Feeling Un-Pinteresty

I am taking a long break from anything Pinterest related. A few months ago I reached max capacity with Pinterest inspiration and instead of feeling inspired after adding to my pin boards, I felt drained of creative energy and unoriginal. I think Pinterest is great for some things, but I am currently over it. It's like all of the Vogues and Vanity Fairs and House Beautifuls and Etsy shops exploded into a massive collage of witty sparkly decoupaged pages and honestly, it's just too much for my eyes to handle these days.

So I'm going old-school. I'm browsing fabricworm.com and slowly walking the aisles at Hobby Lobby and Joann's and stopping in my local quilting store. I'm reviewing the old decorating and holiday magazines I've saved since I was in college and feeling inspired by the things that I used to find so beautiful.

And you know what? I think my little projects are benefitting from my pin-crazy hiatus. I've learned to blind stitch and hand quilt and embroider (a little bit) and measure and sew with more precision. Since my eyes aren't inundated with thousands of pictures of what other people find inspiring or fun to look at, I've begun to develop a clearer picture of my own personal style and taste.

William turned two (TWO!) while I was still on bed rest, and I wanted to do my very best to give him some beautiful handmade things. Since I was so limited in terms of movement, we only had a small group of family members over, and it was wonderful to be able to prepare a little party just for him without having to consider color schemes or tiny paper decorations that would be thrown away at the end of the day. It was a party like the ones I remember from my own childhood, with homemade cupcakes and messy but delicious icing (if I do say so myself). For weeks in advance, William told me he wanted "chockit orange cupcakes wif SPRINGLES!!!!!" Emphasis on the sprinkles. I had so much fun making them and not considering whether or not they were pin-board-worthy.

I didn't even use a pastry bag to pipe the icing. I smoothed it on old-school style, with a butter knife, just like my mom did for my birthday parties. I bought pre-made sugar lady bugs from Hobby Lobby (because William loves bugs) and stuck one on each cupcake.

He was in heaven. His second birthday was a lot different from his first, when I was on Pinterest overload.

Where do you stand with Pinterest? Can you go online for a just a few minutes and feel inspired or do you get sucked in and leave feeling a little on the drained side?