How to put Pinterest to work for you!

Posted: November 15, 2012 | Author: Sherrie Williams | Filed under: Domestic Goddess, misc. | Tags: pinterest | 1 Comment

I know you all know Pinterest, and i know you all can loose hours upon hours lost in the pinterest world! But how many of you have to put it to work for you? Now i am no expert but two things i hear a lot from friends is how they got lost in pinterest, how impressed they are when they see me make things i’ve seen off there. So i thought maybe some of you are like my friends just pinning away but never actually doing anything and i’m hoping maybe my Pinterest system will work for you.

Ok like i said i’m no pro so my system may be basic or to much work depending on how you like it. but here it is….

First create specific boards for ideas…. So rather then i have a “food” board i have, food: Breakfast, Food: dinner, Food: Dessert, Food:slow Cooker/one pot. I have 11 seperate food boards (9 for ideas and 2 revolving more on that in a sec), 5 for style, 11 homeschool, 7 crafting, 5 kids/baby, 6 party, and several other single topic boards) having specific boards helps you get to what you want when you want it. No looking through a thousand food recipes to find that one dinner recipe you pinned months ago!

Second Create revolving boards…. I have 5 current ones… Currently crafting, This weeks meals, to name a few and then 3 completed boards… Things i’ve cooked, Things i’ve made, and homeschool projects. The way i do it is every week i go through my food boards do our meal plan and move pins from food bards to this weeks meals. Once i’ve cooked them they get moved to things i’ve cooked. i do the same with homeschool and crafting just not as often. This helps me get to the pins i need quickly, and gives me a way to reference back in the future without sorting through hundreds of pins.

Third be practical: Create boards that are useful a board for christmas lists, books you want to read, ideas for your sons first birthday. It’s ok to have a board for all party ideas but be practical and pin things you are actually going to use or fit a specific theme you have in mind. It really cuts back on that overwhelming feeling when you look at the board later and realize you don’t have the knitting skills to knit all those things on your yarn craft related board.

My last tip is not to have pins that aren’t useful. I pin gift ideas, books i want, articles about apps or blogging tips. All kinds of things but if i find a pin i don’t like or one that i don’t need to reference in the future i delete it. That means if i buy the gift the pin gets deleted, if I try a recipe we don’t like i delete it. If i pinned something for the home or an outft and months down the line my taste changes and i decide i don’t like it after all i delete it.

Hope this helps! What tips do you have for getting more use out of your boards on pinterest?

Fall to Me

Posted: September 20, 2012 | Author: Sherrie Williams | Filed under: Homecooked | Tags: chocolate, dessert, dinner, food, lunc, pinterest, recipe, snack | Leave a comment

Wow i’ve pretty much fallen off the planet! My sewing machine has been collecting dust, i’ve purged craft supplies of all kinds, I’m just not in a creative season. We are in a busy season as most are during summer but i’m also just in a season where most of my time is spent working or reading or doing bible study or prepping for a 5k. I’ve finished my christmas gifts except for my husband but we went with bought gifts this year it was just easier. (The only redeeming factor is we did our best to buy from brands that give in some way). That all being said the fall is upon us in 2 days!!! So since i’m busy at bible study, and leadership training, and going on camping trips my creativity has gone to the kitchen! I wanted to share a few of the recipes i’ve been trying out lately some better then others all thanks to pinterest! (if you don’t know I’m a pinterest-a-holic then you don’t know me!) Now please note most of these are fallish recipes and even though its been a hot hot hot few weeks i started in with my first fall recipe mid august. 🙂

Ok now before you scroll for those recipes i just want to say that today i baked a pumpkin apple pie all of my own recipe creativity i plan to share it so check in hopefully tomorrow it will take me a bit to type up the recipe. Ok now onto the pinterest ones……

Apple sauce bars

Apple Enchiladas (now note i don’t use the apple pie filling they suggest i found another recipe i prefer that you mix fresh apple slices with 1 box vanilla pudding mix, 4tbl water, and some cinnamon)

Cookie dough bites

Pork stuffed Yams

Did you think i only bake? I don’t I do cook real food to!

Peanut butter squares (YUMMMMM!)

Shrimp

The best shrimp dip you’ll ever try!!!!

our current addiction- Baked zucchini

Flourless zucchini muffins (let me tell you these bad boys rocked!!!!!)

