Absolute Mommy: Pinning

Showing posts with label Pinning. Show all posts

Pinned it, Made it my own {Inspiration Boards}

If you follow me on Pinterest, then you know I pin about a million things on any given day. I'll pin some funny stuff, I'll pin things to eat, I'll pin crafts to make. Let's be honest here, pinning is fun, but do we ever really make all the things we pin? I don't. I get inspired, then go and buy tons of crafting supplies I will never use, and then by the time I get it all together I'm so over the original craft I've completely lost interest. Sound familiar?

A few weeks ago I came across this pin. It's the lazy person's version of Subway Art. You know for those of us who don't have fancy cutting machines, or the patience or skill to pull off freezer paper stencils. I totally roll my eyes at myself that I actually know what freezer paper stencils are. That's the kind of crap you learn when you pin at two in the morning. Anyway, this pin looked like something I could do with my girls, and isn't that what summer is all about? Doing the messy crafts with mom when she actually has a bit of time. Ok, that's a lie too, I literally scheduled this activity. As in I planned nothing else for this particular Thursday, since it was my day off, and I knew we could fit it in, if we did NOTHING ELSE. How's that for motherhood?

The craft itself is pretty easy. Buy some finished wood boards, any shape, we picked squares. Buy some paint in your color of choice, or use whatever colors you have on hand. Make sure you have some Mod Podge, or buy some if you need it. Don't worry, it's not scary, it's just glue. Then after you buy all this stuff (and foam brushes or paint brushes if you need them, like we did), take it all home and go through some old magazines you have lying around. Since I'm the magazine queen, we had a lot to choose from. This is the fun part, start tearing out what you want on your board. Now since I was trying to stay as close to the original pin as possible, I looked for words or quotes. Caitlin decided that she would rather put animals on her board, so that's what she looked for, and Mackenzie? Well Mackenzie painted her board, lost interest, and decided to play with Barbies after cutting a few magazine pages in to pieces so small they have alluded the vacuum ever since.

So we painted, mutilated a few magazines, slapped a few coats of Mod Podge, and ta-dah, something that resembles a collage board or an inspiration board.

I won't lie, I was surprised at how much fun I had. I remember being a teen and making collages. I was tempted to put things like lipstick and shoes on the board, but once I got going I was able to find quotes from some pretty inspiring actresses like Melissa McCarthy and Amy Poehler. I feel like this is the perfect thing to put in my office/craft room whenever I get in there and finally clean it. Until then, it's just hanging out on a shelf. I also made this board during a time of writers block and wouldn't you know that something as simple as this got my mind moving and the words just followed. Funny how that happens.

So if you are looking for some last minute crafting to do with your kids, or if you just need to break out of a rut, this may be the craft for you. It's simple and messy, and it looks great even if you can't cut straight.
Which as you can tell, isn't one of my finer skills.

Our Summer F*$k it List

Pin me, don't Pin me.. F**k it.

Last year I made up a Summer Bucket list for my family. With good intentions I might add. I thought, at the time, that I had made it really easy on myself. I only put things on the list that we were probably going to do anyway. Because it was summer, or because it sounded fun. At the time I thought it was going to be really easy to cross every single item off the list before school started. Oh, how I was wrong...

last years summer bucket list

I'm going to say we did half of the list, without being under duress. I'll say we did half of that at our own free will, and then about a fourth were done with me demanding that they be done, driving myself crazy so we could actually complete them. Those were not as much fun as you can imagine. Then there were the ones that just didn't happen. Nope to the lemonade stand. Nope to the night swim. Nope to the night walk to get ice cream. But guess what? And you probably already know this, my kids have no idea that we failed, as a family, at our Summer Bucket list. They are clueless to the fact that there was even a summer bucket list because, and here is why I'm such a good mother, I never bothered to post it. I think that was done by my subconscious to save me from having to admit to my children that we didn't do something they didn't know we were supposed to do. Even though, we really didn't have to do any of those things. Because I made it up.

Can you see where I'm going with this? It's a made up list of expectations of what I think, and what Pinterest thinks, our summer should consist of. I have some blogger friends that are in the midst of posting their summer bucket lists. Some even have printables. And I love that. And I love them. I love that they are the kind of blogger that plans a summer of magical adventures for their children and their families. And good for you, if you have a summer bucket list and you are wholeheartedly enjoying checking off every item that you have planned for June. You're amazing, I'm serious. But I realized last week that Summer Bucket lists just aren't for me.

My mom never used or wrote a summer bucket list. She worked full time so my summers where spent with my grandma. I spent my summers catching up on General Hospital, grandma's favorite. I spent my summers at the grocery store helping my grandma bag our groceries. I spent summer nights in our apartment complex riding bikes with my friends and waiting for the ice cream truck to come around. My mom spent her summers relaxing and enjoying a break from the school/dance schedule hell she spent nine months being a slave to. We read books and watched movies, and if she got a wild hair up her ass, we'd bake Bisquick biscuits at midnight and watch Saturday Night Live. Without a list in sight, I have the most wonderful memories of unscheduled, fly by the seat of your shorts kind of summers.

Which brings me to this year. I've decided that this family has a Summer F**k It List. Maybe we will get dressed and leave the house, maybe we won't. F**k it. Donuts sound fun, maybe we will leave the house early enough to enjoy them as breakfast food. Maybe we will have a picnic in a park, or maybe we will just eat on the patio at Panera. F**k it. Sure a baseball game sounds nice, but soon it will be 114 degrees, and that's just miserable. A movie sounds nice, but will we have to take a second out on the house to enjoy it? Homemade ice cream was a hit last year, but that new yogurt place just opened up and, well... F**k it.

No matter what we do this summer, it will be wonderful and amazing and probably much of the same we do all the time. Summer to me is about sleeping in. It's about eating ice cream at all hours of the night. It's about spending the entire day and most of the night in the pool, until you can't comb a single section of your hair, and you smell funny, but you are so damn happy about it. Summer is about enjoying every single minute of the daylight and every single sliver of the night. Summer is the absence of bedtime, grilled cheese sandwiches at nine o'clock at night, and donuts in pajamas at almost noon.

I'm not completely worthless as a mom. I know we have to do something this summer. I also know it doesn't have to be a blockbuster. It doesn't have to dazzle the little people in this family. It just has to be something we all do together. Even if it's just for a day. Or for an hour. That's why we are so content for now being home. Watching the Amazing World Of Gumball, while eating cheetos, and destroying the house with blanket forts and play food restaurants. We are quite content with Target trips, memorizing the phone number for pizza delivery, and frozen waffle breakfasts. Because it doesn't matter if you have a Summer Bucket List or a Summer F*&k it list. What matters is that you are enjoying every single minute of summer with the people who matter most. If you can say that, then you are doing it exactly right. No matter what Pinterest says.

So if you never make that sidewalk chalk paint this summer that you pinned two years ago... F**k It.

What day is it? {Hump day Happenings

Hey, hey, hey. What day is it?