Monday, September 30, 2013

Fairies in a Jar



How To Make Fairies In A Jar This is something everyone will love you can just imagine the look on your childs face when they see this and its something they will never forget so its worth a little work on this one. FAIRIES IN A JAR DIRECTIONS: 1. Cut a glow stick and shake the contents into a jar. Add diamond glitter 2. Seal the top diy

I love so many things about this one.  The misspellings on the picture, the poor punctuation in the description, the instructions to shake hard. . .It's all comedy gold.

It's kind of strange how this very specific description shows up all over the web.  Try it; Google "something they will never forget so its worth a little work on this one."  It comes up in all sorts of places.

The earliest mention I could find was from May 2012 on KWNR.  Who knows where it came from before that.

Something worth mentioning: Diamond glitter is a specific type of glitter.  Most of the people who have tried to recreate this pin have been using regular glitter.  Diamond glitter is ground glass rather than normal glitter.  Theoretically, ground up pieces of glass would give you more of a sparkly prismatic effect, where the people using regular glitter have wound up with dark spots where their glitter blocks the glowing light.

This may be why the instructions say to "seal" the top of the jar, rather than just "put the lid on."  Yes, glitter is the herpes of the craft world and you don't want it getting out, but if you're doing this with children, probably the last thing you want is a bunch of teeny glass shards and probably-toxic glow stick fluid getting loose on your kids.

Back to the pin.  No matter what kind of glitter you use, you're not getting the result in that picture.  It's a beautiful piece of work, but it's not something you can replicate in real life with a glow stick and some glass dust.

The good news is, there IS a way to make a jar that has little glowing spots in it.  To do it, you need to use glow in the dark paint (and no, not the kind you make by using the liquid from a highlighter - that is not "glow in the dark," that is "fluorescent").  

Check out this tutorial by Panka for a very nice illustration of how this can work.  

Friday, September 27, 2013

Make Your Own Sea Glass



make your own sea glass. Glass in jar with sand and shake.

This pin is one of those special ones that goes right to the original source of the picture (yay!), but which then has a very misleading comment on the pin.  In this case, the poor flickr photographer resorted to putting up a comment on her picture:

"Update: Hello to anyone looking in from Pinterest - sorry to disappoint you but my photo has been linked wrong - this is not where you find out how to make it, this is REAL seaglass I found myself as I am lucky to live near a beach where it washed ashore. If you wish to make it - look elsewhere, as I don't have the instructions all I can imagine as it is very labour intensive to do it. Thanks for liking my picture though :-) lisaluvz"

I feel sorry for Lisaluvz.  Someone linked to her picture, put on that bit about making it yourself, and then Lisa got to deal with the fallout of not living up to those other pinners' expectations.  

Real sea glass is the result of both a chemical and a physical process - yes, the particulates in seawater rub against the glass, causing tiny scrapes that help "frost" the glass and take away its glossiness, but there is also a chemical component (like frosted glass).  

You might be able to approximate sea glass with a rock tumbler, but I'm not sure how well it would work.  Or you could just try mixing Elmer's Glue with food coloring and see how that works out for you (that should probably be its own post!).

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Lace Light Bulbs



spray paint through lace on a bulb.

DIY light bulb decor. Just put lace over the bulb and spraypaint

Spray paint through lace over a light bulb or clear Christmas ornaments.

This is one of those things that looks like it should work, but if you take a closer look, you realize that the logistics of spray painting through a doily that is laid over the round and variable shape of a light bulb would probably not look this great.

And you'd be right - despite what most of the pins say, this picture is not the result of spray painting a light bulb through a doily.  These are called Arquette lamps and they are (or were) for sale on Plumo.  It looks like they're gone now, but that's the original source of this image.

In addition to the probable failure if you tried to recreate this pin due to the picture not truly portraying a light bulb that has been spray painted through lace, the idea of using spray paint on a light bulb and then still using that light bulb for lighting is probably a bad idea.  Per a commenter on Polyvore:

"Don't you need a special kind of paint to do this to make sure that there isn't a fire hazard? I did something similar to this once with regular spray paint and it almost burned a hole in my ceiling...."

Words to live by. Don't burn your house down in the name of style.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Bridesmaids Shirts With the Number of Years You've Been Friends



Bridesmaids shirts with the number of years you've been friends. This is awesome!