Ahhhh apple picking season comes with fall!!! I made our regular apple bundles but i’ve also whipped up some of the best apple sauce i’ve made yet!!!!

check it out so easy!!!! i didn’t have a cinnamon stick so i used just seasoning.

and lastly my son helped me make these cookies. he liked them as did my husband and me the pumpkin lover wasn’t super impressed!

Well i’m off to type up the easies pie recipe you ever did make that sounds super gourmet and had everyone impressed! Be sure to check back!!!!

Summer Art part 2

Posted: August 10, 2012 | Author: Sherrie Williams | Filed under: Friends, Handcrafted, Kids Crafts | Leave a comment

well we finished up our art play dates for the summer. It was a lot of fun and we tried a lot of new things! Here is a peak into our tuesdays….

we break up the 6 weeks each week into a general theme or unit…

Week 1- Colors, We painted with milk paint which i froze into ice cubes, we experimented with mixing colors in water color, and we painted rainbows with water color, and cutting collage practice

Week 2- Food week, we painted with cooked spaghetti noodles, pudding vinger paint, we used veggis as stamps, and we used water colors and coffe filters.

Week 3- Nature week, we painted leaves, leaf rubbings and tracings, water droppers

Week 4- Sensory week, we exploded soap in the microwave and attempted to color it, painted with shaving creme and food coloring, made objects out of clay, we also painted using different household objects as brushes (fly swatters, bath puffs, things like that)

Week 5- we roll and throw containers filled with paper and paint, we use marbles and pink pong balls to roll through paint and as brushes, we drive cars around our paint try, (last year this week was a hit this year not as much but i still love the effect of the paint in the containers)

Week 6- Me week we do hand prints turned into butterfly’s, foot prints, finger print trees, and we painted their initial. (last year we did full body sketches and colored them)

Having done this now two summers in a row i have learned a few things…. first have no expectations of what will be liked or not liked every kid/week is different and sometimes what i thing is fun they find boring. a little food coloring goes a long way, and the $1 store is a great resource. Kids love to get their fingers messy and cover paper, rarely will they paint what you had hopped. Paint outside and again relinquish your control!!! Its art let them show you their creativity!!!!

Looking for fun art to do with your preschooler or tot? Feel free to check out my pinterest boards Homeschool-Art and Homeschool-Completed

Iphonetography

Posted: June 29, 2012 | Author: Sherrie Williams | Filed under: Photography | Tags: Apps, photograpy | Leave a comment

Ok i’m gonna start this by saying i am not a photographer now do i ever call myself one. I am a hobbyest and that is that. I love photography. i love looking at beautiful photos and i love capturing our daily life the big and small. In fact i love it so much i was the friend everyone made fun of because i always had my camera with me (ALWAYS) but to be honest I was to busy taking theater and choir and getting easy A’s not showing up as a TA when i was in Highschool. So yeah i’m not a professional photographer nor would i ever pretend to be. I think its weird that everyone and their brother it seems now a days is a photographer, but i think a real photographer has training talent, experience, they are not just lucky and get a great shot here and there. Sorry if that offends anyone. i have amazingly talented friends who are very talented and most assurdly professional but i would never put myself in their catagory.

Ok that being said i do love taking pictures and take them pretty much daily. And now thanks to my iphone i am learning to edit them and make them even better. So If your like me i’d love to show the apps i am loving. 🙂

first of course… Instagram…

I love posting and sharing photos here. i love the filters especially rise and it links to my facebook and twitter.

Diptic…

this is my favorite for creating multiphoto photos. I can then upload them using instagram or whatever other app i choose. i also have frametastic but i prefer diptic.

as for editing i use these 3 the most, each doing something different i love. Befunky and 100 cameras have filters i love. and PS express is great for lighting photos and other editing needs.

BeFunky

Adobe Photoshop Express

100Cameras

I also use square ready a lot for photos that i want to upload to instagram but took with my regular camera and don’t want to have to cut.

Another fun thing i like to do with my iphone photos is text on the pic or even text alone. to do that i use 3 different apps….

Phonto

labelbox

twee gram

someother apps i love are project 365, pocketbooth, lenslight, shakeit photo, & viddy.

