Who loves Pinterest? Everyone! And what better way to discover all the many things you could be doing with your home, wardrobe, and meal plans than by sitting around for hours on end capturing these ideas on a virtual pin-board. I personally have thus far gathered 23 different ideas for furniture items I can make affordably out of a basic wood pallet. Brilliant! All I’m lacking is a pallet, basic carpentry skills, and time.
And parents, you’re in luck. Pinterest holds a plethora of knowledge on how to engage young minds with simple ideas you can do as a family. Strangely enough I don’t usually see children in the accompanying photos to these projects, but I’m sure that’s just an oversight. I’m sure it has nothing to do with being unable to complete any task that has more than three steps with children involved.
Any-who, today I’ll tell you how to really gain enjoyment from a basic Pinterest project. We’ll use the template for the seasonal project I completed just today, with just a few of my own personal touches for flare and realism.
Today I’ll tell you in easy to follow steps how to make Easter basket cookies. The minute I saw this project on Pinterest I knew it was for me.
This is an original picture from Pinterest! So cute, right? I just knew it would be a piece of cake. Or piece of cookie rather.
And so I dove head first into an Easter cookie adventure.
To get started I suggest that you pin this recipe three months prior to Easter, then forget about it. Let it come back to you a few days before the actual Easter holiday. That way you will feel pressed to hurry and buy the ingredients so you can complete this project before the actual holiday arrives and you’re too busy dying eggs and filling your kids’ baskets to make them look just like the pictures you pinned in recent weeks.
Also much like my advice on grocery shopping I would suggest forgoing naps for this adventure. Sleep-deprived children are really good at following instruction. If you’re feeling really froggy you can do like myself and also schedule this project when your child is getting over being sick. Their short fuse really adds to the overall experience by punctuating it with episodes of tears when something doesn’t work out. Oh, and your child may cry too.
Really it’s best to plan this project towards the end of the day when everyone is collectively exhausted. This will also ensure that it occurs when you should be cooking dinner, but are unable to with the oven being tied up. It can successfully throw a wrench in an already frustrating part of your day. You’re welcome.
So now that you know when to plan this project let’s get started. Place all your ingredients on the kitchen table. Surround this collection of brightly colored and differing forms of straight sugar with your un-napped kiddos. They will stand on the chairs even as you repeat over and over “sit down!” They won’t be able to help themselves. The sight of all that sugar and candy will send them into a frenzy.
Oh yeah. I guess you need to know the ingredients. It’s all pretty healthy stuff. Especially for little kids.
Cookie dough
Sprinkles
Jelly Beans
Icing
Licorice
Coconut
I’ve placed this last ingredient that is healthier than the rest apart from all its counterparts and will explain why shortly.
First you’ll need to take the cookie dough and roll it into balls. You’ll want to do this all yourself, but you won’t be able to. Your child will want to help and subsequently get cookie dough all over herself. Just accept it and move on. Believe me, it’s going to get way better. Don’t lose momentum just yet.
You’re going to need to pour those sprinkles (surprise, surprise, we chose pink) into a bowl. This allows easy access to roll the dough balls in sugar (I mean sprinkles). Because there’s not enough sugar in the sugar cookie dough.
At this point you may question yourself, what the hell was I thinking?! It’s too late now. Just like that first week you brought them home from the hospital. Just go with it.
I’m going to go ahead and kill the surprise for you at this point. Pinterest does not. I’ll just go ahead and let you know that there’s going to be pink sprinkles everywhere. You will think you can keep them contained. But you cannot. They won’t just be on the table and all over your child’s cookie dough crusted fingers and forehead. They will somehow have managed to get all over the floor.
Ahhh. You’re remembering that Christmas cookie fun now aren’t you? Yes. Like the red and green sprinkles these pink ones will be found on the bottoms of your bare feet for a month. No matter how much you sweep.
