Have you heard about Pinterest?
Its basically a visual pinboard for bookmarking your favorite, well, anything you find on the web!
And you can create various “boards” depending on the theme of what you are pinning.
I first heard about it back in early January when Heather at Whipperberry did a write up about it. I was beside myself excited! I had literally just been thinking how irritating it was that Google Reader wouldn’t let me organize my favorited links. I have so many favorites over there its not even funny! Of course, I can search for what I’m looking for with keywords, but half the time I don’t know what I’m looking for. I’m just looking for inspiration!
I’m a very visual person, so Pinterest is just what the doctor ordered for me!
I immediately signed up for an account and have sloooooowly but surely been going through my favorite blog posts in Google Reader and adding them to my Pinterest boards. And now, when I want to favorite something in Google Reader, I pin it to my boards instead!
Okay, I’m getting too chatty. Let’s see some visuals!
This page shows all of the boards I have created with previews of some of the items pinned to each board.
My board names are pretty tame but descriptive enough for me to have an idea of what is on each board.
Examples: Flower Crafts, Holiday Recipes, Crafts to Try.
If I click on my Crafts to Try board, the above page will open. It shows me all of the crafts I have pinned to the board with my description of the craft and link to the website/blog that it originated from.
If I further click on one of the photos in my Crafts to Try board, this is what I see.
An extra large image of the photo, a link above it to where it originated from, and some sharing options to the right (Facebook, Twitter, Embed, Email).
If I want to embed the image in a blog post, I click the embed button and html code will pop up that I can use to put into my blog. And this is what it will look like:
A nice large image with proper credit already provided below it.
Pinterest also allows you to follow other people who have an account there so you can check out their boards and “repin” something you like onto your own board. You can also repin items from people you don’t follow.
I also just discovered that you can look at all of the things other people have pinned from your blog!
I love this! I can see what people are most interested in on my blog.
And reading the descriptions is great!
My favorite is one of the pins of my lightbox tutorial.
Ariana says, “This lightbox looks more professional than the one I PURCHASED.”
I love that!
To see what people have pinned from your website/blog type
Substituing your blog address or website address for YourInternetAddress
Example: Here’s mine
I encourage you to create a Pinterest account! Its really a lot of fun creating the boards and seeing what other people have pinned. And, of course, its now MUCH simpler to find craft projects that I adore!
Kimberly
Wednesday 16th of March 2011
Hello! Great post! I recently signed up for Pinterest, and am now trying to set up custom boards. I did only a couple when I signed up, those show up now, however anything new I create I cannot see. Any ideas?I'm loving the thought of this, but somehow frustrated with actually using it. It seems slow. Maybe just a busy night for the site?
malia
Friday 11th of March 2011
Hi, Cool, I just started myself... I'm looking you up lady! xo Malia
Kara @ Mine for the Making
Thursday 10th of March 2011
Super helpful Michele! thanks so much!
Mel the Crafty Scientist
Thursday 10th of March 2011
I'm a huge fan of your blog and I appreciate how sweet you were to track me down and tell me you couldn't comment back on my blog and so I wrote about it and gave you a little blog award... feel free to visit and play along!
And I'm a huge fan of Pinterest too - I'll have to track you down on there!
WhoWhatLogos
Thursday 10th of March 2011
Oooooooh, we love Pinterest. Thanks for sharing your boards.