A tweet of mine last week read: “Found: Pinterest! Lost: Several hours of my day where I got mostly nothing accomplished…” For all of you who can relate to that sentiment—welcome! You are in good company! For the rest of you who have no idea what I am talking about, keep reading.
I have been wedded to my Pinterest account for about a week now and since then, I’ve had the opportunity to take a step back and evaluate my new obsession hobby. For me it began like a whirlwind romance, where hours upon hours were devoted to blissful color and design, and mundane chores were left undone. I was on a quest—to find the most beautiful, the most enlightening, the most engaging images that would strike my fancy so that I might embrace them anew—and pin them! It was an adventure as I searched with abandon, pursuing and then capturing wonderful photographs as though they were treasures to be found! With the giddy excitement of new discovery now past, I am pleased to find that my first impression of the whole Pinterest craze was not entirely accurate. While it can consume a great deal of time, there are some real advantages to having a Pinterest account. “You mean Pinterest is not a complete waste of time,” you ask? NO, it isn’t! “Pray, do tell,” you say.
First, I shall give a brief overview of what Pinterest is, for my poor readers who are about ready to unsubscribe to my blog because now they think I am a lunatic…
Pinterest is a set of virtual bulletin boards, where you can collect all the great images you find on the internet. You know, the ones that just knock your socks off, and make you talk to yourself. Like, “That is just the coolest cake I’ve ever seen, and I know I could make that!” or “I could SO see myself swimming in that tropical lagoon…” or my personal favorite, “That little baby is so cute, I could just eat her up!” Fess up now, we’ve all done it. Pinterest will collect all those images that rock your world!
When you sign up for an account, you download a “Pin it” button to your browser tool bar. Then as you surf the web, and come across pictures you simply cannot live without, you hit the “Pin it” button on the tool bar and all the images on that web page pop up. Hovering over a picture will bring up a “pin” button, and then a list of all your individual bulletin boards. You select a board, or create a new board if needed and “pin” the picture to your board!
Painted Tags from ShabbyCottageStudio.net: http://www.shabbycottagestudio.net/blog/2011/8/7/hand-painted-tags.html
Why is this so cool? First, it allows you to keep all sorts of ideas in one place, without having to bookmark each web site that has information you want to save. We’ve all found a blog article, a recipe, a craft idea, or something that we want to be able to get back to, so we bookmark it. My sister has the largest collection of bookmarks and folders of bookmarks I have ever seen. Every time I have to use the computer at her house, I ask, “How do you find anything?” When it takes less time to find a web page using Google than it does from using your bookmarks—newsflash people—you have too many! Pinterest solves this problem, because the images you pin point back to the original web site source. So you can have a bulletin board for Recipes for example, in which all the pictures on your board will take you back to where the recipes actually are (as long as the web site owner has not removed the page).
Reason 2: Pinning over printing saves paper! Whether you are looking at this from an economic standpoint, or from an environmental one—using less paper is better!
Melted snowmen cookies from CrazyDomestic.com http://www.crazydomestic.com/2010/12/melted-snowman-cookies.html#
Reason 3: You can follow other peoples’ boards and add any of their pictures to your boards, and vice-versa. Commenting and Liking are also options, so everyone can share the love! You can also Tweet and Facebook when you pin, which some of your peeps might enjoy and/or appreciate! (Unless of course, you tweet and face every time you pin. In that case you will annoy them to no end, resulting in an unfortunate mass unfriend/unfollow. That won’t be pretty—so be warned and share your pinning with restraint!)
Reason 4: It allows you to arrange projects by color, by design or by any other way in which your brain organizes information. For people who communicate/learn visually, this is a great tool! I love color, (as you can probably tell by my blog design) and I am a bit OCD, so organizing this way works well for me. Typical boards might be organized into Recipes, Craft Ideas, Christmas Decorations, Places I’d like to Visit, Quotations I Love, Dresses I Like, Books I’d Like to Read, Books I’ve Read, Places I’ve Been, Blogs I Follow, Wedding Ideas, Floral Arrangements, Home Remodeling Ideas, Landscaping Ideas, Paint Colors, Art I Love, Pictures that make me Smile, or anything else you can think of. The possibilities are really endless.
French tapestry bed lamp from The Drawing Room at Pemberley: http://www.thevintagedrawingroom.com
Reason 5: For the hoarder in each of us, we can collect all this virtual stuff for FREE, and we don’t have to find a place in the house to STORE our virtual stuff! And, it is fun to collect photos of things that make us happy!
Reason 6: If you have a business it is a cool way to distribute your web site link. Make sure you put pretty pictures on your site, so that people like me who have a lot of time to waste who are looking for inspiring images will find them interesting enough to pin!
Fuschia from Jon Sullivan: http://www.pdphoto.org
So, now when your family and friends accuse you of maintaining an unhealthy addiction to Pinterest, you will have some good excuses reasons to justify why the laundry isn’t done, or why you are still in your jammies when your husband gets home… In all seriousness, Pinterest is a cool way to organize information while connecting with others in the blogosphere with similar interests, but like chocolate, it should be enjoyed with moderation!
If you’d like to follow me, you can find my collection of bliss at http://www.pinterest.com/tickledpinklife Happy pinning!
On the journey toward Home,
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh Lynn, this article left me exhausted and reaching for my Advil. My saving grace was the adorable melting snowman cookie…I will steal or “pin” that idea to my brain where all the other disorganized stuff goes. You just keep rising to a new level of amazing, and I’m not being my normal sarcastic self. Love ya! Robin
I think Pinterest is calling your name… 🙂
Well, almost 2 years later and I finally re-read and absorbed this post…I am an official Pin-head and Im not sure if I am proud of it or not..I am spending way too much time and enjoying it way too much! Thanks Lynnie~!
lol! It probably makes more sense to you now…!
Yes it does. I blame you entirely~
🙂