Hand-Made Harry Potter Invites

Hogwarts Party Invitations
Tea Stained Paper
Calligraphy Pen with Brown Ink
Handmade Hogwarts Stamp
Rolled into a Scroll and Tied with Twine

For my son's party invitations, I wanted to make it so that it would look like something that might actually be sent from Hogwarts. Rather than a folded letter and wax seal (since my sealing wax and imprints are off in storage somewhere) I decided to go with a scroll.

I wanted to approximate the look and feel of old parchment that has been sitting in a wizard's workshop for ages, so I took plain copy paper, cut it in half, and then soaked it in a baking pan filled with strong spice flavored tea. I actually really liked the scent that the spice tea added... sort of like something that would go into a potion. And the tea soak also gave the paper a different, almost crispy feel. However, the tea alone only gave it a pale color, so I added about 3 cups of strong coffee to the tea bath. I think that contributed to the variation of color on each page. Each page looks slightly different which works with the wizard-made feel.

This is the one page that I left whole. I like the way it looks two toned, but I haven't used this one yet. When the pages looked good, I took them out of the tea/coffee bath and laid them out on the deck, in the sun. I've been looking for a photo, but I guess I either forgot to take one, or I deleted it for some reason. Oh well. It's a simple process. Soak paper. Lay out flat to dry.  I could have just used the paper as the background and photocopied one letter.... but I liked the individual aspect of handwriting each letter.

Rather than a quill, I used a calligraphy pen with brown ink. It turns out the Hogwarts letters are actually in green ink, but as this is an invitation, I thought brown would do. I did not worry abut using perfect calligraphy. I'm a busy wizard, with spells to cast and potions to mix.  I got the idea for the wording from this site, and I wrote out the Hogwarts Heading, using my personal stamp to make it official.

I rolled up my invitations and tied them with cotton twine. For a little while I was toying with the idea of dipping the ends of the twine in gold paint, but I decided I liked the plain scrolls.

I found this invitation with owl and accessories on pinterest and thought it would be really cool to deliver these scrolls with an owl, but to be honest, I have to draw the line somewhere. I'm making owls to give away during the party and I need those extra few weeks on that project. And of course there's the idea of attaching the invites to white helium balloons that have owls drawn on them... but I was okay with just having G's stuffed owl supervise the delivery.

Let's just say that although I didn't deliver all the invites personally, I think the recipients were pretty delighted to get them, just the way they were.

Stay tuned for more Harry Potter Party crafts. The things you can do are almost endless and it is super hard to limit the tasks you set for yourself... if you are hosting a HP party.

Refashioned Skirt: Bleach Stripes DIY

Bleach striped skirt, 

refashioned from a stretchy old black pencil skirt 

I have been mulling over the creation of this skirt for quite some time, wondering how I could manage this. I've been researching ideas on pinterest and putting them on my do it yourself upcycled tshirt board. I know it says t-shirt and this is a skirt, but I play fast and loose like that with my board titles. It's really about upcycling old clothes. Which is what I did here. And again, I did it fast and loose. Hey, I guess it's my thing.

 First I picked my item to upcycle. I was originally thinking I could turn a striped tshirt into a skirt, but when I realized I already had a black skirt I rarely wore and was willing to sacrifice if it didn't turn out right, my decision was made. I took my skirt and found a flattened cardboard box that was approximately the same dimensions. Then I slid the skirt over the flattened box and straightened out all the wrinkles. I taped the stripes out on the skirt, using packing tape. I've heard painters tape and duct tape can also work, but I was worried about the duct tape pulling the fabric of the skirt, and I didn't have any painters tape.

I took my whole skirt/cardboard/tape contraption out onto the back deck, laid down some newspapers to keep the mess contained and took out the bleach. Warning: Also wear clothes that you do not mind ruining with bleach stains.  You can see my bleach mixture here, in the tupperware. It's about 50/50 bleach and water. I played it safe, since I've never done this with bleach before and I didn't want to ruin the fabric with a bleach that was too strong. I had a nice new paintbrush to use, and it worked perfectly for my purposes. And yes, I probably should have used gloves, but I barely touched any bleach and had no problem without gloves. I didn't even get any bleach on my clothes. This time, at least. Oh. P.S. I did this outside. Make sure you have good ventilation and your work area is covered/safe from bleach splashes. This projects has the potential to be tragically and permanently messy. Be careful. This is not a project for kids.

