Very Pinteresting...

I’m hopelessly addicted to Pinterest.com. I mean, it’s bad. It’s so bad I feel the need to add some extra ‘A’s in there so everyone can clearly see how baaaaaad it is.

Honestly, it’s like I sit down at the computer to check my email and spy on my friends, I mean check Facebook, and suddenly I notice someone has added a new pin to their Pinterest pinboards.  I nonchalantly click to see what it was and suddenly the baby’s 2.5 hour nap is over and I’m can’t figure out how the time-space continuum shifted.   If there ever was a perfect example of time being relative, Pinterest is it.

Pinterest.com , for those of you ignorant of its awesomeness, is this magical place where you can collect everything in the whole universe that makes you happy.

Like unicorns? Pinterest has a bazillion of ‘em. Like to see pictures of squishy baby toes? Or fantastical places to holiday? Or kids’ rooms with pirate boats for bunk beds?  Pinterest has them in colour, black/white and sepia. Planning a wedding/shower/birthday party? Make a pin board and now all your favourite ideas will exist in complementary, colour-coded harmony.  Want to look at pictures of sparkly high heels? What about insanely difficult and awesome work outs? There’s something for everyone.

And once you get bored looking at beautiful things (which occasionally happens) you can look up DIY (do it yourself) and Crafts and find a visual explosion of cutting, pasting and painting that all lead to directions on how to make each and every craft there pinned.  It’s everything you love about Etsy, but with directions so you can make it yourself.   

I feel like the potential for Pinterest is just peaking now that summer is here. What better resource than a beacon that leads you to the best of the best crafts and ideas for anything, without having to roam search engines hoping your search for “whip up+ melted wax + into new toy” doesn’t find ... um... inappropriate images?  

It’s genius!  As such, I’ve decided that every time one of my kids is bored, or needs something new to distract them, we’re going to go into my “Mom, I’m bored” pin board and pick something to create and use.  I’m talking games, crafts, outdoor activities, scavenger hunts—and I know I could find even more if I just could devote MORE HOURS to Pinterest. Alas, laundry beckons.

Of course, I’ll have to limit what we make to things my 5 year old and soon-to-be 2 year old can do. 

Um. I mean, I’m going to have to limit it to things we can do together that mommy can make. 

And for which I have the ingredients.  And the tools.  And patience. 

Hmm.  

And now we’re stuck in what I call the Pinterest Paradigm: all this perfect awesomeness has a dark, shadowy side, just like those super scary Oompa Loompas (circa either film) or that heebie-jeebies instilling Willy Wonka (circa either film) that exist within the perfect Chocolate Factory.  See, the worst part of seeing Everything That Is Amazing In Our World, all within a series of beautiful, perfect pictures, is that ... well, reality is significantly less amazing.  Sure, I’ve pinned 504 kid-crafts for me to do either for or with my children. But with the dozen or so crafts we’ve already attempted, we’re running with about a 50% success rate.  Oh, and we consider anything that is remotely like the Pinterest picture a “success” and only fire is considered a “failure.”

Again, we’re averaging “success” only 50% of the time.

So, just know that if all you do is pin stuff to Pinterest, you’re missing out on the best part of the perfection: it’s the trying and failing miserably that makes the best memories! No kid remembers the time you bought play-dough; every kid remembers the time Mom almost burned down the house while the bunch of you tried make your own. No kid remembers the time you finished a pre-fabricated castle kit together; every kid remembers the time you accidently glued your left eye shut building a castle out of popsicle sticks, and you had to make everyone pirate eye-patches so Daddy wouldn’t find out before the glue dissolved.

Here’s to misadventures that lead to memories. 

Happy Summer.

(PS: I’m not in any way affiliated with Pinterest.com. I get nothing but a million ideas and hope for my crafting future from them. No money, no perks, nothing at all. Boo, right? I agree.) J