I made some changes to my online presence today. 
    I deleted my Pinterest account. 

    Oh, it was hard! Hard to say goodbye to all those beautiful pinned ideas. But, it was also the right thing for me to do. As you may already know there is a bit of controversy about Pinterest's Terms Of Service & artists maintaining the rights to their work & images. There's some issues with creators getting credit & people being able to reuse ideas & images as their own. I decided that, for me, I don't really want to worry about the legalities of all this, I don't want to feel odd about pinning or repinning and whatnot. So, to make life easy I just decided to delete my account & not worry about it. I'm not making choices for anyone but myself. I'm not condemning Pinterest or its users. I'm just making a personal choice for personal reasons. I do think that in time the creators of Pinterest will work all this out & put into place a system to protect artists or something to alleviate this problem. And, I might revisit my decision at that time. 

    For now, I'll stick with Flickr for my idea gathering like I had been doing previously.  It works just fine for me. In fact before I deleted my Pinterest account I opened up my boards & opened up Flickr & did a search for some of the themes I had so I could keep my favorite ideas favorites. Flickr didn't have everything I pinned, but they sure had a great deal of it & that's fine by me. It also helps that I have one less place to visit online, one less time waster to have for distraction.  

    I also went back to my 'Using A Pin' series of posts and change the titles to "Inspired To Create'. I tried to change all the links to go to the original web source for the ideas & change the wording to reflect that. (I added a disclaimer to the bottom of those posts in case I missed something in my rush through.) I'll still be doing more posts about using the creative ideas I accumulate & I'll keep up the 'Inspired To Create' theme. 

    Okie Doke. I think that's all I have to say about all that. :)

    The Update portion of this is for that sweet little boy I talked about last week! Compassion posted photos on Flickr of his journey to a whole heart! Fatao's surgery was a success! If you scroll through the various Compassion photos on Flickr you can follow Fatao's journey to India, to the hospital, his pre-surgery work-up, the surgery & into the recovery room. Technology is amazing! People coming together to save the adorable kiddo's life is amazing! Hooray for the love of the human race! Too often we hear about the hurt we cause each other. Not often enough do we hear about how we rush to the aid of each other. Here is one little boy that is surely & most definitely loved, by us, and by God. Yay!

    I have inspiration collected for almost every aspect of my life; cooking, decorating, wearing, organizing, dog stuff, cleaning, did I mention cooking? But, my most prolific collecting happens in the craft area. Of course. :) 

    This idea was used a while ago (and of course I kept forgetting to ask for a picture & then to share it with you), before Christmas. It wasn't a surprise gift because I had to have some help getting hand outlines of the family it was for. It's a simple idea, a simple design, with lovely results. There is plenty of veriety that can take place in how you arrange your hands; stacked, fanned out, in a circle, etc. And also lots of variety as to how you stitch it; color on white, white on black, any combo of patterned fabric & thread, you could even applique each hand. I love how a single simple pin can spark lots of creative thoughts and ideas for a project. I'm thinking of using this idea again in a wreath design next time. I haven't decided yet if the next time will be for gifting or keeping though! :)

Here's the Inspired To Create original from Feeling Stitchy!

EDIT: This post was formerly 'Using a Pin' & linked to Pinterest. But, now...I've decided to delete myself from Pinterest & go back and post a link the original sites where the ideas I used were found. I love the idea of Pinterst, but all the legalities of photo ownership & lack of good credit for all the people with these great ideas bothers me. Plus, do I really need another thing to do online? No. I need to spend more time in real life creating rather than endless hours gathering millions of ideas I'll never use. I already get lots of photo inspiration over at Flickr, which I have used for a long while & can continue to do that.  If you happen to know of a different or variation on the source I use please let me know!

    The original Inspired To Create Tutorial to sew up an earbud zippy!

    I actually used this idea one other time & hated the results, so I didn't count it till I used the idea again & decided it was great inspiration. It's a Zippy Earbud Pouch. Here are my first hideous results...

    What I did wrong was 1. improvised instead of reading directions, and 2. rushed and didn't think it through. So, I used it a bit, it started falling apart, and I set it on my cutting table to remind myself to go back and try it again. And, I did. But with my own twist. 
    The HST BOM has got me thinking up things to put Half-Square Triangles on, so I decided I wanted a little HST pouch for my earbuds instead. I made some little 2.5 inch squares from scraps and turned them into 2 inch HSTs that I played around with to find a pattern I liked...a pinwheel?

a diamond?

a hourglass? So many ways to rearrange!

I finally settled on a chevron design for one side...

and hourglass for the other...

    Now that is an earbud pouch I can admire!
It also is not that much bigger than the little circle - only about 3/4 on an inch taller & wider. I used a little extra piece of zipper to make the loop which I kindof like & will do again in other projects. Yay!

The original Inspired To Create Tutorial to cover your earbuds!

