Pinterest! Why oh why haven't I done this before NOW??

Okay, I've heard the buzz about Pinterest for awhile now but honestly I didn't really understand what all the hype was about. And, really, I hadn't found the time to really get on the site and take a look. Until yesterday. 

I was at the library and the librarian and I were chatting about craft projects for the after school program. She was telling me of all the ideas she'd found on Pinterest. 

"Are you on Pinterest?" she asked, "Oh, you NEED to get on there. It's just up your alley!" 

Hmmm, really...so I found a few minutes to check it out. Wow! Where has this been all my life. Remember when I blogged about my Visual File awhile back? Pinterest is like a visual file online! An idea organizer for as many different thoughts and ideas that you want to organize!! Food, books, clothes, Christmas gifts, ideas for your home...anything that is visual! 

I've realized Pinterest solves a couple of my organization problems. 

Crafts for Kids

First, I am notorious for seeing an awesome craft idea online, copying a picture of the craft into a Pictures folder on my hard drive. But, once the kids and I do the project and I want to blog about it, I can't remember where I saw the idea and therefore can't give credit to the person I got the idea from. With Pinterest I hit my pin button and I have a photo and a link to the original site. 

Secondly, Recipes!! I love cruising online for recipes. Usually when I find one I'll print it off and put it on my range hood with a magnet until I can get around to fixing the dish. Once I cook it up, and it's a success, I put it in a red recipe binder. The problem is I end up with months worth of recipe ideas gathering dust on my range hood and I bunch of recipes stuffed into a binder without any organization. And then I seem to never be able to find a recipe I really want. But with Pinterest I can organize all the recipes online with a direct link to where I first found them. No more lost recipes! 

Thirdly, I am such a visual person. Words do very little for me; I have to hear someone's name a dozen times before I remember it. (Ironic that I blog isn't it?) With Pinterest all my ideas or organized visually. I just need a glance at my boards to see what I need to find. No files or oddly coded names to sift through. 

I expected getting online and setting up to be hard. The thing you need first, after you login, is a Pinterest button! You put up the Pinterest button on your Google toolbar and when you are cruising around, find an idea, hit your button and instantly you can file it on any of your 'boards' it needs to go on without having to open the Pinterest website and copy and pasting pictures or websites. Just the click of a button. 

For me Pinterest is a perfect way to organize ideas, but that's not all! You can follow your friends, just like Twitter or Google Friend Connect, and see what ideas they are pinning on their boards....and then your steal their ideas and repin them on your own boards. I even have a Follow me on Pinterest button on the right side of my blog. 

Okay, I'm now addicted to Pinterest! A great way of sharing ideas with us folks who are verbally and literary challenged. Just give me a picture that's all I need! 

Are you on Pinterest? Put your name in the comments below and I'll follow you too!