At this point you’ll remember that you chose to open that bag of jelly beans already. While you’ve been trying to contain pink sprinkles the baby will be standing on the chair. She will be standing on the chair with her cheeks packed like a chipmunk. But instead of nuts, it’s jelly beans. You might regret this in about five minutes.
Okay. So next go ahead and put those sugar balls in a muffin pan to bake. You may realize at this point that you forgot to spray the muffin pan with non-stick cooking spray. Just pull out the sticky balls and put them on the table you just wiped clean. More sprinkles to breed with their friends.
While baking your cookies you can keep yourself busy by using the finger sweep maneuver to remove masticated jelly beans from the baby’s throat. The Pinterest directions suggest making the green grass from the coconut while they’re baking, so you can do that too.
Be aware that if you take too long with this you will probably burn your first batch of cookie baskets. It’s ok. That’s why you buy an extra tube of dough. Did I mention that?
While baking your second tray of cookies you can make the grass. This may be your child’s first experience with shaved coconut. Be aware that they will hate it. They will say it’s the worst thing they’ve ever tasted. They will choke and gag dramatically as if the stray taste they got while the tip of their tongue grazed a coconut shaving will make them puke uncontrollably from disgust.
You might enter a moment of internal conflict here where you question if you should not use the coconut grass and risk your cookies looking stupid. Go with your child’s taste preference or have amazing, Pinterest worthy cookies? Parenting is choked full of monumental decisions like this one.
If you decide to make half with grass and half without then I salute you for your diplomacy. You can use your child to mix the food coloring in the coconut in a ziplock bag. Note: make certain bag is closed. Coconut is difficult to sweep up. Especially when coated with hot pink sugar. The child will be an effective mixer due to an influx of sugar high at this time.
You are allowed to feel a small sense of accomplishment at this time since you remembered to remove the second batch prior to burning them to a crisp. Grab a diet coke in celebration. You’re going to need the caffeine. Now you have to wait for the cookies to cool. All the way.
It’s ok. No need to explain this to the children. They’ve already lost interest and ran off to get into something while you were distracted with sweeping up sprinkles, coconut, and stray pieces of partially chewed jelly bean.
An hour later you can convince the kids it’s time to finish the cookies. Once everyone is gathered back to the table with freshly scrubbed hands you can explain the next step of filling the cookie baskets with icing!
Oh dear. This is embarrassing. You’ll likely find at this point that the icing container is mostly empty. You’ll have a vague memory of opening the tub when you first started, and how you took a taste, a taste that started a domino effect of icing tasting by everyone involved.
You’ll wince as you remember your own uncontrolled indulgence. After months of gluten-free, sugar-free eating you might have just fallen off the wagon and greedily gobbled mouthful after mouthful of sweet sin in a fugue state of sugary bliss.
Just move on. You can use that Paula Dean rubber spatula you were given one year at Christmas and has rested at the bottom of the utensil drawer to scrape enough icing to place a dollop in each cookie’s gaping belly.
You’ll be sick of this project by now. Or maybe it’s all the icing making you ill. Either way you’ll have to finish now. Throw some coconut grass and jelly beans on top of that sickly icing. Then fashion some handles from the licorice strings. Be prepared. These won’t work anything like the picture on Pinterest. Your handles will droop sadly to the side.
You will probably wince at your picture of the finished product. That’s okay and is actually expected. Take this moment to pick out the best one and take a picture of it alone. Then use a photo editing tool to make it look awesome. I suggest Instagram to really make your project pop. Take this edited photo and let it be the one you post to social media.
When you receive compliments on your posted pic just remember to act very humble. Act like it was no big deal, and make certain that no one realizes you fought tooth and nail to keep that one cookie from the children’s grimy fingers so you could spend 15 minutes on it making it look awesome.
When your spouse gets home I pray for his sake that he showers you with compliments over what an amazing wife and mother you are.
Follow these steps and you too can succeed in your kid-friendly Pinterest projects. Happy Pinning!