We went though some ideas this year and finally landed on the scratch off riddle as our winner. I saw a lot of tutorials on Pinterest, but either I’m not doing it right or these tutorials are less-than-honest about their efficacy. Can you imagine? A DIY that doesn’t quite work right on Pinterest?

We found a clever little riddle online that has a short answer that fits easily under a scratch off area. Have you figured it out yet?

“Smaller than four, yet bigger than three, to make it your food, you must add an ‘E.’”

It’s Pi, silly!

If you like these, I’m putting the PDF up here so you can use them for you own Valentines. I thought it was just cute enough and not too dorky.

I have a few pieces of advice for you when making a scratch off card. Many of the instructions you’ll find on Pinterest don’t really give you all the details.

The basic instructions are to mix 2 parts acrylic paint with 1 part dish soap, and then paint that over whatever you want to be revealed when the scratching begins. Some tutorials do recommend either laminating the surface or putting down some clear contact paper, and this step really is a MUST. Here’s how I did it.

I cut a piece of clear Contact paper to about 8″ x 11″ size. I taped it down to a surface so it wouldn’t curl, and then I painted the whole thing with the paint/dish soap mixture. I let it dry, and then I painted it again. And then I let it dry, and I painted it again. Most instructions will tell you you’ll probably need 2 coats; I found that you really need 3 or ideally, 4. I suppose it depends on the opacity of your paint, but I used both silver and red and with the dish soap mixed in, 4 coats was really necessary to cover the image.

After painting and drying several coats, my sheet was ready. Luckily, I have a Silhouette, so I simply created a page full of heart shapes and sent my paper through the Silhouette, painted side down. If you don’t have a cutting machine, you can cut the shapes by hand. If you have a lot of Valentines to make, I’d recommend simply using a square or a rectangle and cutting with a paper cutter.

Here you can see my painted piece of Contact paper, with a few test cuts I made with the Silhouette.

Once you’ve printed out and trimmed your Valentines, simply peel and stick the pieces of painted Contact paper over the answer to the riddle. I then added a chocolate coin as a treat to the front.

Now, the reason I chose the chocolate coin was because some Pinterest tutorial said you could scratch off with this chocolate coin. Wouldn’t that be sweet? Yeah, doesn’t work. This formula for making scratchable areas is sufficient, but you have to scratch pretty hard to get the paint off. A piece of chocolate is neither hard enough nor sharp enough to get the job done. That’s why I ended up adding a paper clip to the Valentine for scratching purposes. I tried several varieties, because I wanted it to be a cute paper clip, but only the metal ones worked, and even then you still have to scratch pretty hard.

So that’s it! It was pretty simple to create, and if you can get past the fact that this scratching mechanism isn’t perfect, I think it makes for a cute Valentine.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

The 7 year old and I kind of decided together that this year, the valentines would be Ylvis-themed.

There are lots of “What Does the Fox Say” valentines on Pinterest, and they’re very cute. But most of them say, “What does the fox say? Happy Valentine’s Day!”

People, the fox does NOT SAY happy Valentine’s Day. He says “Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!” and “Fraka-kaka-kaka-kaka-kow!” and “Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!” Amiright?

I mean, the whole joke lies in the crazy sounds that the Norwegian duo came up with for the fox. So, you kinda gotta keep that in there.

I made my own printable that makes sure the joke is still conveyed. And if you like it and want to use it, you can download the PDF right here!

To make these valentines, you’ll need a fox cookie cutter, and I was so happy to discover that you can get them in a set of woodland animal pastry cutters at IKEA. You can also order them from Amazonif you don’t have an IKEA around you. And bonus, you also get a moose cookie cutter and what I think might be a snail?

So, bake your cookies. I used this recipe, but you could pretty much use any sugar cookie recipe if you have a favorite. The key to making sure your foxes turn out right is to make sure the cookies are very chilled when you stick them in the oven. Roll the dough out chilled, and I even recommend putting the cookie sheet with the cut-out cookies back in the fridge for 30 minutes or so before you bake them. Then you won’t get too much spreading.

