An Intro to Pinterest and a New Blog Series

Unless you live under a rock or have been off in another galaxy then you have probably run across the term "Pinterest". Now you may or may not be part of this online community so I will briefly explain it to you. Pinterest is a virtual planning board (or boards). There could be a lot more to it than what I use it for but this is going to be my description of the site and how I use it. You need an invitation to register but with all of the users out there it shouldn't be hard to find a friend who can email you one or just leave a comment and I can get one to you. After registering you have your "profile" page. You can customize this with information about you as well as a profile picture. Here you will see all of your organization boards. There are some preset and you can also create any for whatever category you choose. This is the page people are going to see when looking at your profile.

What you will see when you log in to the site is different. On this site you are able to "follow" people as well as have them "follow" you. What you see when you log in is all the things that the people you follow have "pinned". You can follow people, friends or not, as well as just certain categories from each person or all of their "pins". You can also "repin" things that the people you follow have pinned and post them to your profile. Here is where we explain a little better. Pinterest has a toolbar that you can download. As you search the internet for anything at all, clothing, crafts, recipes, etc. Anything you can look up online you can "pin" to your Pinterest profile. If I am looking at a quilt online, and by this point I have probably clicked on 15 links and jumped to 8 different websites to find it, all I have to do is click the little "pin it" button on my toolbar, pick any picture from the page I am on, choose the board I want it to go to, add a description and click "pin". Now, anytime I want to pull up that quilt I log on to Pinterest, go to that board and click on the picture of the quilt and it takes me straight to that link. Make sense?

Also, you can search Pinterest itself. There are billions of ideas from other users from all over the internet right there for you to browse! The hardest part about this is the fact that when you search through Pinterest it searches the descriptions of each persons pin. The fact that we all write our own description can sometimes make this a little difficult. If I pin a lasagna recipe but in the description box I write "It's what's for dinner!" and do not say anything about what it is, when you go to search for lasagna recipes mine will not show up.

Another thing to keep in mind when pinning items onto your boards is the source. Sometimes you find a great idea but when you go to click through to the actual site it is only an image or it will say "uploaded by user" and just keep opening the same window. (Not sure why that happens.) A lot of ideas come from blogs but when you click through the blog post was actually showing a few ideas from other blogs so you still have to click through to find the actual post online. When you are pinning ideas from all over the internet it is best to make sure that you are on the actual site with the correct link in the address bar so that way you can get back to it and others can get to it easily as well.

The last tip I have also deals with the description bar. While you want to describe the item you can also add a personal statement or even a reminder to yourself. For instance, I am going to be planning a 2nd (AAHHHHHHHH!!!!!) birthday party for my daughter Ryleigh. I may describe something as "Owl Birthday Cake. This will be perfect for Ryleigh's 2nd birthday!". Now all of my followers can see the cake, are able to go to the site the cake is on and see my description that tells what it is and what I may be doing with it. Now let us say that my husbands second cousin who is retired sees my pin of this cake and wants to repin it to her page because she loves all things owls. Well, she repins this but doesn't change the description. Now everyone who follows her sees that she loves this owl cake for some random 2 year olds birthday. Odd, right? I am not saying you have to write your own descriptions but it is a good idea to read them before you post and make sure they apply to you before you inadvertently tell the world that your husband made you a crocheted hat or some other completely untrue statement.

I think that is the basics. I may have missed a lot or just not know what this site is capable of but I do have to say that it is amazing!!! The internet is a crazy web of sites and information and it is great to have a way to keep track of all the wonderful ideas you come across online with the social media aspect as well. You get to see what other people find and get great ideas! I would definitely recommend this site to anyone who has ever used the internet to find a recipe, or toddler boredom busters, school ideas, home decor, fashion, hairstyles, makeup, and on and on and on.

I am sure if you are a user of Pinterest you have spent countless hours in front of your computer looking at organizing ideas and drooling over the yummy foods and cakes. I think some days I spend more time looking at all the things I could do than I do actually doing them. That is where my new blog series comes in. Practicing What You Pinterest. There are so many ideas out there but how many do you actually do? How many seem like great ideas but aren't the time savers they claim to be? I have had a lot of success with the things I have tried. There were also a few things that I don't feel were worth the effort. Each week I plan on posting about something I found on Pinterest and what my thoughts are on it. I won't be doing tutorials, after all, I am not trying to reinvent the wheel, just telling you what it is, where it is from and what I think. That simple.

I know that I am notorious for a lack of follow through so if you don't see more posts then email me, text me, call me. Whatever it takes. Also, if you have any ideas that you want tried provided they are cheap and easy, I will do my best to get it on here! I am all about the cheap and easy. If it is going to be a 3 week long project and I have to not feed my children to do it then it probably won't happen. I am sure I will do some more involved things that I see if I love it for my house or it will be a benefit to my family but those are going to be too few and far between for this series. So... here we go! Please let me know what you think and what you would like to see or how I can make it better!