    I'm also using this idea to fancy up my plain black earbund to go in this little pouch. I used to do this wrap and knot technique for friendship bracelets in junior highschool so I just dumped out a bunch of embroider floss I thought I might like to use up and got to work. This one will take a little bit to wrap all the wire but it's an easy something to do in front of the TV. I also didn't get fussy with colors choices, but you could totally color coordinate your earbuds with their zippy or phone or purse. 

EDIT: This post was formerly 'Using a Pin' & linked to Pinterest. But, now...I've decided to delete myself from Pinterest & go back and post a link the original sites where the ideas I used were found. I love the idea of Pinterst, but all the legalities of photo ownership & lack of good credit for all the people with these great ideas bothers me. Plus, do I really need another thing to do online? No. I need to spend more time in real life creating rather than endless hours gathering millions of ideas I'll never use. I already get lots of photo inspiration over at Flickr, which I have used for a long while & can continue to do that.  If you happen to know of a different or variation on the source I use please let me know!

    I thought I would start a little series here on the blog...
Nothing too precise, no timeline, just a little something to get me motivated. The only rules? That I have to use a project, tutorial or photo I find on the web as inspiration. Because I can spend all day searching for projects, collecting ideas & thinking over inspiration & nevery really getting to the actual doing of all those projects, never using any of the ideas. And, I need to use them. Inspiration is wonderful but the act of putting it to work for you is the real glory. 
    So, here we go...
My first used inspiration! Drum roll please.
Painting all the shiny brass knobs with Rustoleum!

For a really, really long time we've wanted to change this:

Into this:

    We just could not fathom spending hundreds of dollars on new hardware for all the doors in our house. We managed to change our front door - the door itself went from solid and brown with brass hardware to a reddish wood with a glass mosaic design and brushed nickel hardware - a few years ago. But getting to all the other doors has been a long study in waiting. 
    
    I've also wanted to paint all of our interior doors white for a while now. Dark brown doors in a small house make everything feel that much smaller and darker. I had a feeling white doors would make our hallway bright, light and open. I was so right! I haven't even finished all the doors in the hall yet & already I am amazed and in love with the change! Not to mention the nickel finish on the hardware is perfect and saved us major moolah! Woot! 

    We have 10 interior doors in our house, by the way. This will be a long process. I managed to get 3 of them done this weekend. And, I use the word done loosely. Here is what I did:
    
    I began by having my hubs remove the doors, carry them to our garage and remove all the hardware. I then had him load the electric sander with a 220 grit sandpaper. I stretched 1 door on sawhorses, leaned the other two against cabinets, & set up a card table covered with newspaper and cardboard to hold all the hardware. Then, I sanded the first side of all the doors, and sanded all the surfaces of the hardware. I wasn't trying to remove all the finish or paint, but to remove all the shine and to well scuff the hardware. After all the sanding I wiped everything down with a vinegar & water solution to remove all the dust and any residue. When everything was dry I started painting. 
    
    For the doors I used Olympic Paint & Primer in One from Lowe's. I used the True White Base in Satin. I rolled on 3 coats, allowing about an hour in between. For the hardware I used Rustoleum Universal Metallic Spray Paint in Satin Nickel, also from Lowe's. I used 2 coats allowing a half-hour in between. After the last coat of paint on the first side I let everything dry about 3 hours before I flipped it all over and began with sanding the backside of the doors.

    After all the painting I let the whole mess dry overnight. Then, the hubs reaffixed all the hardware and rehung the doors. Now, I say that the doors are loosely done because as I've looked at them today in the light of morning I think I will choose a semi-gloss white and go over the doors one more time. The satin finish is just a bit too flat. I also will repaint all the trim in the same white - since the aged white now looks yellowed next to the fresh crisp new white. So they are done for the moment - as I work my way through the other 7 doors in our house. Overall the project will have a second faze, it's a bit of a long term one in that respect, in a few months I am sure I will be very very happy with the end result. And, during the second painting faze I'll probably use this handy aluminum foil tip to help me. 

   Are you an inspiration collector? Have you used any of your favorites lately or are you still collecting? I have a bunch of kitchen remodel inspiration collected that I'd like to start after all these pesky doors are done. But. One major home improvement project at a time. Or so my hubs tells me. :)

EDIT: This post was formerly 'Using a Pin' & linked to Pinterest. But, now...I've decided to delete myself from Pinterest & go back and post a link the original sites where the ideas I used were found. I love the idea of Pinterst, but all the legalities of photo ownership & lack of good credit for all the people with these great ideas bothers me. Plus, do I really need another thing to do online? No. I need to spend more time in real life creating rather than endless hours gathering millions of ideas I'll never use. I already get lots of photo inspiration over at Flickr, which I have used for a long while & can continue to do that.  If you happen to know of a different or variation on the source I use please let me know!