I love Pinterest, as I’m sure the rest of you do too. I have to carefully monitor my Pinterest browsing, or else I could easily get so caught up that my housework goes by the wayside, my kid never gets out of his pajamas, and we live on crackers until dinnertime. Seriously, it’s addicting.

One of my favorite categories to browse is the organizational section. There’s just something so fascinating about looking at beautiful images of perfectly stacked household goods, color co-ordinated shelves and neatly stored nick-knacks. I also love finding ways to repurpose things you have lying around.

So, to kick off the start of Pinteresting Monday’s, here are a few of my favorite finds. If you have some favorite re-purposing tricks of your own, I’d love to hear them!




Most mason jars will fit a standard blender, allowing you to use it like your own magic bullet. I can’t wait to try this one!

I have a superhero obsessed son - this is his latest phase.  Before that it was race car mania, which had an impressive run of at least two years, before the superpowers of certain caped crusaders caught the attention of his sponge-like mind.  Don't get me wrong, he still loves his cars, and has more hot wheels than any kid you will ever meet.  Seriously, he has over 1000 (a lucky hand me down, not bought by us!) 

Realizing that another birthday was fast approaching, I used my own mommy super powers (mothers intuition, eyes in the back of my head, and go-go-gadget arms, ) to plan a superhero themed birthday party for him.  We had already been informed from our super hero in training, that he wanted his party at Chuck E. Cheese, so I worked with that and planned around what that kid-crazy-party infested place didn't provide.  That left invitations, the cake, and goody bags.  I scoured the internet for inspiration and put together a frankenstein hodge podge of party ideas.  Several free printables later, along with some scrapbook paper, a little glue, and some imagination, I had the beginnings of a really cute theme. 

The Superhero Invitations
These were made by cutting out the images I wanted, then typing up an invitation and gluing the images where I wanted them.  This gave me my "prototype". I took this copy to Kinko's and made high quality color copies for the finished product.  Fold the invitations up letter style, put them in an envelope marked TOP SECRET, and you have yourself a cute superhero party invitation.


The Superhero Cupcake Stand
I ordered a superhero themed scrapbook set that was on clearance at Oriental Trading, along with the clearanced superhero ribbon.  I then covered my homemade cupcake stand with the superhero paper and ribbon.


The Cupcake Wrappers
I bought some scrapbook paper from Hobby Lobby that would work with the theme, and made these superhero cupcake wrappers.  I used this printable cupcake wrapper template from Skip To My Lou.


The Superhero Cupcakes
I made these Blue Velvet cupcakes from Sprinkle Bakes, which are just red velvet cupcakes colored blue instead of red, and iced with yummy cream cheese frosting.  Then I made superhero themed sugar paste cake toppers to place on top.  Find the Blue Velvet recipe below.



Blue Velvet Cupcakes
Printable Recipe

2 cups sugar
2 sticks butter, softened
2 eggs
1 Tbs. cocoa powder
1 Tbs. Wilton food coloring gel in Royal Blue
Wilton food coloring gel in Violet – stick a toothpick in the bottle and use that amount
a teaspoon or two of water
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 tsp. salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 Tbs. vinegar

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Put cupcake liners in the cupcake pans.

In a mixer bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well. In a small bowl, mix the cocoa, food coloring gel and water together to form a paste. Add to the ingredients in the mixer bowl and blend well. Stir the flour and salt together and add to the wet ingredients, alternating with the buttermilk. Mix well. Blend in the vanilla. In a small bowl, combine the baking soda and vinegar and then add that to the other ingredients in the mixer.

Fill the cupcake liners with batter, about 2/3 of the way full. The batter will be thick. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting. Makes 24 cupcakes.

Cream Cheese Frosting
1 pound cream cheese, softened
4 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
1 cup unsalted butter softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon extract (optional)

Mix cream cheese with butter until smooth. Add extracts. Slowly add sugar and blend until light and fluffy! Use a piping bag with a round #8 tip to create fluffy cupcake tops!