I Need Another Pin!!

by Bethany Maines

Ok, I’m just going to admit it – I’m a competitive Pintrester.

For those who are unaware, Pinterest is a site that allows you to “pin” images (and videos and links) to virtual bulletin boards. You can upload an image, find one on the web, or “repin” from another user on Pinterest. Thus, all recipes, crafts, pretty pictures, exercise tips, LOL cats, and good ideas you’ll get around to eventually, are all collected in one place.

Inspiration Image

I started using Pinterest for my graphic design work. It used to be that I would troll the web and magazines looking for images to inspire a new project, figure out a color palette and see what styles are trending. But then there would be the tiresome process of downloading each image (or trying to remember where I saw that one thing) for my inspiration board. Pinterest saves me extra steps and time. Now my business partner and I can collaborate on a Pinterest Board for our Zoo fundraiser event and refer back to the images at any time. Although, if you ask how we got from Crockett & Tubbs to the finished product, it’s a much longer story.

Finished Project

Gun Shoes by Chanel

I also realized that Pinterest is invaluable in my writing work. Pinterest allows me to flesh out my characters by gathering up things they would like, wear, or do into one spot. Need to be inspired to create modern nor fairy tales? I’ve got a board for that. (Spells of Murder on sale now!) Need to visualize how your male leads will look?  I’ve got a board for that too. Happen to have a herd of leggy, feminist spies running about and you don’t have time to always be looking up what designers they would wear, or what stylish gun-friendly purses are on the market? No problem – Pinterest to the rescue! And now we know that really stylish gun-friendly purses are hard to find and that you can never go wrong with Chanel and Dior.

The problem, I discovered, is that after I pin things I really, really want someone to repin my pictures.  Every week Pinterest sends me emails about how many people repin something I posted. My business partner finds these emails annoying and has adjusted her settings, so the emails never get sent. But I want to know! I want to know that for some reason the picture I uploaded of a 1901 doorbell is spreading like wildfire among the Steampunk crowd. I want to know that the Samurai Mask I pinned for the 2012 Glitter Gala inspiration board is being pinned on the board of every man who's on Pinterest! I want to know that my creative genius is inspiring others!!! 

The creative genius bit was going to far, wasn’t it?  Yeah… I’ve got a Pinterest problem, what can I say? But, um, if you happen to have a similar problem, you can find me here: www.pinterest.com/SuperB77/