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Community Corner

Pinning Along

It is just so easy to keep clicking the repin button or the pin it button on my search bar – it's a black hole of sorts and one which can alter reality with hypnotizing photographs of picture perfect results.

If you know what pinning means then chances are you’ve fallen into Pinterest black hole and probably have found all sorts of recipes and projects that now fill your boards. I’ve been asked what my attraction is to Pinterest, it’s pretty easy for me to explain: it’s visual so it’s far easier for me to find what I’m looking for than wading through bookmarks trying to guess what link it is that I can’t seem to find.

It is just so easy to keep clicking the repin button or the pin it button on my search bar – it’s a black hole of sorts and one which can alter reality with hypnotizing photographs of picture perfect results.

My stuff is often not so picture perfect and I’ve found myself muttering to myself “darn you Pinterest.”

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But I still found myself on a Pinterest spree a few weekends ago – a making spree not a pinning one. The fresh picked strawberries and raspberries were part of my inspiration; after all I had nearly 6 pounds of strawberries and approximately 1.5 pounds of raspberries that I had to figure out a use for.

So I set to work. That weekend produced a failed batch of homemade fruit roll-ups (note to self: a Target run when the roll ups look almost done is really not a good idea), dried strawberries, chewy granola bars and refrigerator oatmeal.

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I tend to fall into ruts with dinners and meal planning so looking at pretty pictures of food will often get me to make something new. And more importantly get the family to try something new.

As much as I love the recipes on Pinterest, the craft and do-it-yourself ideas are even better. Yes, I know some of them will never get made and they all look like they came out of a professional photo shoot, and my things never quite look that good.

Crafts for the house, crafts for gifts, crafts to do with the kids, and the most important in terms of it being a lifesaver, ideas for crafts to do with the Brownie troop. I struggle with coming up with ideas for things that meet some of the patch requirements and work within the monetary restrictions as well as the space and equipment requirements in our meeting location.

One of the patches the girls really want to work on is the snack patch – they’ll learn a little about healthy food then they have to make one sweet snack, one savory snack and a drink. Where we meet, we don’t have access to any appliances and even if we meet at our alternate site we’d only have a microwave, a toaster oven and a coffee maker. I want them to do something more than just ants on a log.

I’ve also found some great ideas that make some of the steps in the patches more doable in larger groups. Next year I want to introduce the girls to letterboxing (Meriden, especially Hubbard Park, are full of these clue hunts) and one of the steps has the girls picking out or making their own stamp. I think the suggestion for making one is to carve a bar of soap or cutting a sponge. A dozen girls, 5 adults and a project carving soap, the chaos that could ensue from that makes me shudder. The bottle cover and foam sticker idea I found doesn’t give me an anxiety attack.

I'm thankful for the help so I’ll just keep pinning along.

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