 So here I am beginning to paint on the bleach. I saturated the hem and moved onto the next stripe. You can see the bleach already beginning to work, lightening the bottom stripe to brown. Forgive the off kilter photos here, I had a bleach brush in one hand and a camera in the other and was starting to panic when I saw the color start to change so soon. I sped through the stripes, making sure to saturate the bleach through any wrinkles. I was okay with it if it didn't come out perfectly. My original plan here was to paint the stripes on without the tape, but I'm glad I used the tape. It kept me from panicking even more and gave me a guide, and kept the bleach off of the areas I wanted to keep black.

 After I finished bleaching the stripes on one side of the box, I flipped the box/skirt over. You can see at the sides that the bleach has already taken out a lot of the black dye.

 Here is the back side of the skirt after I bleached it.

At this point, my panic took over again. I wasn't sure how the bleach would react and was afraid of leaving it on too long and causing the fabric to burn away. I yanked the cardboard out of the skirt and pulled off the tape... luckily, it mostly came off all at once when the cardboard came out. I tossed the cardboard and the wad of tape to the side and ran to the kitchen sink to rinse out all the bleach.

Here she is rinsed and laid out on the porch for a photo. The stripes are irregular, but still stripey. The bleach bled under the tape, but not too much. In retrospect, I wonder if I should have put the bleach on when the skirt was already wet. I bleached the dry skirt. (update from Jill Plumley. DON'T wet the fabric first or the bleach will spread to all the wet areas. Thanks Jill.) Also in retrospect, I think I would have gone over the whole skirt with another layer of bleach. If you'll notice, the sides of the skirt where the front bleach and back bleach overlapped are a bit paler.

I also would not have been so conservative with my bleach. I might have used a stronger bleach solution and I would have left the bleach on longer for a lighter stripe. I suppose I was worried that the bleach would bleed all the way and remove all of the black. 

But in the end, I was satisfied with my experiment, even if it isn't a white/black skirt and it didn't quite turn out how I expected. I think I will wear this skirt a lot more now than I did when it was pure black.

Here is the back side of the skirt. This was an accidental photo. It turns out, it's kind of hard to photograph your own outfit. The first photo was actually taken by my 5 year old daughter after a tiny bit of tutoring. It's not so bad. Yay, Ivy.  She actually enjoyed taking my fashion photo so much that she said, "take a picture of me!" and did a whole photo shoot. Actually, she might like being in front of the camera better than being behind the camera. 

Here she is, the supermodel. I would like you to note, that she styled her own outfit and the skirt she is wearing is her favorite skirt, which is an upcycled skirt I made her, posted here. 

I'm wondering if any of you have any experience working with bleach. Do you have any hints or tips?

Salted Caramel Sauce Delight

Oh yummy.

Yesterday I was taken with the urge to try to make a salted caramel sauce. Luckily I came across this on pinterest.

I've never made caramel sauce before, so I pretty much followed the recipe exactly... well, except I cut it in half, since this was an experiment and I didn't know if it would work out. Oh yeah, and I didn't have heavy cream so I used half and half. And my butter was salted, so I cut back on the sea salt.

Oh all right.... I'll tell you what I did. I'll also tell you what I learned after I went and consulted my friendly neighborhood pastry chef, Susan.

1 cup white sugar.
6 TBS salted butter
1/2 cup half and half.
about a teaspoon of sea salt (not fancy flaky sea salt)

I covered the bottom of a heavy, large pot with the sugar and heated over medium high heat, stirring pretty much continuously. It took a long time. At first I thought I was doing something wrong, because it wasn't clumping up like the recipe said, it was just getting to be hot sugar. But as Susan pointed out to me, it takes a while for sugar to get up to 300 degrees. Interesting she kept saying 300 degrees, because the original recipe said 350.

So soon it clumped up and I stirred it with a whisk like the recipe said until all the sugar was melted. And then I stopped stirring because the stirring will make it seize up. I swirled the pot a bit until it got to the right color. I didn't use a thermometer, because I didn't have one, and I thought I"d seen sugar being cooked enough to be able to judge the correct color change.

Then when it got to a nice caramelly color, I put in the butter all at the same time. Good thing the original recipe warned that it will boil up quite a bit (which is why you need a bigger pot than you'd assume) It really boiled up. Susan says that's because it's 300 degrees and it will bring the butter up to that temperature, but then it settles down and I stirred it until the butter was melted completely and then I turned off the heat.

