Monday, February 25, 2013

Pinterest: Friend or Foe?


Inspiration for choosing exterior colors for our house.

So by now I'm sure you've heard of Pinterest. You know, the web site where you can virtually "pin" things you like...recipes, design and decor, gardening tips, craft ideas...to personalized "boards"?

Yeah, I'm not gonna lie...I love Pinterest. I browse it a lot. And I pin lots of ideas. And sometimes I even try some of those ideas. Really, I do. But I can't help but wonder...if I spent as much time doing these things as I did "pinning" them, how many cool things I might actually get done?

I go back and forth with these thoughts: Is it inspirational? Is it a convenient place to keep all of those "great ideas"? Or is it similar to the glossy pages of all those magazines I no longer purchase...you know, the ones that show you what her house looks like and yours does not? (On an aside...I stopped buying magazines several years ago...partly to save money and partly because I had to stop comparing my home to the ones in the magazines. It was no longer inspirational, but rather a source of envy and frustration. Now if I want to look at magazines I borrow them from the library. It's great!)

So I ask you...is Pinterest friend? Or foe?

I think that depends. I have to say, it's been helpful when trying to decide things like what color to paint the house...or what type of wood flooring should we install...or what color area rug to keep an eye out for.
It makes it easy to look at your "board" and see which colors you are constantly drawn to. It helps narrow down the possibilities. (Which is helpful to someone like me who gets easily distracted. Ahem.)

It's shown me how to keep apples from browning after slicing them (dunk them in salt water!)...and how to make my own cough and cold remedy. Not to mention all of the great recipes I've found...Swedish meatballs, delicious shrimp, ham and potato soup, to name a few. Mm mm mm.

Sure...Pinterest can definitely be a time waster. But sometimes I need something mindless to do. Sometimes I need to zone out and look at pretty things and create inspiration files.

Will I do/make/cook/sew every single thing I pin? I think it's safe to say...NOPE. Especially things like knitting projects. Um...yeah. Hello? I don't even knit. (But my mom does...does that count?)

Do you have a Pinterest account? What do you think?  Do you find it helpful? Inspirational? More trouble than its worth?

Do tell...inquiring minds want to know...*wink*.


3 comments:

Lelainia N. Lloyd said...

I was "pinning" things before Pinterest even existed. I've had an inspiration file on my computer for years.

I like curating boards-finding stuff I like and deciding where it belongs. I am a visual hoarder. I am convinced Pinterest was invented by someone with insomnia.

It's also cool to see who likes what you like.

teekaroo said...

It has shortened my bookmarks a lot! I used to bookmark everything I liked, now I can just pin it, which is nice since my computer crashed and I lost the bookmarks.

Like anything, it can be a huge time waster, but it is what you make of it.

Anonymous said...

Great post! I love Pinterest!
I use it to keep recipes and I know where they are and I sure use them. I love to do hand sewing and so I have found free patterns,DIY's and lots of eye candy!
I find it to be a time saver and a wonderful way to learn when I check out others boards.