Down The Pinterest Rabbit Hole

I've written about Pinterest before,  and since it's my new crazy-obsession,

I thought I'd scour its archives for hours at a time

efficiently find an idea or two for the goody bags I was making for some friends.

Let's see what I put together, shall we?

I started with these wee mummy pumpkins:

They were fast and easy to make with my modifications;

you can check out this entry to see how to do them.

Next, I made these super-cute little jack-o-lantern "seeds", 

which are just orange Tic Tacs in their original container with an added Halloween label:

Here's the original Pin complete with a printable label;

the Sweet Man blanched at all that black ink required, so I made my own with this graphic.

Also, I thought the black kitty was a nice shout-out to my own dear Jackie-Cat,

the Springsteen of kitties.

Next!  Spooky eyes!

Now, for the original Pin,

the crafter said she fed Christmas lights through the toilet paper rolls.

The pin I saw said to use glow sticks. (They're tied with the purple ribbon to the TP roll.)

Also, I would try out one or two before committing to making a bunch.

I was at a Trunk or Treat last night and my neighbor, (a sister Pinterest addict aficionado)

was having trouble getting these to sit right.

And if you decide to give some?

 You might want to make directions like I did, and cover the TP roll with black paper. 

Getting a regular TP roll in gift bag could be kinda weird.

To the pattern!

Shiny Happy World has all kinds of patterns, including some for free.

I included this elegant witchy embroidery pattern in a nice big envelope.

Here's the original Pin; she has other Halloweeny stuff there, too.

Here's something fun and easy:  spiral ghosts!

They look like a snail when flat, but when you string them up?

They spin and move in a very satisfying way:

It was hard to get a picture of these guys, since they really move in the wind.

The original Pin said to use poster board,

but the Sweet Man had some vellum to share.  It was nicely translucent for these ghosts.

For both the witch and the ghost, I used some big envelopes I snagged from the staff lounge

(teachers are always doing stash purges),

and stickers I bought from a favorite Etsy shop of mine, waddlinonion.

When it came time to bag all these up, I knew exactly what I was going to use.

Check out this freakin' adorable witchy goody bag!

Don't you just loooove it?  I know I do.

The original crafter didn't have a pattern, but it was pretty easy to figure out.

If you're making some of your own, here's some tips:

1) A standard bag is 6 inches across, so two rows of lace will require a foot per bag.

2) After I punched the holes in the stockings, I backed them with crepe paper to make the purple polka dots.  The crepe paper was forgiving, and easy to glue.

3)  I didn't have big letter stamps for the "Eeek!",
so I made my own with some DIY stamp stuff I had stuck on the end of a wooden dowel.

According to Pinterest, if you don't have the DIY stamp stuff you can use craft foam.

Let me just say, the original crafter? 

Made over SIXTY of these bags for her kids' classrooms.

Kudos to you, Crafty Lady.  

KU-DOS.

They weren't too difficult, but they did take a bit of time.

So, how does everything look, all together?

Pretty amazing, if I do say so!

Interested in more Halloween ideas?
Check out my Halloween and Day of the Dead board on Pinterest!

The Perils of Pinterest

Y'all are on Pinterest, right?

Because it's pretty much the most awesome thing to ever hit the internet!

If you're not on it, let me explain.

You know how you'd go over to your best friend's house as a kid,
 and you'd look at cool stuff around her mirror?

There would be pictures of cute boys...

... and funny cartoons...

... and inspirational sayings.

(I found the EXACT SAME weird poster of this saying that I had as a teen, 
but it was on someone's Flikr so I couldn't use the image.  Check it out, though!)

Well, Pinterest is like that, to the millionth degree!
It's about half the internet, putting things up around their virtual mirrors!

Anyhoo, one of the pins on Pinterest I put around my mirror, 
or "boards" as they're called, is this one:

Yeah, the writer behind the wildly popular dystopian trilogy
also wrote for the gentle Little Bear cartoon!

Interesting, huh?

Well another pinner begged to differ:

"Simple, she watched Battle royal. [sic]"

.
.
.
.
.

Ooooookay.

Now, I am not unaware of the controversy behind the similarities between Battle Royale 
and The Hunger Games.  But as I replied:

"People have been pitted against each other for others' amusement since forever. I will take Ms. Collins at her word that she got her idea after flipping between reality TV and the Iraq coverage, and listening to her father's accounts of Viet Nam."

No biggie, right?

But then!  The same poster wrote:

"Youre [sic] whats [sic] wrong with the world."

What?  What?!?

Not fandom, or Pinterest, or even the Wide, Wide World of Web, but

THE WOOOOOORLD.

Now I get hyperbole, but it's like I thought we were playing badminton...

and she decided heck, no, it's STEEL CAGE DEATH MATCH TIME.

Was my tone in my follow-up post a bit teacher-ish?
Yeah, I'll grant that.

I am a teacher, after all.

But what should I do now?
Just leave our interaction at that?

Well, as anyone who has spent more than twenty minutes interacting
via their computers knows,
while rule number ONE of the internet is

"Just because it's on the internet, it doesn't mean it's true,"

rule number TWO is

"Don't feed the trolls."

But this second rule makes me crabby.

I feel like it gives the power to the troll, not me.
I mean, they're a TROLL, right?
Big and powerful and scary!

So in situations like these, I instead turn to the ever-helpful and unflappable Miss Manners.

In her book Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior,
she said that when someone behaves completely outside the realm of good manners,
there is but one solution:

The Cut Direct.

According to Miss Manners, The Cut Direct means you don't argue with the cut-ee,
you don't talk to her,
you don't even acknowledge her existence.

"What?  Does someone speaketh to me?  I hear naught."

Although my behavior is exactly the same as a person who has chosen
 "to not feed the troll,"
somehow it is much easier for me not to get into a 
"No, you're the poopyface!!" argument with a poster
when I'm reminding myself that I'm practicing 
The Cut Direct.

And that's what I've done with Miss Bad Grammar Smartypants.