That's when I added the half and half, and I think I should have done it even more slowly, because it REALLY boiled up and I almost burned myself. So be careful. Whisk again until the cream is incorporated and add the sea salt and whisk until smooth. Let cool 10-15 minutes and put in a glass jar.

I must say that I didn't wait 15 minutes. I HAD to taste test it.

My caramel sauce is quite salty. And the caramel has a very slight bitterness to it, because I think I cooked it just a tiny bit too long. Susan told me it was because the caramel kept cooking after the butter and cream was added, so that counted for the darker taste than I wanted. I thought I was so clever to "know" the right color for the caramel, and then I got confounded by the rest of the cooking process. Oh well, live and learn.

I also told Susan that I thought my caramel sauce was a tiny bit too grainy, and she said that it was okay, and that I could just heat it up and stir it and it would get smooth again. Have I mentioned how much I love having a pastry chef at my disposal? Pastry chefs have sweet brains for picking. Susan also told me to use better butter and that I would be surprised by how good butter would affect my baking.

However, the toasty flavor and excess salt in my caramel sauce did not stop me from enjoying it by the spoonful and giving myself a stomach ache.

Sadly, I did not have the brainstorm of dipping sliced apples into the salted caramel sauce until I already had the stomach ache. Because when combined with the sweetness of the apple, all the saltiness of the caramel sauce is offset and instead it is just an explosion of flavor.

Oh my god. So good.

I recommend anyone try it. It wasn't hard, although getting it to the right temperature/color is a little intimidating. If you want to try it, I also recommend that you go to the original recipe link, because not only is it more complete than mine, but she also has pictures. I was too frightened of burning sugar to take pictures, plus my light sucked.

All in all, I enjoyed this experiment and am looking forward to all the delightful treats I will be able to grace with a salted caramel sauce.

How To Make Your Own Orange Liqueur, and Bonus Candied Orange Peels

Orange Liqueur In Progress

One of the things about being a mom and being an artist and being a partner and being a worker and all these other hats I have to wear in this modern gotta-get-it-done world is that I don't necessarily take time to take care of myself. 

I do a lot of sacrificing. I do a lot of taking care of others. I do a lot of anxious, running to catch up. I do a lot of crashing, exhausted, feet up at night.

One of the things I'm trying to do is to remember to do things for myself. Things that are not just about crashing and watching tv anyway. Rather things I just do for fun, things that renew me, things that I'm not trying to find a way to turn into a business. Things that are not about money or responsibilities or work. I started reading The Giver, by Lois Lowry. That's one of those books I've heard about for years, and I'm finally getting around to it. 

And I'm getting back into my margarita habit. For some reason, margaritas and summer just seem go together.

And to feed my margarita treat, I am making my own orange liqueur.

 This is the first time I've ever attempted something like making my own liqueur before, although I've thought about it and always said I'd try. So I finally decided I would.

I was inspired by this recipe from pinterest, but of course, I had to put my own spin on it. It's very simple. It has only four ingredients. Vodka. Oranges. Water. Sugar. But it does take some time and patience in order for the oranges to infuse the vodka, and it is a two part recipe, first the orange vodka, then the orange simple syrup.   I am not all that patient, so, that accounts for my small adjustments to the original recipe.

Orange Vodka

One bottle of vodka. I just used a fifth of cheap vodka. Since it is my first attempt at this, I didn't want to make too much or spend too much.
Organic sweet oranges. Organic because you're using the peels in this so you don't want them to have anything unsavory on them. I used navel oranges.


Clean and dry a good sized jar.
Slice oranges into fairly thick slices.
Pour vodka into jar.
Add as many orange slices as will fit and still be covered by vodka. Pack them in there. I used two very large oranges and there was no room left. If you have more vodka or smaller oranges it will take more.

Cover and let sit in a cool dark place for 2 to 3 weeks.

Strain through cheesecloth or mesh sieve into a bottle. Squeeze the remaining pulp/oranges to remove all the juice/vodka, add to bottle. (I used the sieve, but I think the cheesecloth is better, because you can just wrap up all the pulp and squeeze that out without the mess. I had to squeeze mine handful by handful. Messy.)

The original recipe said to let this sit for another 3 weeks. Like I said. Impatient.  So on to the next step.

