Confessions of a Craft-y Pinterest Addict

Well, the time has come to 'fess up to being a Pinterest addict. It's one of the reasons I've fallen behind in posting to my blog - I spend too much time on Pinterest.

The first time I ever heard of them was early last year. The stats for my blog showed a link that was drawing quite a few views. I found the website but couldn't find anything mentioning my blog. I wanted to see what I had focused on that drew such a large amount of interest. Finally, I emailed the blog owner and asked. She replied that it was a Pinterest pin on one of her boards.

Pinterest? Pin? Boards? I visited Pinterest, cold, and became so confused, I gave up. Finally, I asked online in either a blog post or on FB, about it.

You can visit anybody's Pinterest pages, without signing up or joining, provided you have the link. However, you cannot add a comment, or create a board of your own, or Pin someone's link, unless you are a member.

Now, here's the tricky part. I tried, over and over, to join from the Pinterest member sign-up page. I finally asked for a "invitation" from anyone who was already a member - it worked like magic.

What is Pinterest? It's sort of like "bookmarks" but with photos and graphics. You know all those bookmarks you've got that show nothing but a name and URL, and have you scratching your head, asking, why did I save this one, what is that one for? Well, with Pinterest, you tag a photo that bookmarks the link.

Go to my Pinterest pages, here...

When you get there, you will see the boards (collections of sites) I've begun.

I love the way I can now just scroll up and down and find exactly what I'm looking for, visually. It is a joy.

So far, I have a few craft-related boards, including crochet, general DIY, and so on. I began a Bucket List board but I have nothing in there yet. I have a Tips board for household tips I do not want to lose track of, too.

The problem is that when someone pins from your board, you can get emails letting you know. That's where my addiction and time comes in. Every time someone pins one of my own pins, the notice tells me which of their boards it went to. Unfortunately, if their board sounds interesting or relevant to my interests (crafts, crochet, faith, humor, etc.), I find myself visiting their boards as well, and then their boards lead me to other boards, and so on. It's a horrible, horrible addiction - and I am sorry if I have ended up pushing you into it - sort of ...