Sunday, 04 September 2011

• My Pinterest Obsession Made Useful

  I am playing with my camera again -- sans flash.  Just warning ya.
  
  By the way, I worked on this for over an hour dealing with my Picasa online album not linking right, when I could have just uploaded straight to Xanga.  Which... I ended up doing anyway.
  

  Okay.  So.  About six years ago, I was shopping in Hobby Lobby and I found some M&M scrapbook stickers on clearance and, for some reason, I was compelled to buy them.  This developed into an interest in scrapbooking and then rabbit trailed into Stampin' Up! stuff... and... I am currently in denial about the fact that I like Stampin' Up! for card making.  I never scrapbook.  But, I buy scrapbook paper.  I make cards all the time.  I cannot remember the last time I spent $5 on a Hallmark pleasantry.

  This is pretty much how I feel about greeting cards.
  
  But, I have all this scrapbook paper sitting around that I occasionally will insert on a card when I don't feel like getting my stamps dirty.  Yeah... that's me.  And, yet, I still will buy scrapbook paper when I go to a scrapbooking store... when I never use it.  So, I don't need it.  I seriously have a problem with self-control.

  So, it turns out, the girl with no self-control has a Pinterest habit.  Yeah.  I do.

  The deal with Pinterest is that it has all this great stuff... but... it isn't great if all you do is repin because it looks great.  Pinterest is there for a reason and it isn't solely for entertainment.  Some of it is.  I have pin boards for things that are a certain color and it makes me happy to go to that board and see all my pink stuff or all my red stuff or yellow stuff, etc.  It's just fun.

  But, there are also useful things and I tend to repin useful things and then just leave them.  The same bad habit can be developed with Ravelry or Etsy or even Amazon.  All this great stuff you "save for later" but later never comes... and so you just have this big cluttered mess of internet storage.  Clutter is clutter, real or virtual.

  So.

  I found this great pin for making your own Dave Ramsey envelope system.  I really wanted to try it.  And, the girl used scrapbook paper to make her envelopes.  I had to do it.  And, I did!

  I made something I saw on Pinterest!  (Abby has, too... many recipes containing Oreos... enough said)

  As you can see, I have all these great papers... and they've already been printed and cut out.  I have this mess on the table for the kids to go nuts.  They love it when I let them use my scrappy stuff.  And, I feel generous.  Because, I tend to be incredibly selfish when it comes to my stampy scrappy stuff.
  I am just keeping it real (said in my most white person voice) by leaving all the cups and songbooks (found at church with drawing on the outside of it--not the doing of my children) and Bibles and iPods and keys on the table.  There may or may not also be a bit of dried jelly in there.  But, I will tell you, this is the messiest my house has been in a week.  No lie.
  
  
  This is the backside of the stripey/dotted pages.  I still had it from the generic nondescript box of items I bought when I first got into scrapbooking.  I thought these would be great for the kids.
  
  
  I don't know what to call this thing, but it does eyelets and also punches holes in paper.  I like it, but I was done being friends with it at the end of this project.  "there's gotta be a better way!" 
  
  I love this color wheel.  I thought that $10 was a bit much to spend on a color coordinating tool, but it has come in handy many times for me when I just do not know what to do with my papers.  Very useful.
  
  This is all my ribbon.  I recommend using a thin ribbon for this project... unless your hole-punching tools tend to be larger.  Then, use bigger ribbon.
  
  
  Completed product:
  
  
  All the pretty papers
  
  
  
  And, the back flap for inserting checkbook style.
  
  
  My wallet with my new envelope system inserted.  I have nine envelopes.  That may be a bit much.  We'll see.
  
  Just showing you how it looked before I put the system in.
  
  I went ahead and made some envelope systems for my kids.  They got three envelopes each:  give, save, spend.
  Green is Abby, Blue is Phoebe, Orange is Tucker.
  
  
  All the pretty little colors.
  
  
  I have done other things from Pinterest.  I have another one I was able to duplicate last night and wore to church this morning: DIY T-shirt scarf
  I ended up making a different scarf used from the same pin this girl used... but, I also made the scarf pictured with an old "wife-beater" tank top (no one knows what you're talking about unless you call it that... sorry).
  
  Oh!  I crocheted some of these for Mackenzie.  Two pairs to be exact.
  
  The thing about Pinterest is this:  it is fun.  It is helpful, but when all you're doing is repinning helpful stuff but never putting it to work for you, then it can become a problem.
  
  Lesson over.
  
  
  Update: in the interest of full disclosure, when I put holes in the bottom of my bank envelopes it made the envelopes too short to hold cash.  The envelopes are also not big enough to hold more than a few bills at a time.
  I'm am using them after a bit of tweaking from the original post, but most of the time, I end up frustrated with my homemade envelopes, despite how pretty they are.
  

  Currently Psych: The Complete Fifth Season By James Roday, Dulé Hill, Timothy Omundson, Corbin Bernsen see related

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