A Pinterest Christmas

Y'all, I absolutely love the Pinterest website! I'm pretty sure that I didn't have an original idea or cook a new recipe before it came into my life. My sister raved about it and I finally joined a month before Ben was born. It was then several months later before I logged back in to see what the fuss was all about. I have to admit though, I am a total repinner. I think I have had one, maybe two original pins since I have joined. I'm okay with that though because I like to think of all the original pinners out there doing the dirty work for the rest of us. If you want to join, let me know and I will send you an invitation. Several of our ideas for Christmas came from the website so I thought I would share. I made a decision early on that I was going to actually implement the ideas that I found so the website would be more than just a time waster (it's so easy to get sucked in).

Some of the first things that I pinned were these retro, re-purposed kitchens (here and here) and I knew right away this was something I wanted to make for MB for Christmas. I spent a long time trying to find the right piece of furniture to turn into her kitchen. I quickly learned that the goodwill closest to our house has very quick turnover. I found several things that I thought were the right pieces and by the time we could get back up there to buy them, they were gone! Who knew? So, once I found this white, kids cabinet from another thrift store, I jumped on it. The total project cost less than $40.

The before shot. It had great potential and I loved that it already had shelves since that was something we were going to add.

Halfway there. The sink is a $1 bowl from the dollar store. Dan cut out the faucet and stove eyes and we painted wooden knobs for the sink and stove that she can turn. He gave the whole thing a coat of white paint.

Finished product! Dan cut out a oven door and we added some hardware and black chalkboard paint. He painted the back of the shelves green to match her wall color, hung hooks for the tea cups, and added towel and utensil holders to the sides. I found the teapot at goodwill and the tea cups are from an antique store in my hometown. The salt and pepper shakers and polka dotted boxes for storage were things we already had.

I have had this utensil holder thing (the technical term) since I lived in DC and it has been sitting in our garage. It's perfect for her broom and her stove utensils.

Dan cut out the towel holder by drawing it free handed. He is so talented! I really had little do with the actual transformation and just gave Dan my vision and he went with it! The best part is that MB absolute loves the kitchen! She opens and closes the oven door a hundred times a day and is always sure to use her hot pad to get things out of the oven.

I think I have posted this picture already but just in case, this wreath was my inspiration.

Although I wanted to do this with my Christmas cards this year, I couldn't find a shutter that would work. Maybe next year. I found this other idea on pinterest and really loved how it turned out. I taped wide ribbons to my cabinets and then pinned the cards to the ribbon. We have spent so much time looking at the cards. Thanks to this post on the Lil Light O'Mine site, we are going to pick one family a week to pray for throughout the year. I'm thinking we will put the card up on our fridge that is being focused on each week so we can all see it.

On Christmas Eve morning, I wanted to make breakfast since we were going to be at home. Dan LOVES sausage balls so I decided to give these a try. I thought I was being fancy by making them in my mini muffin pan but I think they would have turned out better on a regular baking sheet. They were still pretty good though.

I also wanted to make this sticky bun recipe because it looked easy and delicious. As you can see from the picture, most of the good stuff stuck to my pan. It may be due to the fact that I prepared everything the night before and just put it into the oven that morning. This may not have happened if I had made it all in the morning.

As you can see, mine looks nothing like the original. I may give this another try and make it all at once because it is so easy and it tasted pretty good. Fortunately, I didn't try these new recipes on Christmas morning and I stuck to what I knew would be good. We had pigs in a blanket and some of my mom's homemade cinnamon rolls. Delicious!

Besides the kitchen, this was one of my favorite pinterest Christmas ideas (photo courtesy of this blog). I gave Dan twelve pre-planned dates for 2012. I had so much fun thinking about where to go and what we would do each month. Since Ben is so young, we haven't been able to go on too many dates but we are hoping to change that this next year. There are so many fun things that we want to do but we never think about them when we have an chance to go out by ourselves. Dan is going to open each envelope at the first of every month and let's be honest, it will be a surprise for both of us as I already have forgotten the order of most of the dates. For our January date, we went to Dialogue in the Dark and had dinner at Atlantic Station. We were excited to finally make it to this exhibit since we have been wanting to go for several years. It was incredibly fascinating and I highly recommend it. All of the guides are blind and the entire exhibit is pitch black. I kept thinking that my eyes would adjust to the dark but they never did. I am so grateful for my sight! Our guide had only been blind for seven years as he was in a terrible motorcycle accident. He had a 10% chance to live and was in the hospital for seven months. His story was truly remarkable. I will try to remember to blog every few months and update on what we have been up to.