Tag Archives: Pinterest

Lazy Decorating/Kid Craft: Guitar Pick Art

I had so much fun writing up my lazy girls’ room decorating post that I thought I’d do another one. And, using the powers of technology, I’m writing it early and scheduling it to go live on Sunday so I can take a weekend sabbatical from the interwebz.

Today’s lazy decorating: guitar pick art.

I wanted to do something DIY with the girls for Father’s Day, but having recently attempted and failed at Mother’s Day crafting, I was wary of trying another elaborate project. I also don’t like how loaded these mutual adult/kid craft projects can become. Pinterest makes me wary because their kid projects  do not look like kids actually did them. I want my children’s own stamp to be on their gift crafts. At the same time, I do not want shitty art in my house. It can be really hard not to direct their process or “fix” the little mistakes that make something potentially great just look like a hot mess.

Fortunately, guitar pick art is the perfect shared project. Continue reading

What Lauren Learned About Identity & Work via a Craft Disaster (aka “Do it, start it, FUCK THIS IT’S NOT WORKING!”)

It’s time for me to ‘fess up: I did not do the Pinterest challenge assigned to me by Renee, the winner of the Pin Us To It prize at our 4K giveaway.

Now, I bet some of our newer readers, brought here by our connections to other post-academic blogs, are thinking “WTF is this Pinning shit?” So before I launch into a discussion of my crafting experience, let me say this about Mama Nervosa: it’s a non-niche blog. We don’t just write about being ex-grad students, or just write about being feminists, or just write about being Moms, or just write about secretly reading super goofy quasi-pornographic YA lit in sixth grade. We write about all of our experiences, and some of those experiences include stuff that’s very typically feminine or maternal. We simply aren’t interested in fracturing our identities into separate blogs or saying that how we feel about ourselves as brainy feminist women has nothing to do with being mothers or crafting disaster-ers. I’ll try to make some connections between this craft experience and some of the stuff I’ve been thinking as I quit grad school towards the end of the post, so stay with me!

From our inception as a blog, we’ve been preoccupied with Pinterest and lifestyle blogs because they’re such an integral part of the online mommying world (read this recent article from Jezebel for a taste of it). Jen is pretty ok with Pinterest: she recognizes its flaws, but overall, her experience with Pinterest is positive. I… let’s just say I feel differently. Continue reading

Fairy Garden Pinterest Challenge Complete!

Hey, remember when we did the breakthrough to 4k giveaway? Renee won the Pin Us To It Pinterest challenge, and she chose this fabulous fairy garden project for Lauren and I to complete.

Lauren and I are both ambivalent about Pinterest, though I have had some successes with recipes and art projects. I decided to use the concept of the fairy garden without following the instructions too literally. The girls LOVED this project. Continue reading

This is not what the picture on Pinterest looked like

I left my parents’ house about 10 pm on Easter, and I was back there at 10 am this morning to drop off my girls so I could head in to work and tackle the mountain of essays and annotated bibliography drafts that my students are expecting me to return this week.

I had every intention of whipping out a cute little post yesterday about celebrating Easter with fancy dresses and Peeps, maybe laced with a little complexity about what it means for my kids to grow up not knowing or understanding very many Biblical traditions and whether I ought to be worried about that.

Here’s how I thought my morning was going to go: Continue reading

Here’s How I Actually Completed 4 Pinterest Projects!

I confessed in our Pinterest chat last week that I had never actually followed through on any of my pins: all those delicious recipes and adorable crafts and fabulous outfits are elaborate fantasies of the gorgeous, perfect mom I am in my mind. (The mom I am in real life, in my kitchen, is wearing grungy pajamas and drinking coffee from a pint glass. This is my second pint of coffee. I have been out of bed for approximately 20 minutes.)

So here are my attempts to baby step from Pinterest fantasy to reality. I completed, with some degree of success, 3 recipes and a craft project. Continue reading

(Chat) PINTEREST: Thinspo-for-the-home or divine inspiration?

This is the first in a new feature on our blog, which I’m realizing as I type that we haven’t named. But whatever: it’s CHAT! Jen and I will get together once a week to talk about some topic on our minds, and then share it with you. We hope it’s just the start of a broader conversation.

This week: PINTEREST! Love it or loath it? Inspiration or desperation? Time-waster or under-ass-fire-lighter? Below, we wonder if some crafts are more like porn than creative acts, and if design boards are just thinspo-for-the-home. Continue reading