Challenge: Get Cooking

The Summer Edition of the Pinterest Challenge is back and it just so happened to come the day I challenged myself to start cooking again and make a few of those recipes I'd been pinning for months, nothing like a little deadline to make things happen.

My first challenge was the hardest - red and blue tie-dyed fudge (yes, I pulled out the patriotic dessert for Independence Day last week.) I'd never made fudge before so I was a bit worried about how this would turn out. Turns out I was right to worry, my first batch wasn't the prettiest, but by the second go round I had it down! Thankfully I found friends and family to give most of it away too, this isn't the kind of thing I want sitting around the house.

To counter the sugar rush from the fudge, I whipped up a batch of Crispy Edamame. This recipe was good, which since I ate if for four meals in a row was a good thing, next time I know to half the recipe!

The pin I tested the most, was one to make Greek-style yogurt by straining regular yogurt using the coffee filter method I found on this pin. This is a keeper, I eat yogurt for breakfast every day and prefer the thinker, more protein packed strained version to regular yogurt and using coffee filters to strain the yogurt rather than cheese cloth is easier and less costly.

My favorite of the pins I tried was the Smashed Chickpeas & Avocado Salad Sandwich, I'm pretty sure this one will become a regular at my house. My only complaint was how much work it was to take the skins off the chickpeas, next time I'm going to skip that step. I realized after I started making this that I didn't have a lime, so I made it with lemon juice and I used spinach and a sprinkle of coriander, since I didn't have any fresh cilantro in the fridge.

My final cooking attempt was a pin my sister sent me for Sweet and Salty Chickpeas (can you tell I love chickpeas?) This one made a great, low guilt snack.

Can you tell I'm playing with my new iPhone and assorted camera apps? A week's worth of play has me loving Instagram for the social aspects, but my favorite app for taking photos is Camera Awesome. The filters aren't the best I've seen, but I love the feature that allows me to pick one spot in the photo to set the exposure to and the ease with which I can send the photos to Flickr or to my Instagram Feed.

Have you tried any recipes off of Pinterest lately? What are some of your favorites?

This week's cooking was accompanied by the latest Glen Hansard album, here's the beautiful opening track You Will Become.


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Pinterest Challenge 2

It's time for another Pinterest Challenge - and I'll admit, I'm cheating a bit this round. I'm out of town for a while, so I'm going to share a couple of projects I finished before I left - the first challenge had me so pumped up on projects I just couldn't stop.  First up, my ombre dresser:

The Inspiration

Source: knockknockingblog.blogspot.com via Jamie on Pinterest

My Version    

This was such a simple way to give a fun splash of color to some very boring nightstands.

Next up - and even easier, a towel rack necklace holder.

The Inspiration

Source: engineeredstyle.com via Jamie on Pinterest

My Version

The necklace holder came together when I ran across the two towel bars for $2 in the As-Is area of Ikea - don't you love it when you find exactly what you need for next to nothing?

I love that my necklaces are easy to see - it means they get worn more often.

I listened to Priscillia Ahn's new album while I painted - the whole thing is great, but this track is a favorite: I Don't Have Time to Be In Love Pin It