You’ll need some treat bags that fit your cookies; I bought some like these that work perfectly. I made a PDF sheet of labels that, again, you can get here; it has 4 labels, each one with a different fox “sound.” Print out a page on cardstock and then cut them along the light gray solid lines. For each label, you will fold them in half along the light gray dotted line. I left a space at the bottom where you can have you child sign the valentine.

Put a cookie in a bag, fold down the top, and slide the fold into the label. Staple on either side to secure them.

And then have a fabulous Valentine’s Day! Coming up next are the 10 year old’s valentines, so stay tuned!

My mom used to make this dip for fruit when we were kids, and I always loved it. Because it contains two things that I adore:

• marshmallow creme (aka, FLUFF)
• cream cheese

And that is all. Srsly! Here’s all you need to make this dip:

You might be able to make it without an electric beater, but you’d have to have a lot of arm strength.

So, you get these two things, and you put the entire jar of marshmallow creme and the entire block of cream cheese into a bowl.

And then you blend it.

I’d say the blending take about two minutes; use a high speed, and be sure to scrape the sides with a spatula because the marshmallow really wants to stick to the side.

And then? YOU’RE DONE. You can serve it in a nice bowl with a platter of fruit. You can either cut the fruit into small chunks and provide toothpicks (my preferred method, since you then get a larger dip to surface area ratio, and you don’t have to worry about double dipping), or you can cut fruit into slices that people can pick up.

Look, I didn’t say it was the healthiest Super Bowl appetizer ever, but what Super Bowl food really is that healthy? Kids love this dip, almost as much as I do.

Who are you rooting for in the Super Bowl? We don’t care about professional sports in this house, but somehow both my kids are Broncos fans. Or, more accurately, they are going to root for the Broncos in the Super Bowl. They are really barely aware that it’s a team. So don’t hold it against them.

First up is my delicate wire bracelet. There are a bunch of different gauges of this galvanized, twisted wire available at your local hardware store, and it’s super inexpensive. Mine was about $0.39 a foot. I liked the thin wire and thought it would look cool with several rounds of it stacked together. Here we go!

Supplies:

• several feet of galvanized wire, preferably very thin (eyeball it at the store and go for it!)
• crimp tubes, large enough for the wire to go through twice (if you get a multipack like these Beadalon Crimp Tube Variety Pack you’ll have several sizes and can choose the one that fits best)
• jump rings
• a clasp
• jewelry pliers
• wire cutter

To start, cut your wire into appropriate lengths. This bracelet looks best when it’s relatively tight around your wrist. Keep in mind that you are going to be folding about ½ inch of each end over. I cut mine to about 8″, and I wanted 5 strands.

Take a strand of wire and bend about ½ inch over. It’ll take a little muscle since this is pretty strong wire.

Crimp it with your fingers or some pliers to make a bend like so:

Slide a crimp tube onto the wire from the other end and move it up towards the bent end.

This is the hardest part: getting the crimp tube to slide over the main wire and the end of the bent section. You’ll have to squeeze the bend so you can get the end of the wire as flush with the body of the wire as possible. Slide the tube up so it sits over the end of the wire.

You only need to slide the tube so that the wire end is just barely poking out:

Carefully crimp the tube with pliers or a crimper.

And you’ll have this:

Repeat the process for the other end, but this time you’ll need to slide the crimp tube on before you start bending the wire. Once you’re done, you’ll have a wire with two loops on either end.

Repeat the entire process for all your wires. Now, gather up your wires and connect all of the ends together with a jump ring.

Once you’ve connected one end, you can connect the others with a jump ring; be careful to keep the wires in the same order.

Attach a clasp to one end, and then close the clasp. Using your hands, mold the wire a bit so that it’s slightly more rounded.

And you’re done! Simple, inexpensive, and I love the delicate look it gives.

So now that all the holiday and new year festivities are over, what are you supposed to do if you want to get your drink on?