Okay.  Don't click through the original pin, as it seems to go somewhere you don't want to go.  It looks like a suspicious redirect.

Now that that's out of the way, can I get an answer as to why showing the number of years you've been friends is "awesome?"  Because someone with a one or a zero has got to be feeling awesome about this idea.  "Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but I need bridesmaids, so putonthisembarrassingshirt maybe."

No, I am not a lyrical genius.  We cannot all be Kanye.

Moving on.  If you saw this pin and your first thought was "OMG PERFECT!" then you are bad and you should feel bad.

I tracked down the source of this image and thankfully, that's not what's going on (as you have probably already figured out).  Those numbers are the date of the wedding, which is actually very cute, as long as everyone can remember what order to stand in every time there is a picture from the rear.

Also, these shirts are much better than matching bikinis that have rhinestones on the tushie spelling out "maids,"  I am definitely Team Shirt.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Thrifted Dresser With Wallpaper Inside



Thrifted dresser with missing drawers, add shelves, wall paper inside. Very cute!

First of all, let me point out that this pin commits that cardinal sin of Not Linking To The Right Blog Post.  The URL is for the main blog itself, which means if you're hoping to find the entry for this project, you must figure out how to search that blog (or you could just go page by page forever).  Please.  PLEASE!  When you're out on the web and you see something cool to pin, make sure you click to the exact entry you're looking at, not a landing page or even a page from a search.  Those will be frustrating pins for those who come after you.

Aside from that faux pas, what else is wrong with this pin?  Pretty much everything.  I tracked down the correct post, and found that this is not a thrifted dresser; it was a hutch.  There was no need to add shelves because they were original to the piece.  I mean, who has a dresser or chest of drawers that tall anyway?  Or a dresser with that kind of molding around the top?  

Also, that's fabric, not wallpaper.

Not that finding an old dresser and giving it a similar makeover with shelves and wallpaper (and crown molding, base molding, etc) might not work, but that's not what this picture is showing.  If you're looking to replicate this pin, best to start with a hutch; it'll be a lot less work.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Listerine Foot Soak




This is crazy. Mix 1/4 c Listerine (any kind but I like the blue), 1/4 c vinegar and 1/2 c of warm water. Soak feet for 10 minutes and when you take them out the dead skin will practically wipe off.

This one has been getting repinned a lot.  Sometimes the pinner puts the entire recipe in the pin, and sometimes they leave out the Listerine, which is interesting because on all of the source sites, that's one of the main ingredients.  The other main ingredient being that perennial favorite for practically everything, vinegar.

There are a few things going on here.  First, the recipe itself is odd.  If you mix 1/4 cup of Listerine, 1/4 cup of vinegar, and 1/2 cup of warm water, you have one cup of liquid.  That's not remotely enough for a foot soak.  Not even if you're doing one foot at a time.  So there's that.  

Then there is the note from the recipe saying that they prefer using the "blue" Listerine.  Well, that's giving some folks unintended consequences, like dyeing their feet blue.  Others had better luck with the soak, claiming their feet did feel softer, but that the dead skin did not wipe off as advertised.

The part that the pin gets correct is the very first sentence.  "This is crazy."  Yes, yes it is.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Golden Animal Magnets



Buy plastic animals from dollar store, cut in half, spray paint gold, and glue magnet on bottom.

This is one that looks like it might actually work, but I haven't seen anyone who has done it.  The picture for this pin is from Uncovet, where this set is no longer available for sale.  So we're featuring this pin purely for the "you used a picture that is not what you said it was" reason.  I'm sure the original poster was just making a personal note, but when these things get seen and repinned a hundred times by others who don't read very thoroughly (or notice where the pin actually leads to), it can snowball into an avalanche of disappointed pinners.

The good news is, here's why I think this pin can work (though not with the gold spray paint that the pin recommends):  Heodeza did something similar with plastic animals and a gold metallic pen.  Her results really look nice and I think you could make a reasonable attempt at recreating Uncovet's magnet set if you followed her lead. Go take a look at what she was able to do; I was impressed.

One thing to think about if you attempt this pin is that these magnets sit flat against the surface they are on - to replicate Uncovet's magnetic animals, you will have to figure out a way to set your magnet into the back of your half-animal (and if your animals are hollow, that presents its own set of challenges with building it back up to seat the magnet properly).