 Simple Orange Syrup

One cup sugar
One cup water
The rind of one orange. Try to remove as much pith as you can and just use the orange part.

Peel the orange, trying to remove only the orange zest, without the white pith. I did not zest the orange, because I wanted to remove the peels later. Cult the peels into fairly large pieces. Put in a saucepan. Add one cup water and one cup sugar. Boil the water, sugar and orange peels until the sugar is dissolved, stirring occasionally. Continue to simmer for a few minutes to infuse the orange into the sugar syrup.  Let cool. Remove orange peels.

The original recipe just used plain simple syrup, but I saw an opportunity for another layer of orange flavor, and I took it.

Add orange syrup to the jar with the vodka. I had about 31/2 cups of orange vodka and started with 1/2 cup of syrup, tasting as I went until I liked it. All together, I added about a cup of orange syrup.  It has a little bit of a floral flavor to it, not nearly as sweet as most orange liqueurs and a slight bite of bitterness from the peels. I am still considering adding more syrup, because I want my margaritas to have a bit of sweetness, but not too much. Oh these are the things that you really need to work through with trial and error. Perhaps I'll err on the side of another 1/4 cup of syrup, since I have no idea what I'll do with that last little bit of syrup.

The original recipe says it will get sweeter as it ages...

Stop the presses.

I just went to add the last little bit of syrup, and realized I had these lovely syrup soaked peels. So I...

ROLLED THEM IN SUGAR!!!!

 HOLY COW. Candied orange peels. It's a quadruple bonus recipe day. Orange vodka, orange liqueur, orange simple syrup and candied orange peels. They're super yummy, too.

Plus, since I took the time out to make the candied orange peels, and S was putting some meat in a marinade and had sliced open a lime for it, I said, 'hey give me that other half of the lime, I should try a margarita with my new orange liqueur.' So that's what I did.

Uhm. Ohmagah!

WOW.

This margarita is absolutely fantastic.  Note the pleased, slightly smug look on my face from a new recipe that not only works, but improves an old recipe and is a new skill never attempted. Plus, I'm also supremely tickled about the candied orange peel brainstorm.

Plus, I haven't had lunch yet and it is mighty early for a margarita and even though I only sipped it for a taste test, I might just be a little tipsy.

Anyway, happy Friday, happy Memorial Day, and remember to do something for yourself, something that makes you feel good, not just for the moment, but about yourself.

Self Portrait, or I Am Made of Lessons

Self Portrait, or I Am Made of Lessons

gesso, torn vintage book pages with drawings, acrylic paint, moleskine notebook

Yesterday, while dinner was cooking, after blogging and browsing pinterest and planning and organizing, I had the sudden urge to paint. And then I laid out my stuff and painted. Just painted. No fuss, no talking, no worries, no self doubt, no questions. I just painted. 

I had an idea, which bubbled up after looking at this and this, after many weeks of thinking I wanted to give some interest to my grounds, but not really knowing what to do. After many weeks of letting the desire to take up painting again simmer on the back burner while I lived my life and went on organizing my thoughts and my work space and my supplies.  

I grabbed an old moleskine notebook, and opened, not to a blank page, but to one that had already been prepped with a wash of blue.  Then I went to my collection of scrap papers and found an old Alice in Wonderland page that I'd already started to draw on but had never been satisfied with.  Then I gessoed the painted page, and I ripped up the Alice in Wonderland altered page and fixed it to the gessoed, painted page, then I gessoed that. 

And then I took a quick snapshot of my face... which is often much easier than using a mirror... and started painting, quickly, almost carelessly. First the eye, then the other eye, then the hairline swooping around to the cheekbone, jaw, the other cheekbone. Place the nose, the lips, the hair. Adjust the eyes. Add some pink, some warmer colors, shadows, hilights. Touch ups. Done.

It went so fast and so easily that I never even thought to take process photos. It was done before dinner was ready. And voila. Almost effortless. As if it came out of nowhere.  But that is an illusion. 

I'm really happy with this painting and I impressed myself with the way it came out. Paying attention to only those few minutes when I was painting makes it look like magic. Looking at the end point only, as we do so often with things that are successful, makes it seem like these accomplishments are miraculous, the gift of genius, something that is unreachable for us lowly people here on the ground.

