I'm not saying you should do this. But you should totally do this! I don't know how many of you out there are aware of Pinterest.com, but it is amazing. Basically, while you are surfing the web, you can "pin" the things you like, find inspiring, etc. and categorize it for others to gawk at. To me, it is kind of a mix between twitter and craftgawker/foodgawker (you can, in fact even tweet your posts from pinterest, etc.).
I just started, but I'm already a total addict. I love how the more things I pin, the prettier my little "pin boards" get. I also love checking out the things that inspire others. The only annoying thing is you have to request an invitation to join, so I had to wait a few days before I got to start using it.
If you have a pinterest account, I would love to see what inspires you! I can be found Here. Please feel free to follow me and see all of the things that I love!
Today I decided to do a little crafting outside of the house. I set up an event on Yelp for some coffee and crafting this afternoon. I chose Heart, about 8 blocks from my home in Portland and it was awesome. I had actually never been to Heart before, but it is quite a nice place to get together with friends, and we had sunshine streaming in the huge windows (even though it did rain WHILE the sun was shining a couple times). The picture to the left is one I stole from their website, sadly I left my camera at home and had to make do with my camera on my phone which isn't really so great (as illustrated by the following photo of our works in progress).
The projects of the day were magnets and felt orchids. I will confess, not a whole lot of crafting got done, but it is always a nice break to get out of the house and socialize (and maybe get some crafting done as well). It's also nice to get feedback from friends on things you are working on, and give each other tips on materials. It was a great day, and if you ever happen to be in Portland, I would recommend stopping by for some coffee!
Today's food craft is super duper easy and delicious! It's an ice box cake style dessert. This means you assemble it and then set it in the refrigerator to magically become delicious! I will also state that I generally use vanilla pudding in this recipe, but you may use any kind you like. Also, if you want to make your own homemade pudding, by all means do, I just wanted to share an extra easy recipe with you all this Friday (it has been a hectic week).
You will need:
1 family size (6.5 servings) instant pudding mix
3 cups milk (for making the pudding)
2 sleeves of graham crackers
1 container Cool Whip whipped topping
1 container of chocolate frosting (I only use about 1/2 the container, even when frosting generously)
First, mix your desired flavor of pudding according to the package instructions. Add your container of cool whip to the pudding and mix together well.
Next, place a layer of graham crackers in a baking dish of your choosing (this would also work well if you had some square individual sized containers). On top of your graham cracker layer add about 1/3 of your pudding mixture and spread evenly. Place another layer of graham crackers on top, then pudding, and so on until you have used the pudding up. Make sure to place a layer of graham crackers on the very top as evenly as possible.
Then, gently spread frosting over the top. It helps to use room temperature frosting and space globs of it over the top and spread them to meet each other. This way you don't move your crackers around too much and make a mess. *You can also microwave your frosting and pour over the top, as suggested by Melenie below!
Once you have your frosting covering your top layer of graham crackers, cover your dish with plastic wrap (or if you are lucky enough to have a container with a lid that will not touch and mess up your pretty frosting, place the lid on it and set it in the refrigerator. I recommend you refrigerate for at least 4 hours, but over night is even better.
Then, just slice and serve, it tastes just like chocolate eclairs!