What apps do you use?

INSTA What?

Posted: June 27, 2012 | Author: Sherrie Williams | Filed under: misc. | Leave a comment

Do you use Instagram?

I do and i love it! But there are so many other companies and apps that have played off it. I wanted to share two of my favorites! the first is called Instagrid. I love it cause one thing i hate about instagram is there is no way for me to see my pics unless i have posted them to twitter/facebook which i don’t always day. Its so awesome! I love it!!!!

But more than that i love Instapparel!

Here is the shirt my hubby designed….

Photo: Ha! We live this tee! These kids are having the time of their life! Right? http://instagr.am/p/MLYjuQzU9H/

How cool is that! and man are these guys fast! You go on sing up, design your shirt, its prints in 24 and then ships to you. We got ours in just a couple days!

Want your own instapparel shirt…

Photo: Your response to our launch was INCREDIBLE! And for that awesomeness, we would like to offer up discount code LAUNCHWEEK as a thank you for helping our little startup get off the ground! This code gets you $5 off your order, still with free shipping ($3 shipping for our international friends) and gets even more people in on the creativity! Thank you, thank you, thank you and feel free to share the code with everyone you know! Code is good through July 1st! http://instagr.am/p/MSQJrXzU2s/

They are also offering free shipping!

go go now and design your super cool shirt!

Summer Art

Posted: June 25, 2012 | Author: Sherrie Williams | Filed under: Handcrafted, Kids Crafts | Leave a comment

So one thing that we love about summer is that we can get outside for a little bit each week and have some fun, get messy and create! I think Tuesdays are the best days of the week!

So far this summer we’ve done a lot of fun things takes to Pinterest! We’ve painted with condensed milk, which we actually froze and used the ice pops to paint with, we used water colored with food coloring on coffe filters, we have painting with pudding finger paint. Its messy and fun and more is to come!

Choc Chip cookies

Posted: June 23, 2012 | Author: Sherrie Williams | Filed under: Homecooked | 1 Comment

Oh man we found a new recipe that we are loving. i make a dough batch mondays pop it in the freezer and we coook up just a few everyday for a little treat after nap. ready for the recipe? Wish i could call it my own but its off the Trader Joes whole wheat flour packaging (do you like TJ? do you have a whole wheat flour recipe you like to share?)

Ok here it is..

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 granulated sugar

1 cup softened butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 package choc chips

Preheat oven to 375. and ere is were i don’t follow the recipe… mix it all together! (i’m sure it helps to mix dry and wet seperate i don’t bother cookies are cookies i’m not going for perfection here!) scoop and bake!

So yum!!!!!

I will say i have discovered the difference between shaping dough and just scooping it out. when i shape it into balls i get much fluffy cookies were when i scoop it out they are much flatter. either way these cookies don’t last till daddy gets home.

sewing class

Posted: June 21, 2012 | Author: Sherrie Williams | Filed under: misc., sewing | 4 Comments

I am so excited i’ve decided to start teaching sewing classes. I’m going to be hosting some this summer in Santa Ana at the belly sprout and as soon as i get the details i’ll be sure to share them with you all but until then i’ve hosted one here. We did a beginners sewing class where we stitched up a basic hostess apron.

They turned out so cute! and the girls did a great job!!!!

That brings me to my question what kind of things do you want to learn to sew?

———- UPDATE: For anyone interested in learning to sew the apron above i will be teaching them thursday June 28th @ the belly sprout in Santa Ana, CA —————————-

We’ve been cooking….

Posted: June 19, 2012 | Author: Sherrie Williams | Filed under: Homecooked | Leave a comment

You all know pinterest is my friend, possibly one of my best friends!!! One of the things i love most about it is all the recipes we get to try out that we wouldn’t normally find. But lately we’ve expanded away from there a bit here is what we’ve been cooking up…..

For easter we got to try out a few fun ones, resurection rolls and dying eggs with koolaide….

We’ve also decided to start receiving a CSA basket from Farm Fresh to You. Its amazing! if your interested tell them i referred you and let me know i have a code so you can get $10 off! Yummy produce!!!

We also recently purchased a Vitamix which we are so excited about!!!! We’ve been going crazy with all the yummy smoothies around here ( all of them from the vitamix cookbook)