The Danger That Is Pinterest

A few weeks ago I did a free online marketing course through Handmadeology and one of the sites it suggested I join to spread the word of all my wonderful, handmade goodness was Pinterest.  Never having heard of it, I tried to sign up right away but, being in it's infancy, you either have to be invited into Pinterest or wait a few days for an email giving you the go-ahead.

So I forgot about it for awhile, finished my little marketing course, and went about my merry way....  I later got that 'go-ahead' email and went ahead and officially signed up, but perhaps it was  a busy weekend or I was just in the middle of something else, so I once again went off in another direction....

Then, a few days ago, I saw mention of it again and so decided to go see what the fuss was all about.

Holy-effing-crap, Pinterest is AMAZING.  (And super fun).  Basically it's a huge cataloging site.  Imagine if you had a room full of bulletin boards and you could put what you wanted on each one.  Over here you've got beautiful architectural photos, over there you have all the crafty DIYs you want to do but haven't gotten around to yet.   Perhaps on this one, you're putting ballgowns and on that one to the left, it's all steampunk awesomeness.  Then, if you just wandered over here, you could see an endless stream of other people's loves floating by you.  And you really like that one board over there, so you add it to your collection and watch every time something is added to it.  And you love that painting someone put on their's so you're just going to pin it to one of your own. That's Pinterest.

That was probably an over complicated explanation, but basically it's just collections. Of everything.  So far I have a pinboard just for stuff from my Etsy store, another for beautiful places in the world, one of weird and wonderful stuff (including a steampunk caravan in the middle of the desert), and am following someone's simply fantastic typography pinboard.  The best part is, I can add just about anything from any site.  So, if I'm strolling along, looking at Etsy (or Amazon or Target or C&B or StumbleUpon or Martha Stewart or whatever) and I come across something I must have, I just click a little icon on my bookmarks bar and add it to my collection.

It's all the fun of hoarding without making your house a dangerous, tilted maze of scary.