But the truth is, I didn't just paint this in 15 minutes. The act of painting, took 15 minutes, but so much went into this painting, it was actually 40 years in the making. Without even considering my last few weeks of thought and organizing and browsing and intending and wishing, there are years of observing and practicing and failures and struggles and art classes and photography and playing and doodling and self assessing and museum going and reading and sketching and finding out what I like and color matching and collaging and journaling and so on and so on. 

Anyone who achieves at anything has been working on it for a very long thing and putting into it the result of many different lessons learned. No one starts out knowing how to be a great artist or a great anything. 

You just keep at it and you get better and better the more you are willing to fail.

I show you this one successful painting, but you do not see the pages that failed, the sketches that were covered over, the drawings hidden in folders or deep in journals from years ago. You don't see the 10 years of self portrait practice in my twenties, where I could often be found with a mirror and some drawing tools. You don't see the other pages in that same moleskine where self portraits hide because they're just not right. Actually... sometimes you do see those, because I have a tendency to show even some of my failures here on my blog, because I believe in showing the man behind the curtain of the wizardry. I believe in transparency and process. I believe it helps us to know that no one is perfect and failure and struggle is part of the process... not just of art, but also of life.

We fall down. We make mistakes. We get up and keep trying until we figure it out. Until it starts to make sense. Until we start moving forward. Until we find success.

Just like this painting, we are made of the failures and successes that came before. The stories read, the extra paint that we didn't know what to do with. The discards and the yucks. They make us what we are. Just like this painting, you almost can't see what was on the original ground. You almost can't see what was behind the painting.... but it's there.

DIY Glitter Meditation Jars

Ivy and her meditation jar

I finally tried out those meditation jars I've been seeing around pinterest, and they are cooler in person than they are in photos. There's something about the swirling water and bits of sparkle that catches even my attention, and I just want to sit and watch it glitter.

I don't know how well it is going to help any of us meditate or calm down, but that is still to be discovered.

 The project itself is very very easy.

Here we see glitter, glitter glue, two cups of water total, and a jar and lid.

But wait. My before photo was optimistic. This will be the mistakes portion of the post.

Mistake 1
My plastic jar had too much give and was not water proof. Please double check to make sure that your jar is water tight, because there is a lot of shaking and moving and holding with this project.

Mistake 2
Your jars don't need to be that big. Bigger is heavier. Bigger means you have to use a lot of glitter and glue. Smaller is just fine, there's plenty of movement in a smaller jar.

Mistake 3
Not every glitter glue is as effective. I used these little tubes of glitter glue from the toy store, and they did not dissolve very well nor did they give enough body to the water to make the glitter swirl, rather than float on the top.  The craft store glue worked immediately, with far less glue. I read one tutorial that said to use 1 Tablespoon glitter glue per cup of water. That worked for the better glue, but not for the other.

Mistake 4
Do not use white glue to give the water the right viscosity. It will immediately work for viscosity, but it will also immediately make the water opaque. There is no purpose in having swirly glitter if you can't see it. I suppose there might be some clear craft glue that would work, but I didn't have any. I read this post (also a fascinating post about teaching the kids meditation) that said to use glycerin and dish soap. That would probably be the best option, but I didn't have any.

 In the end, I used three cheapo glitter glues and two half empty craft glitter glue jars from an old project (it probably would have worked fine with just the craft glitter glue). Use warm water to help the glue dissolve and shake shake shake it up. I also used one and a half vials of extra fine glitter. I basically tossed in every glitter glue I could find that I thought would be close to purple, my original color. Well the original color was gold, as you can see from the before photo, but once I added the white glue, I ruined the whole thing and had to toss it out. So I started over with purple.

One might think that using so many different colors would make the glitter muddy, but I actually found that using the blue, purple, red, and opalescent glitter gave the jar a lot more interest than it would have had if it had just been one color.

 It looks like the starry sky, actually.

 Let's watch it settle.

 Red. Purple. Blue.

 Flash of opal.

 This one takes about three minutes to settle. I read here that if you add more glue, it takes longer. She uses it for time outs, as a tool to help her kids calm down. So if you want a five minute "time out" jar, then you want to get yourself some extra jars of glue so you can fuss with the timing. You can tell from my experience that it could take a bit of experimenting to get it right.

Finish. Are you calm yet? 

When my son came home from school, I realized I was going to have to make him one too. I took the lessons I learned and made him another one. The only color glitter glue I had left that hadn't gone into the purple jar was green, and I used the rest of the blue glitter and another vial of green glitter. And then I added some gold glitter for sparkle. The last improvement was in the jar I chose. I realized smaller works, too, so I picked a fancy olive jar. Which I think turned out amazing, even though it settles far faster. I can add more glue later if I want it to go slower.

