Pinteresting Tutorial

What?  What's that you say?  I misspelled the word interesting?

Au contraire, my friends.  I have discovered the website Pinterest.

  

Well, to be fair, I didn't exactly discover it.  Kami from No Biggie told her readers about it, here.  I was curious, and went exploring.  What I found is just too fun not to share!

About Pinterest

What it is:  I like to think of it as the virtual equivalent to my habit of ripping pages out of magazines and filing them.  Pinterest is an online tool that lets you store images on your own virtual "bulletin board."  Here's what the folks at Pinterest have to say about it:

Think of Pinterest as a virtual pinboard — a place where you can create collections of things you love and "follow" collections created by people with great taste.

People use Pinterest to collect and share all sorts of things -- wedding inspiration, favorite T-shirts, DJ equipment. You name it, people are pinning it.

What you can do with it:  Sometimes I find things online--via blogs, Etsy, or other websites, that really intrigue me.  Maybe it's an article of clothing I think I could sew myself.  It could be a DIY project that would work great in my home.  Often, I find recipes that I want to try out.  But the problem is, how do I store it, keep track of it, remember where it came from, and quickly retrieve it--after I've found it?  Pinterest solves that dilemma.  I can quickly "pin" things I like, and send them directly to be stored on one of my Pinterest boards.  The folks at Pinterest take care of making sure that there is an accompanying image, a link back, and that proper credit is given.  Fantastic!

Getting Started

Okay, since I'm just getting started with Pinterest, this is by no means an exhaustive tutorial.  But here are the basics.  

Go to Pinterest.com and click on "Request an Invite."  If an invitation doesn't arrive in your inbox within a few hours, email me (triptoholland {at} gmail {dot} com).  Send me the email address you'd like to use, and I will send you an invitation.  (I understand there are a few bugs with the invites, right now, since this is a fairly new site.) 

Once you have a Pinterest account, you'll be able to create a profile, categorize a list of boards, and begin "pinning".  I found that Pinterest walked me through creating my profile and board categories.  It was a cinch.  Here's what my Pinterest page looks like:

I'll use my screen to show you how to start pinning from your Pinterest page.

Pinterest is really user friendly.  When you begin pinning, Pinterest will walk you through the steps of getting a tool for your browser for easy pinning.

This is what the Pinterest tool looks like when you are browsing the web.

Nothing to it!

Once you've started, you can refer to your categorized bulletin boards when you are looking for some inspiration.  Here's what is on my Crafting board, right now:

You can click on an individual picture to get more information about it--a description you wrote, where you found it, where you can read more about it, etc.

It's genius!

From what I can tell, there is a social networking aspect to Pinterest, too.  For now, I'm really just interested in using it for online organization of things that inspire me.  But I'm guessing you could have a lot of fun swapping ideas back and forth with friends this way.

If you are anything like me, you are going to find Pinterest really handy for keeping track of the things that you saw once online, loved, and never could find again.  Enjoy!