Lesson 16: My Entrance to Pinterest

I entered the world of Pinterest last summer as finals were ending. My friends at school were raving about this website that gave them all sorts of creative ways to use pallets in home decor. I was intrigued.

After a few days of obsessive pinning, I sort of got over the craze of the site and began to only use it for practical purposes.

And I will say, it has been helpful. For example, I pinned this ...

 ... and then accomplished this.

However, recently, pinterest has let me down.

Last week Jenni and I threw a baby shower for our friend, Teresa. This is Teresa's second baby (born today: congratulations) since we've all been in seminary. Hence, we have already thrown her a shower. The last one was crazy! Husbands and kids were invited so there were people everywhere, the menu was burgers with every topping and corn on the cob, and activities included a huge game of soccer. 

We decided to take a different approach this time. Just girls, no kids, beautiful, classy, calm, sweet. We used Jenni's monogrammed silver and her new dessert china. We subtly leaned towards boy colors. (We were right!)

For a gift, we asked Teresa what she really needed and collected money to buy her the one big thing. Turned out her biggest need was new cloth diapers. Yes, my friends, she is a cloth diaper kind of girl! They worked with the first and so she's sticking with them with the second.

She registered for seven little green diapers. They really are the cutest things ever. However, it's kind of a weird shower if the momma-to-be only gets one present and she already knows what it is.

Thus, I consulted pinterest because I just knew the site would have some ridiculously adorable, creative idea for turning my seven lame diapers into a baby shower sensation.

Boy was I wrong! It was so predictable! There were diaper cakes all over the place and a few diaper wreaths. The only original ideas I saw were a little baby carriage, a tricycle, and a baby all made out of diapers. However, all were constructed using throwaways rather than cloth.

Distraught, I enlisted the help of some very creative friends here in Clover. Real flesh and blood people. Our mission was to turn seven cloth diapers in some unified cute creature that also highlighted the fact that it was made of diapers.

After humming and hawing, a bit of frowning and backtracking ... a light bulb went off ... A CATERPILLAR!

How cute is he?!?!?!

I wish I could give you the play by play of how to make one yourself. I realize that's the standard for a successful post. Unfortunately, I did more of the suggestion making rather than the actual making of him. I can tell you a few things though.

1. Shirley ran one piece of fabric through the whole thing to connect them all. 
2. She stuffed the diapers with tissue paper.
3. She used rubber bands to tie various things together ... no pins! You do not want to pick the diapers.
4. The little legs are made out of washcloths and are connected through the diaper legs with pipe cleaners.
5. The feet are baby socks.
6. The eyes are also socks. (I made those.)
7. The tail is little mittens used to keep baby from scratching himself.
8. The antennas are pipe cleaners.
9. She also used glue dots when needed. They work great and do not leave marks.

Other than that you are on your own!

You may be wondering why this post is entitled "My Entrance to pinterest." You may be thinking, "Katherine, you are already on pinterest. How could this be your entrance?"

I have an ulterior motive for posting about this cool caterpillar. The second we thought up the idea, I began dancing around the room saying, "I'm going viral on pinterest. I'm going viral on pinterest."

You see, since starting this blog, I've done some research on how to increase blog viewership. One of the main ways is to have an image or post get circulated around pinterest. Unfortunately, my blog is almost entirely writing. People do not pin and repin long passages of writing.

Ahh, but then came the caterpillar!

Baby shower hosts all over the world need to know that green cloth diapers can become a friendly, little guy like this one, and you are just the people to tell them. If you agree with me that this guy is super cute ... you know what to do!

Lesson Learned: Online creativity is no substitute for real life creativity!

Lesson to be Learned: I would like to add the pin it button to the blog, so if you know how to do that, please let me know! Here's really simple directions to doing it!