I’m here to help. I’m always thinking of you.

And also, I wanted to get my drink on, in a wintery but refreshing way. What’s more refreshing than a margarita in January?

Whip one up!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pink grapefruit
• 1 blood orange
• 2 – 3 key limes
• Cointreau or Triple Sec (or Grand Marnier)
• Tequila!

To start, you’ll want to juice all your citrus.

I like using this citrus squeezy thing, but you can also use a regular hand juicer (which you’ll probably need for the grapefruit, since it won’t fit in the squeezer.

Those wee key limes fit in the squeezer, or you can just smash ‘em with your hands.

Now you’ve got your juice. If you like your margaritas on the sweeter side, you could add some simple syrup or sugar at this point to sweeten it up.

Now, gather your shaker and liquor. Fill the shaker with ice, and don’t skimp! Fill it to the top.

Make sure you use the good stuff.

Fill the shaker 1/3 of the way with tequila, and another 1/3 with your orange liquer (Triple Sec, Cointreau, Grand Marnier, whatevs).

Now add your juice. If you like, you can strain it if you don’t like any pulp in your ‘Rita.

Now shake it like a Polaroid picture.

I like to rim this glass with sugar instead of salt. You can use one of your leftover citrus rinds, running it around the rim of the glass to moisten it so it’ll take the sugar.

Fill your glass with ice…

And then fill it with your classy cocktail!

Go wild! And if you need some cool glasses to serve your fancy drink, check out some of the offerings here… I’m really digging the Cupa Rocks glasses that gently tilt on their own!

We’re starting to get a little excited about the Olympics over here. We aren’t a big sports family, but RD Husband has one sister who was an athlete in the Olympics in 1988 and another who has coached Olympic teams. So we have a soft spot for the games.

This necklace is easy and inexpensive to make. Here’s what you’ll need.

1. Cord in 5 different colors: red, green, yellow, blue, and black. I used Chinese knotting cord in micro size G, which I ordered from here. You could also use crochet thread, embroidery thread, or embroidery floss, all of which are readily available at craft stores.
2. 26 Gauge Wire
3. G-S Hypo Cement, or another strong jewelry-type glue. Michaels carries Aleene’s or E-6000, which both should work.
4. 5 rings (I actually bought a cheap Claire’s Accessories necklace and took it apart, but you can find these at Michaels in different sizes, too).
5. A few binder clips
6. Chain in desired length. I used about 17″, divided into two lengths of 8.5″. You could get something simple and inexpensive like this, or check out a jewelry supplier like Rio Grande or Fire Mountain Gems.
7. Two jump rings and one clasp. (The clasp isn’t pictured. Sorry!)

Most, if not all, of these things can be found at Michaels or JoAnn Fabric.

First step is covering your rings in the cord. You want to attach the cord with glue at the beginning, wrapping it a few times around.

Secure it by clipping a small binder clip over it and let it dry for about 15 minutes. You can prep all your rings this way, and by the time you are done with the last one, the first one should be dry enough to work with.

Now, wrap the cord around the ring, keeping it tight and each coil snug against the previous one. You don’t want to see any metal through the wrapping.

In order to keep the right tension, you’ll need to hold the parts you’ve already wrapped tightly while you wrap more.

Stop wrapping with about a quarter of an inch or so left to go.

Now, place more jewelry glue on the exposed metal, and then continue wrapping until you have covered the ring. Don’t worry about the long ends of the cord just yet. Secure this section with your binder clip and let it dry.

You’ll do this for each ring in each different color cord. Once they’ve dried (I let mine sit overnight just to be certain), you can clip the cords close to the ring. I chose a side I wanted to be the “back” and clipped them both on that side, so the edges wouldn’t show. Although if you’ve glued enough, the edges will sort of blend together with the ring.

Once you have all your rings, it’s time to lay them out in the correct pattern. Check online and look at images to get your order correct. Then, you are going to start wiring them together.

