Pinterest Love

A few months ago, I decided to hop on the Pinterest bandwagon.

(Pinterest, for those of you who don't know, is virtual pinboard where you can "pin" all the fabulous things you find online. Any image that inspires you, that you want to "file away" for future use/inspiration? Just pin it on your board, and the pin is hyperlinked to wherever you got it. Okay, Pinterest explains it better than I do.)

My friends told me Pinterest was addicting. I was skeptical.

I am no longer a skeptic.

Here's a screen shot of a few of my Pinterest boards.

All those images are either just the inspiration themselves or they're linked to instructions on creating what you've pinned.

I find material I can use in speech class, like this one that I can use on moving past stereotypes:

I find images that just make me laugh:

When Jason was building the pergola, I found the one I wanted him to replicate:

I find things I want to do with the girls:

I find things that aren't pretty, but are helpful:

I was totally inspired by this, so I went out and bought some pegboard and zip ties, and voila! All my computer cables are now organized.

I'm sure plenty of people never do anything with their pinned images other than look at them, but that's the beauty of Pinterest. You can let the inspiration just wash over you, or you can actually go out and create.

Take this picture for example:

The picture inspired me to do something, and it feeds my love of looking at pretty things that I don't necessarily need.

I saw this and immediately knew how I could change our dining area to include a bench. We went to IKEA, got a bookshelf, turned it sideways, and now all we need to do is install wainscoting behind it.

The table? I'd love that table. The natural wood-top with the white pedestal? Yes, please. I don't think I'll be recreating the table though (even though I think it would be relatively easy to do). It'll just be one of those things that I think is beautiful.

Yep, I think it's fair to say I love Pinterest.

I love looking at all the lovely pins that my friends find.

I love searching Pinterest for images of things I want to find (which is how I found The Kitchen).

I love that it doesn't stress me out like Twitter did (before I cancelled my account) or make me wonder if I missed something important (like Facebook does).

I love my community of fellow pinners whose presence is marked by the beautiful things they're finding, the places they want to visit, the crafts they want to make, the food they hope to put at their table, the things that just make them smile (you never know you really needed to see a sweet picture of a baby panda until you actually see it).

For a visual person like me who sometimes tires of words, Pinterest is relaxing combination of really good magazine/art museum/coffee shop/boutique/dreamworld.

And that's the best way I can describe it.

[I promise to go back and add the links to where I got all these photos, but right now I'm sleepy and am going to bed.]