He thinks it looks like Snape's potions, and asked if it was for his Harry Potter Birthday coming up in the summer. That's a very good idea, although I might use it for divination. Stare into the globe and try to tell the future. I don't have a picture of him because he just isn't as willing to sit and pose as the girl is.

There are a few different things you could do with this project. I like my son's idea for a Harry Potter project, but it could also be adapted to make a snow globe, because essentially, that is what this is. You'd want far less glitter and something pretty to look at inside the jar and some waterproof glue to seal the lid, but it would work.

All in all, this was a very simple project, once you get past the oopsies and it does kind of make me want to go get some more glitter glue and make one for myself. What can I say, I loves sparkly things. And there are times I sure could use some calming down and a focus for meditation.

Ten Ways Pinterest Can Improve Your Creativity

 My Stuffed Doll, inspired by, researched on, and created with help from Pinterest. Because Pinterest is not just for wasting time.



I've read a lot about how people love Pinterest, but it's a total time suck and they never DO anything that they pin on their boards. Or conversely, how people just don't "get" Pinterest, that it just seems to be a kind of cluttery virtual hoarding by squee girls.

Not me. Yes, I probably spend more time than is good for me browsing Pinterest, but I also try an awful lot of things that I see on Pinterest. I also use Pinterest as a resource for when I have my own projects to tackle. So I thought that I'd discuss some of the ways that I have used Pinterest not only to inspire but to actually DO STUFF.

1. Pin stuff you like!
This might seem self evident, but often when I am not sure what I am doing, the very act of pinning stuff will help me figure out what I really love, what I dream of, what I'd like to be doing and where I want to go with  myself.  Often, while I'm pinning, I will begin to notice trends in my interests, like dark colors or stamping or stuffed dolls. Which brings me to the next thing...

2. Make your boards as specific as possible.
It is very easy to just think one Crafts Board or one For The Kids board will do, but if you want to actually do stuff from pinterest rather than just squee over great ideas, it helps to make those boards very specific. So rather than one Crafts Board, I have Crafts and Stuffed Creations, Craft and Crochet, Craft and Stitch (hand sewing), Craft and Be Ye Unafraid of the Machine that Sews (yeah, my machine intimidates me). And that's not even counting the DIY boards I have, where I put tutorials and upcycling and other stuff. The important thing is that I gear my boards to my activities and needs and desires. I like crafts and art, so the majority of my boards are related to this... but they don't have to be. You can have boards focused on holidays, music, travel, fashion, food, kids activities, reading. But the more specific each of those categories is, the easier it is to actually find what you need when you are ready to DO STUFF.

3. Create Action Boards.
These are not mere inspiration boards, but these are boards where you pin things that you are in the process of planning, creating and researching. These boards might be something like a To Do Board, where you pin stuff you want to remember to do. Or project boards, like Kids Birthday Party, or maybe Kitchen ReDo ... basically any involved project can have its own board. Actually, giving a project its own board means that it will stay on your mind, rather than falling into the cracks and getting ignored. Every time you're unwinding on the internet, if you see something that might fit into your project, you can pin it, and that will get you thinking about it. If you are always thinking about a project, you're much more likely to actually do it. Plus, there's such a wide range of ideas on pinterest, that your personal project can become ever more creative and interesting.

4. Create Photo Reference Boards.
This is particularly something that helps me if I am creating something with visual interest, whether it's decorating or painting a picture or sewing the doll above. I'm not the kind of person who just copies what someone else did, but I am unashamedly inspired by what other people have created. For instance, I had some trouble when I was making this doll, because I didn't know what I wanted her face to look like.

This is the face I came up with, but not before I looked at and sketched out a bunch of other faces like this and this and this. In the end, I came up with my own face, but looking at what other people had done gave me a sense of what was possible and what I liked. When I was making my stuffed owl, I used many references of real owls that I had collected on my do it photo reference board, so I could get away from the stuffed owls that were out there and make mine, if not more realistic, then at least more reminiscent of an actual Hedwig.