Cut a small length of wire, about 3″ long, and place it over one of the connections between rings.

Turn to the back, and twist the two wires together, like twist ties. You can use your fingers, or if you have needle nose pliers, those work well, too.

You’ll twist until the connected wires are about 1/4″ long, and then snip the wires off. Fold them under and towards the rings so that they don’t stick out, but keep them hidden in the back.

Once you get a few together, it’ll look like this:

Make sure you are wiring them tightly together so that they keep their shape.

You’ll want to make attachments at all these points:

When you’re done, it’ll look like this:

Then, you just need to attach the chain with the jump rings to the blue and red circles.

Attach your clasp, and your necklace is done!

Now you’re ready to watch curling! Hope you enjoy!

I like to think of myself as a Pinterest Power User. I need to tell you what I consider powerful usage, though. I don’t have a million followers (although I was named one of the Top 10 Apartment Therapy Journalists on Pinterest… woot!), but I use the site at least 3 times a day, every day. It’s my go-to resource for researching blog posts and my own personal projects.

All too often, though, I find myself frustrated by pins that are improperly created, and I get sucked into the rabbit hole of an endless search for an image’s origin. Have you ever been there? You find a really, really awesome pin. You want to know more about it! You must know more. So, you click on the pin, natch. And where does it take you? If you are unfortunate like me, possibly one of three places:

• a homepage, and now you have to search through that site for the specific image;
• a single image page with no connection to any information; or
• a Google images page.

GAH! Has this happened to you before? It drives me batty.

So, I’m here to offer all pinners 4 tips for creating helpful, linked pins that will allow everyone to find an original source and will give proper credit where credit is due.

1. Don’t pin from a Google images search page.

If you’ve been searching on Google for images and come across one you like, make sure you click through to the webpage before you pin. That is, if your page looks like this:

or like this:

you’re still on the Google page, and pinning won’t connect the image to anything except a Google search. In the second image above, you’ve clicked on an image to enlarge it, but you haven’t changed the page you’re on.

You’ll notice that in these cases the address bar contains a Google address:

So when you or anyone else clicks on this pin, Google will re-perform the keyword search. So things that came up on that specific date and time that you pinned will likely be gone forever. New images, different page rankings, and lots of other factors make a Google search very fluid over time. So if you want to be able to go back to that image and get more information, make sure you click through to the source. To do that, once you’ve enlarged the image, click on “Visit Page” to get to the original source to pin the image.

2. Don’t pin from a site’s homepage.

Let’s say you found site that’s got some interesting stuff. You’ve landed on the homepage, and you’re scrolling through, looking through posts, clicking on the “Older Posts” button, and after several clicks and a lot of scanning, you find something you like. Stop! Don’t pin yet. Find the start of the post with the image in it, and click on the title of the post.

Here, I’ve scrolled through Neatorama and found this cool hotel I want to pin. But if I simply pin from here, you’ll notice the URL is pointing to the homepage only:

]If you look closely, you can see that just above this post is the end of another post. If you pin from here, you’ll be linking back only to the homepage. So if you check back in 3 months, and this is an active site, the post you were looking for is going to be way, way down in the archives, and difficult to find.

Instead, click on the title of the post to redirect to the post itself:

You’ll know you are on a single page instead of a homepage by the address. Then pin from there, and you’ll always be able to get back to the original source.

3. Always look for your original source; try not to pin from a roundup.

Although this tip is slightly less important because you hopefully still have a clicking trail, it’s much easier to pin from the original source instead of someone who has borrowed that image. If you find something you like in a round up post, click on the link that the author has (hopefully) provided so you can pin from the original site.

In this roundup, the blogger has nicely provided clickable credits at the bottom of each image:

So that when you click on “The Love Nest” above, you get here:

and can then pin from this original source. When you come back to it, you’ll be taken right back to the image you want, and you won’t have to scroll through a whole roundup to find the image you pinned and then click through to its source.

