Pinterest Experiment 2 - Grumpy Cat Pumpkin

This pin won't help anybody this year since Halloween is here. But there's always 2014!! When I saw this pin I just KNEW we had to try it. One problem, I'm not a painter, artist, drawer of anything. But, my mom is! She has an art degree and is an art teacher.

Me: "Mom, I want you to paint a Grumpy Cat face on a pumpkin!"
Her: "Who, a what?"

She has somehow missed out on the greatness of Grumpy Cat. 

Here is the actual pin.

In case you don't know Grumpy Cat, here he is:

Source: Grumpy Cat

So this is how I pictured this would go:
* Me and Emily would paint the pumpkin white.
* Mom would paint the face the next day while Emily played with her own paints.
* It would be a good bonding experience for me, Emily and Grammy. Just a regular ol' fashioned girls' morning of bonding.

You'll need a pencil for outlining his face. The paint was just 57-cent acrylic paint from Wal-Mart. You will need various sizes of brushes and we used a paint sponge for the areas around his eyes. You'll also need black felt for the ears and glue.

The Before:

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the pumpkin after we painted it white. Darn it!

The After:

For his ears I cut out two felt triangles, then used Super Glue to attach to his big cute, creepy face. CAUTION: Super Glue will tear the flesh off your fingers, so be careful.

So as opposed to how I thought this project would go, here is how it actually went:

* Emily got bored after painting for about 10 minutes, but that was pretty good she lasted that long.
* We didn't have a pencil for the outlining of his face. Emily would not let Grammy use her chalk. Insert total maniacal-toddler meltdown right here. After a brief stint in Timeout, we were ready.
* Emily got bored after painting her coloring book for 20 minutes, but again, that was good she lasted that long.

Sure, one eye is larger than the other. That probably wouldn't have happened had I owned a pencil or if we had used chalk to outline his face.

But I have to say it turned out a lot better than I thought it would. It's not Pinterest-Perfect, but golly, it's a lot of fun to pull into the driveway and see creepy, blue eyes staring at you. I definitely enjoyed it more than carving a pumpkin. I think next year, I'll make the pumpkin more craft-centric for Emily. Plus she will be four by then and will be interested in paint.

Did you carve or paint any pumpkins this Halloween?

Pinterest Experiment 1 - Untangling Barbies' hair

Emily only has a handful of Barbie dolls. They are actually Disney Princess dolls with a couple of regular "Barbie" dolls thrown in there. She's not quite to the age where she understands the magnificence of Barbie and Barbie clothes and hair.

But, she likes to play with them, leave them out, the cat gets a hold of them and well, their hairdos are a mess. I've always been unsure about wetting Barbie or any doll's hair.

Here is the actual pin.

And so we begin our "Not Pinterest Perfect" pin. I accidentally deleted the before picture of the Princess Belle twins, but here are the other dolls:

This was not after a night of partying for these gals. This is their everyday look. Poor Rapunzel on the left. She is the main culprit in this hair mania.

The first step is to brush out the tangled hair as much as possible:

Next soak the hair in hot water for 30 seconds:

Then brush out the hair once again.

Voila! Rapunzel looks much better. I'm wondering about letting them air dry though because so far their hair looks stringy. But compared to the rat's nest they had before, I'd say this was a good pin.

However, it was Not Pinterest Perfect because we did this at 6:30 p.m. after a day of work and daycare WHILE watching a Barbie movie. Do you see the irony? Emily was a bit bored and not too enthusiastic. So I think we'll save the Emily pins for the weekends.

Welcome!

Since the world needed another crafty blog, here I am! But my blog is a bit different from all those Cool Mom blogs. I am not a crafty person at all. I am the one who gets frustrated that I can't come up with ideas for crafts, much less complete them.

I have a sewing machine and some felt. Those are about the only craft items in my house.

I also am a terrible cook. This blog, of course, will help me become a fabulous crafter, sewing expert and as good a cook as Julia Child, no? Isn't that the point of Pinterest and the Internet?

A little about myself. I live in the south, I'm 41, I am married and have a 3-year-old daughter named Emily. I have a job, a tall cat and a small house.

The goal of this blog is to document crafts and recipes with my daughter. As she gets older, finding things that keep her entertained (while hopefully learning something) are becoming challenging.

For the past few months, I've gathered hundreds of pins from Pinterest in the hopes that one day I'll rise to the call of being a Super Mom. I'm going to create these craftastic inventions and ideas that will save my house and bond with my daughter!

Perhaps you will gain some motivation to make these particular pins or you will just get a good laugh at my replica of the pins.

Enjoy!

First up, we are going to fix our Barbies' hair-dos! We are going to untangle the tangled weave Emily and the cat have created. We are going to give these dolls a fresh, straight-haired look that is sure to get tangled again five minutes after this Pinterest experiment. Stay tuned!

Pinterest experiment #1:

Untangle dolls' hair