Friday, September 13, 2013

Alexandria's Genesis

Elizabeth Taylor didn't have to shave? (Warning: Bad Language at Link)



No shaving, no periods, purple eyes?! Are you kidding me? This sounds like the best deal ever!

This is one of those pins that you come across and think, "...Really?"  I mean, who would fall for that?  

Lots of folks, apparently, who would probably be very disappointed to find out that it's a false mutation.  

The best part about this pin, is that unlike other pins where it's very hard to track down who first made the mistake (or who first made up the deception), there is an entire web page devoted to explaining the origin of Alexandria's Genesis.  It's a really good read, and I recommend that if you thought even for a moment that Alexandria's Genesis was a real thing, you go peruse it.  Here's a sample:

"Nearly 15 years ago (circa 1998), I was a huge fan of Daria, MTV’s favourite high school cynic. I had also discovered fan fiction then, and when I found some related to my favourite show, I wanted to leave my mark.
I just didn’t know my mark would be the size of a logic-bomb crater."

So there you have it; Alexandria's Genesis is just the fantasy of a fanfiction writer that took on a life of its own through the wishful thinking of others.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Water Marbles



Water marbles! Crazy how a few kitchen ingredients will make these. Weird, I can't wait to try. Science party?


How to make "Water Marbles" from household ingredients - COOL science experiment!




Water marbles! Crazy how a few kitchen ingredients will make these.


So.  Water marbles.  This is an extremely popular pin in many different incarnations.  And it's easy to see why - the photos are beautiful and the idea that you can make these yourself is intoxicating.  And unlike a lot of other pins that rely on people's optimism to fool them into belief, this pin has a YouTube video to back it up!


The hard truth is, this isn't real.  Someone went to a lot of time and effort to create a video (much like the glowing Mountain Dew hoax) to mislead people into believing you could cook up water marbles in your kitchen.

The water marbles you see in this video are really hydrogel beads - they start out as tiny bb-sized, hard pieces of superabsorbent polymer, and when you soak them in water, they absorb it and swell up to a squishy water ball.  You can even color them by adding colors to the water when you soak the beads.

I think the best part about this fake pin is that some of the pins go straight to ChemSpider's site, where Antony Williams handily debunks the whole thing.  People!  Pin responsibly!  Click through the pins you're adding to your boards to make sure they're legitimate.  You'll save yourself and countless others the heartbreak of attempting a really cool kitchen experiment like water beads, which was doomed to failure before it began.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Glow in the Dark NOT Paint: The Glowing Drink



crazy! it's a glow-in-the-dark aurora borealis cocktail you can actually make!

The more I look around, the more I notice that Pinners adore "glow in the dark" pins.  Glow in the dark paint, glow in the dark fingernail polish, glow in the dark garden stones, glow in the dark planters, glow in the dark bubbles, glow in the dark glitter jars, glow in the dark Mountain Dew. . . You could probably create a pinterest clone site devoted solely to glow in the dark pictures and crafts and it would win the internet.  Especially if it involved glow in the dark cats.

The thing is, most of the glow in the dark pins aren't actually pictures of things that glow in the dark.  The picture above is clearly photoshopped, but that doesn't stop people from hopefully pinning it.  The drink in question, the Aurora Borealis (or Jungle Juice), really does fluoresce under a black light.  In regular light it looks pink, and when the black light comes on it glows blue.



This may be a good time to get into the way certain kinds of luminescence work.  Luminescence is what it's called when something gives off light.  The type of luminescence that Pinners seem to love the most is photoluminescence, which means that matter absorbs energy and then emits light either immediately or as a delayed process.  

When you have a delayed release, you have something that glows in the dark.  Glow in the dark paint and other items slowly let go of the radiation they have absorbed (I'm talking about light here, not nuclear fission), and that energy is seen as visible light.  When the energy is gone, the object stops glowing.  This type of luminescence is called "phosphorescence."

When the glow happens immediately, as soon as you apply the energy (and it disappears pretty much as soon as the energy source is shut off), you have fluorescence.  This is what is happening with the Aurora Borealis drink.  The black light hits the drink and the drink absorbs and then re-emits that radiation.  

So this pin really has a couple of deceptions going on.  First, that any drink you could mix up could look like that picture, and second, classifying a fluorescent drink as "glow in the dark."  Once the black light is off, that drink stops "glowing."  