(As a sidenote, here, it’s really important to credit and link all the images that you post in a roundup. Not only does it give credit to the original poster/creator, it helps people to find information and avoids dead end links.)

4. If you upload a screenshot or a picture, give it a URL.

I have a board called “Web Design Inspiration” that I use as a kind of mood board when I’m redesigning my site or other graphics. Often, I find a header or social media buttons that I like, but you often can’t pin those from a website. So I’ll take a screenshot of just what I want and upload it as a pin. However, when you upload a pin, there’s nothing linked to that image. Since there is additional information available on this pin, I’m always certain to go back and edit my pin to add the URL from which it came.

The trouble here is that Pinterest makes it a little harder to do this. You can’t add a URL directly from an uploaded pin; you’ll have to save your pin and then edit it. Like so:

Save the pin by clicking on Upload Pin, and you’ll see this dialogue box once you’ve chosen your image:

You’ll notice there’s nowhere to add a URL, unless you do it in the description, which won’t make the image clickable. Save the pin by clicking “Pin It.” Then, either click on the “See it Now” box that comes up (I couldn’t get a screenshot because it disappears too fast!), or go back to the board where you pinned it and open it there.

At the bottom right corner of the image, there’s a little pencil icon or something. Click that to edit the pin.

Type or paste the URL in the “source” box, and click to save changes. Voila! You’ve done everyone a service by connecting that image to its original source.

Obviously, this technique doesn’t work if you are uploading an image that you took that isn’t posted anywhere else on the web.

So, those are my tips! If everyone followed these few guidelines, I think we’d have a much more helpful and efficient resource!

Do you have any great tips for making Pinterest better for everyone? Let us know in the comments!

I did a lot of shopping at craft stores this season, and I’m always stunned at the esoteric craft books that are out there. Especially when you are shopping at JoAnn’s. I’m happy to see them, because I hope to get a book deal to publish several of my own esoteric craft books someday soon. But I have to share some of these full-fledged BOOKS that, like, I don’t know, how can you write a whole book on that?

Like…

Super cute pincushions! I mean, yes, they are super cute. But there are THIRTY-FIVE pincushions to make in here. How many pincushions does one person need? (Readers, I was shocked—SHOCKED—to discover that there’s a whole cottage industry in pincushion DIY books out there. Just search “pincushions books” on Amazon and you’ll be amazed. There’s even Pincushions for Every Occasion, like when you need a cocktail pincushion, or a business casual pincushion, or even a black tie pincushion. Or one for a funeral?)

You can also buy an entire book of knitted meerkats. If you want to make a wombat, or a fennec fox, or a capybara, you are out of luck, becuase it’s ALL MEERKATS ALL THE TIME in this book. How many different ways are there to knit a meerkat? I mean, it looks from the cover like it’s just one meerkat dressed in a lot of costumes. But good on ya if you can sell a whole book based on one pattern.

You can also make an entire book of spoon animals and pen toppers. What is a spoon animal, exactly? Is it like made from a plastic spoon? The good news is this book is only 24 pages long.

I’m going to have to question whether this book belongs in the craft area:

First, it’s like, a whole book?! How bad can your eyebrows be? How many different ways can your brows be fabulous? But also, if you have to consider your brow grooming to be a “craft,” I’m thinking you might need some professional help.

There were plenty of cookbooks in the book section, too, which also confuses me because I don’t think of cooking when I’m at JoAnn fabric. I guess cooking is a craft, but do you need these cookbooks?

60 recipes? Isn’t a milkshake like, put some ice cream and milk in a blender and then whazz it all up? The flavor, I always thought, depended upon the flavor of the ice cream. What’s going in these milkshakes?

In the nacho book’s defense, it does say there’s guacamole and salsa in there, but then it’s not really just Ultimate Nachos, then, is it? No one, and I mean no one, needs 80 different kinds of nachos. Or nachos for breakfast, because you know that’s where it’s going.

