Pinterest, What Have You Done to Me???

Last year, I wrote this whole post about how I'm totally not into Valentine's Day. It's a cheap, commercialized holiday designed to force people to buy candy, flowers, and tacky stuffed animals. (Here's the link if you want to revisit my rant http://theamazingtwinadventure.blogspot.com/2011/02/valentines-insanity.html) I refused to but into the madness, and was quite proud of myself for doing so. That was last year. That was before I discovered Pinterest.

Pinterest, for those of you that have not been sucked into the time-wasting vortex, is a social network where you can "pin" pictures of things you like, recipes, and crafts, and people can follow you, see the things you're pinning, and "re-pin" the things they like. There are thousands of people on Pinterest, so you can spin endless hours pinning pretty things or things you'd like to make. Do a search for "valentine's Day" and you will bring up hundreds of ideas for decorations, treats, and more crafty things than you can imagine. This is what broke my anti-Valentine's resolve. There was just too much cute stuff to resist, so before I knew what hit me, I was making a Valentine's wreath for the front door, and filling the window boxes with glittery red and pink hearts. 

But it didn't stop there. I had to make cupcakes for Mason's class party. Now, I've always enjoyed going all out on cupcake decorations, but this year I went so far as to make my own glittery heart-shaped candies to top the cupcakes. Then evil temptress, Pinterest, taunted me with a recipe for homemade oatmeal cream pies. Well, we need teacher gifts, right? Bam! Ribbon- bedecked treat bags full of oatmeal cream pies. Was that the end of the baking madness? Of course not!! How could I resist trying to make heart-shaped cinnamon rolls for Valentines breakfast. (Those, by the way, were a big, blobby failure, so I didn't snap any pictures!)

But honestly, those things were small potatoes compared to the Valentines. Oh, the Valentines..... I've always just bought a box of cards, and maybe if I was feeling really generous, went for the kind with candy, or pencils, or tattoos. But like I said, that was before Pinterest. After I gazed upon all of the magnificently adorable ideas, I was powerless to stop myself. I HAD to make these. They were just too freakin' cute. So I spent an hour cutting out foam lips and mustaches to put on blowpops for Mason's class, and another hour painstakingly crafting superhero costumes for Tootsie Roll Pops for the twins. Yup, I spent two whole hours making Valentines when I could have spent 10 minutes writing the twins' names on their cards and making Mason do his own. But seriously- look at how cute these are!!!! And the boys really did love them, so I thought it was (almost) worth the effort.

So yes, I admit it, I kind of lost my mind this Valentine's Day. Though I did stick to my guns when it came to gifts for the kids. They each got a $5 toy and a box of chocolate. So I haven't totally caved. But consider this fair warning- if you join Pinterest, you may very well lose your mind. Now I have to go buy the supplies to make a St. Patrick's day wreath that I pinned. Ummmm, yeah, I might need an intervention!