Dinner Inspired by Pinterest

For those you that saw my Facebook post yesterday, I had a lot of Pinterest projects going on.  3 Pinterest recipes in the works and a project!  One item I was making needed to sit over night so I haven't completed that recipe but I did finish the Pineapple Chicken and the Broccoli bites.  I don't usually do full posts on the recipes I try but this one needed to be shared.

Ok, first of all I learned a very important lesson.  In fact that lesson jumped up and smacked me in the face. I've learned that perhaps the reason I am not a good cook is because I am never fully prepared and I rarely read the directions until I am ready to start cooking!  No matter how much I try I always start cooking and realize I don't have an ingredient.  It happened yesterday.

So let's start with the Pineapple Chicken.  Here's the original pin.

Originally found at Undressed Skeleton

Looks delicious right?  I thought so too.  So if you look at the pin itself, whom ever pinned it before me had put cooking instructions in the description and said it was a crock pot recipe.  I bought all the supplies based on the recipe in the description.  But, I didn't even do that correctly because my husband started putting it together and realized we had like two drops of soy sauce left!  So we had to substitute with Worcestershire which I know didn't help my situation.    

I decided to click all the way through to the original site and learned that this was not intended to be a crock pot recipe at all!  But I was already knee deep so I decided to go with it.  Here's the end result:

Hahaha disaster!  It was basically pineapple flavored pulled chicken, similar to pulled pork.  I put it over some rice and it was actually ok but the moral of this story is read ALL the direction on your pin projects, double check that you have all the ingredients and don't trust what people put in the description, go back to the original pinner!  So you're probably thinking I am going to give this a PASS but I'm not.  I don't think that would be fair since I didn't follow directions well.  I'm giving this one a DO-OVER.  I'll follow up when I have time to try this one again.

More successful last night was the Broccoli Bites. 

Originally found at Recipes by Photo

I followed the instructions exactly as suggested, I just added a little more cheese.  It called for  1 1/2 cups and a bags as 2 cups so I figured why not, who doesn't like more cheese?  And the whole bag went in!  They came out exactly as the picture and tasted pretty good!  The only thing I would suggest when making these is to cut your broccoli up a bit.  I was lazy and just dumped a whole bag of florets in the bowl.  It worked but some of the bigger pieces were hard to work with.  Other than that, this one gets a PIN!  

If you know someone who enjoys Pinterest recipes, please share this post, they'll appreciate my struggles with this one!

2013 Ultimate Blog Party Post - Welcome

Welcome 2013 UBP visitors!  I'm so glad you stopped to check out Pin or Pass!

Pin or Pass was created a few months ago when I got the Pinterest bug...bad.  I started doing project after project.  Some failed and some came out great.   I thought wow there has to be other Pinners out there that have tried these things, I wish someone would have told me what a waste this would be and so, Pin or Pass was born.

I hope you enjoy my blog and will follow it. I'd love to hear your feedback on my projects.  Also, my blog is new and I'm trying to encourage followers, so if you like what you see, please share it with your friends.  Here's a few things you should know about me:

1.  I'm a perfectionist.  I want all my DIY projects to look like they came from a store or that they were handmade by someone highly skilled :-)
2.  I'm honest, casual, a bit sarcastic and dramatic at times.
3.  I love being a Mom, a lot of my posts are geared toward kid stuff and my home.
4.  I love anything chocolate.
5.  I'm not a good cook.

Poke around, check out my posts and I hope to see you again soon!

- Jenn

DIY Wall Art - You Are My Sunshine

It's been a while but I am back!  The Easter holiday had me busy, busy!  With Spring on the way, hopefully, I thought it would be a good time to share a project I did with my son last year at this time.  Since he was a baby, I have sang "You Are My Sunshine" to him.  My Grandma sang it to me and I've always loved the song, so when I came across this DIY wall art idea, I had to do it.  

Originally found at The Polka Dot Pavilion's Facebook Page

This was another project that was done before Pin or Pass so I don't have any before photos, but I went to the craft store and got a blank canvas and paint in royal blue, red and yellow.  I had coupons and everything was on sale so I probably spent around $10.  

I wanted this to be a project my son and I did together so I let him take his hands, dip them in the royal blue paint and smear it all over the canvas to create the background.  I let it dry for several hours, then I dipped my hands in yellow pant and made hand prints in a circle.  Then he dipped his hands in the yellow and I helped him fill in the areas I missed with his hand prints.  From there, I took a medium sized paint brush and wrote You Are My Sunshine on the picture.

Here's our end result:

It's cute but I am a bit of a perfectionist.  I like DIY projects that don't LOOK like DIY projects.  I should have used a lighter color for the background and I would have gotten a little more meticulous in terms of the background application, maybe adding in a little white as well.  I also would have done the letters differently, I'm not sure how but I feel like mine look a little sloppy.  

Like I said, overall I think the picture is ok and he had fun making it so that is worth it alone but if I had to do it over again, I would do a lot differently and I'm still not sure it would have come out to the point where I'd be really happy with it.  This pin gets a PASS from me but only because I'm nutty and like things to look a certain way!  

What do you think about this one?  PIN or PASS?