Finally, I walked by this product and couldn’t stop myself from taking a photo:

Is that the best name EVER for a product?! Phoomph? I love how it begins and ends with the “ph.” Wondering what you use it for? IT’S RIGHT IN THE NAME:

So, let’s have it. If you were writing your own narrowly focused but hopefully marketable craft book, what would the title be? We’re dying to know. Leave it in the comments!

I was recently invited to participate in the Brilliant Earth Signature Piece Challenge, building a mood board featuring one of their gorgeous cocktail rings. I decided to put together my dream Thanksgiving outfit, and as a centerpiece I chose their Daliya ring (#5 above, natch). I love the deep red of the garnet, and the intricate gold work on the sides of the ring is really unique. I love the vintage style.

To go with it, I pulled together these items:

1. Pintuck Crepe Blouse from Banana Republic: It’s kind of casual, kind of dressy; it’s comfortable but looks pulled together.

2. Sleek Linear Drop Earrings from Forever 21: They are simple but striking but won’t take away attention from the gorge cocktail ring. And you cannot beat the price at less than $5! (If you want to make your own version, check out my tutorial!)

3 & 4. For your nails, try using an oxblood base color and a gold-flecked top coat. I am fully doing this for Thanksgiving, and I’ll keep you updated. Try Essie’s Lacy Not Racy with OPI’s The Man with the Golden Gun top coat, which has real 18K gold flecks. Fancy!

5. Brilliant Earth’s Daliya ring!

6. Stella & Dot’s Avalon Crescent Necklace: I wear a lot of Stella & Dot stuff; their designs are beautiful and their prices are totally reasonable. I love this necklace to go with the cocktail ring because it’s a little bit art deco, a little bit modern, but simple.

7. Collection Cafe Capri in Berry Bouquet Shantung from J. Crew: How gorge are these pants? I love the pattern and the gem colors.

8. York Bootie by MICHAEL Michael Kors: You gotta have a bootie, right? Also, for the fall weather, wearing a substantial shoe keeps my feet warm!

So, what do you think? What would you wear for your dream fashion Thanksgiving?

The next boy issue is the 7 year old’s bedroom. Here are some photos that show the whole room. Can you see the major issue with this bedroom?

Remember that desk set up I did with Pottery Barn Kids?

Dog photobomb

So, did you catch it?

There’s no closet. I mean, the hell? This room has no closet! That’s why we purchased the dresser we did (see the first photo), that has a little cubby door thingy and a hanging bar so you can hang a few short things (thankfully, he’s not a girl with dresses). But as he gets older, it’s not enough.

So, what to do? Originally, when we were looking for big boy furniture for him, I was looking for an armoire. I didn’t find anything boyish enough, though, so that’s why we settled on the dresser. Now I’m thinking that soon, it will be time to figure out a solution as we’ll need some closet space.

Here are the ideas I’ve come up with. What do you think is the best idea?

1. Get an armoire. The problem here is that I really can’t find anything great to go with what we’ve got, or even anything nice for boys. Pottery Barn Kids has only one choice, basically:Or, the other option might be to build my own with plans from Ana White, but like, LORDY.That’s lovely, right? Would mine be that lovely? It is doubtful.
2. Use the 10 year old’s closets. The 10 year old has closets galore, which just doesn’t make that much sense but like, whatevs. So we could designate an entire closet to the 7 year old, and he’d just have to go to his brother’s room when he needed something from in there. Doesn’t seem like the greatest solution, though.
3. Build a closet. Obviously, this is the most labor-, time-, and money-intensive solution. And I’m not quite sure where we’d build it. It could be nice, though, with some chic modern sliding doors (we’d need sliding doors, I think, to save the space).
   Maybe we could put a closet where the head of the bed currently fits, which would be directly next to the door? I think I’ve seen that before, when you enter a room and it’s kind of a little alcove until you step fully into the room. I dunno, this makes my head hurt.

So, what do you think? Any suggestions? Good sources for armoires? Maybe I can find something stunning at a resale place, but I’m terrible at finding gems.

Help me out, peeps. What to do?