5. Use the Search Function.

I love the search function. In some ways, it has taken over for general search engines. I like that the images are visual and I can browse for my own visual interest. Sometimes I just search a term on Pinterest and then let chance lead me to inspiration. But it also works because it is a curated collection of things related to your terms. Someone has already chosen these images because they love them or found them useful. The search function was particularly useful to me when I was looking for ways to do this doll's hair. I felt like I'd never done the hair right, so when I searched on pinterest, I was looking for a tutorial for doing hair "right." I found this and knew that this was the  right way to do doll hair... but then I was also running out of time so I kept searching for something less.... intimidating. I didn't want to do something in felt, although it was cute, so I kept searching until I found this tutorial which is what I used and which came out fabulously.

6. Participate in the Community

People have answers. If you are stuck on something, ask a question on a relevant pin, and someone might have an answer. Or, solicit advice from your followers. Ask them if they know the right way to make a doll wig, or if a recipe works out the way it looks, or... well hey, I've been asking for all sorts of advice on my library board. I want to know if books are good or just hype, or if my kids will like them. The answer for this book seems to be yes. Something to be aware of here is the caption that you pin. Very frequently, I won't notice the caption when I pin and my followers will respond to a question I didn't have. So if you want advice or reviews or suggestions, pay attention to your comments and captions. Another community aspect that can encourage your creativity are the group boards. Create a board with friends working on a similar project, or find pinners you love and include them or just join in on the conversation where like minded people are sharing their ideas, like in this parenting board.

7. Keep Pen and Paper Nearby 

Pinterest is a great virtual pin board, but there comes a time when you have to take things into the real world.  To do so, it helps to have scrap paper or a notebook or journal with you while you browse pinterest. You might want to write down a recipe and bring it over to the kitchen. Or you might want to take the good book ideas and bring them with you to the IRL library or bookstore. Keep Lists. Note things down in your calendar. Take the impulse and paint something while you're sitting in front of your computer. If you have tools nearby to write something or draw something down, then it will encourage you to make one of those great ideas IRL.

8. Make a Did It Board

How fun! You tried a recipe from pinterest, or you followed a tutorial, or you crocheted a pattern, or you went to a place on a travel board! Great. Tell us what you did. Put that pin on a board of completed pins and share with us how it worked out. Keep it there as a reference so that you can go back to it again. I've gone back a bunch of times to do this, (it's great.)There is a feeling of accomplishment when you can mark something as done, and it is encouraging to see that other people are out there trying things, not just browsing.

9. Show and Tell

Similar to a Did It board where you pin things that you've attempted from pinterest, you can create a board to show how your own efforts turned out. Make a board of things that you have made, decorated, cooked. Upload your own photos, pin from your blog or flickr account. Honestly I'm still leery of pinning too much of my own stuff, I don't want to be a spammer, but the truth is that people want to be inspired, and when you show them what you have done, they can be inspired to do it themselves. I finally made my own blog board, after a year and a half of pinning. I'm not sure what took me so long, but it's also a nice place for me to see what I've done, how well various projects and blog posts are received, and to share my projects with a wider audience. There is actually a category for "My Life" when you make a board, so hey, why not show your life and what you have created.

10. Review Your Boards

And last but not least, remember that pinterest is not just for grabbing cool images that you see, it is for curating these images, collecting these ideas, saving things for later use. You pinned those images because there was something that grabbed you. Take time to go back over your own pins. See the comments that have been made. Remind yourself why you pinned that gorgeous room or yummy drink. When you first saw it, you thought, "I want to do that!" so periodically go through your pins to remind yourself of what you want to do. Don't forget to look at your specific boards, too. I have boards for various writing ideas. Sometimes, if I want to get back into a particular story, I might peruse this board. See now, you all thought that was just a board for weird stuff, but no, that is actually an inspiration board for my long neglected novel, characters, moods, settings, plot twists etc. So if I want my brain to go back to that project, I go there. Or if I want a new dinner idea, there's nothing like a food board. Shoot, I was browsing that board last night and decided on a whim to make this and it was delicious. Or if you want to do something for a holiday? Hey, this board is rocking for creativity at Christmas. We can pin good ideas all year long, but when it comes time in November to find a new wreath or project, all you have to do is browse your own collection, and you already have somewhere to start.

So THERE! That's it. Ten Ways Pinterest Can Improve Your Creativity. 

But before you run off and get your make on, leave a comment and tell me if there's anything I forgot. What ways does pinterest help YOU to be creative. How do you avoid the time suck issues? How does pinning help feed your productivity?