I just mention this so that people who were not fooled by the photoshop job but who may have fallen for the "glow in the dark" part will know - you can mix up this drink and expose it to bright light all day, and once those lights go out so will the drink.  It needs a black light to work.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Glow in the Dark Paint: Part 1 - Path of Glowing Stones

There are a LOT of pins about adding glow in the dark paint to outside features.  Today's post addresses the infamous Glow in the Dark Path.



Line a pathway with rocks painted in glow in the dark paint. During the day they “charge” in the sun and in the evening they reflect the stored light. Rust-Oleum Glow in the Dark Brush-on Paint.

or

glow stones…..glows at night after soaking up the sun all day omg

It's hard to know where to start with this one.  So many people have pinned it, seeming to believe that these really are stones that have been painted with glow in the dark paint or that maybe these are special glowing stones that are available for purchase.  But you just need to look at this picture to recognize that this effect is not attributable to glow in the dark paint, nor are the rocks glowing from within.  

Look at how the light is focused on each stone.  It's brightest in the center and fades out toward the edges, which if the rocks were glowing from within would make sense.  But then there are the pebbles around each stone, which are showing some spillover illumination.  If that's from the stones, why isn't it consistent around each stone?  And why are those pebbles sometimes brighter than the edges of the stones that they are bordering?

Then, check out the gate and urns at the end of the path.  If these stones are glowing, why is that same "glow" coming off of the gate?  Surely no one believes that the glowing stones are powerful enough to light up that gate.  

And even without that sort of analysis, the color is a dead giveaway.  Glow in the dark paint does not give off this color.  Over at Observations, they did a comparison between the glow in the dark paint from Krylon and Rust-Oleum.  They even delved into the ingredients that cause the glow in the dark effect (Strontium Aluminate and Zinc Sulfide).  Both of those paints (which each use Zinc Sulfide) glow green as they release the energy stored from being exposed to light.  But whether you are using Strontium Aluminate or Zinc Sulfide, it looks like you cannot achieve the warmth in the pinned picture through glow in the dark paints.

It's probably worth mentioning that even if you did want to paint your stones so that they would glow a spooky green for about two hours after sundown, for at least the Rust-Oleum paint, the directions say it's for interior use only.

So how was the picture in the pin achieved?  It's a technique the photographer used called "Painting With Light."  He walked along the path and used a handheld light to "paint" each of the stones, then the fence, then the urns and gate, and finally walked back to the camera to close the shutter.  Because of the way the settings were done, he never appears in the picture - he was moving too quickly to be captured.

The good news for people who do want a glowing pathway is that there are companies that sell glowing stones.  And interestingly enough, one of the pins that has a picture of that glowing path above has the URL to Ambient Glow Technology.  If you go to their Gallery page you can see a set of stepping stones that really do glow in the dark, and per the claim on that page, they will last all night.  Or there is GLOW Stones USA, which has a lovely picture of a driveway incorporating their glow in the dark stones.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Moon Melon



Moonmelon (scientifically knows as asidus). This fruit grows in some parts of Japan and is known for its vibrant blue colour. This fruit's party trick is that it can switch flavours after you eat it. Everything sour will taste sweet, everything salty will taste bitter, and it gives water a strong orange-like taste!

This magical Moon Melon does not exist.  Many other websites have decried the photo as being photoshopped:


It's too bad - a beautiful blue watermelon with the ability to fool your taste buds would be pretty cool.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Lace Tape



GENIUS: Take lace and put it on transparent tape. Great gift wrap idea or decoration for presents. #Gift_Wrap #Ribbon #Lace_Ribbon_Tape


This post inspired me to add my first label to this blog.  There are way too many pins out there that say "GENIUS" which are, let's say, less brilliant than that.

This pin heavily implies that you can achieve results like the picture by laying lace on tape and then using that tape for gift wrapping or other decoration.  While that could work, it's unlikely that using lace that is nearly the width of your tape and which is also that dense would result in tape that was sticky enough to work.  And if you look closely at this picture, you can tell that the lace is printed on the tape; lace has not actually been affixed to the tape.

Maybe if you glued the lace to the non-sticky part of the tape it might work, but then if you rolled it back up (like this picture) you'd end up getting the lace stuck to the rest of your tape and it'd probably end up getting linty.

If you really want lace tape, it's probably best to go ahead and buy it from the Etsy seller who posted this picture in the first place (or numerous other sources).