PINTEREST

I'm addicted.

Admitting is the first step.

And I admit that I am addicted to reading blogs.

I love being inspired by others, through word and images. I love laughing at other people as they laugh at themselves. I love meeting new people who are miles and miles away that I'll probably never meet face-to-face.

As an avid blog follower, I use Google Reader to keep track of all the new posts. I check my Reader on a daily basis. Some people take time to welcome the day with a cup of coffee and a brief scan of the newspaper. I, however, welcome my day by reading no less than 30 new blog entries. Yeah.....seriously. And no coffee.

Fortunately, most of the blogs I follow are pretty visual, so I can get inspired quickly without having to really read them. The posts that REALLY inspire me get "starred" so that I can refer back to them later. Unfortunately, I have accumulated a looooooooong list of "starred" items:

[currently 276 items]

Enter Pinterest.

I love you Pinterest. I love how you beautifully organize all of my visual inspirations. You are the quintessential digital inspiration board.

Pinterest is a web app that allows you to "pin" images from the web, while retaining the link to the original site the photo is from. Basically, its like ripping out an image from a website and putting it in a visual file folder that you can go back through later AND still be able to go the website you first saw it on.

For example, I follow A LOT of interior design blogs that share photos of rooms that inspire my decorating in my own home. Lets say someone does a blog post about their new bedroom and I love their idea for a DIY headboard:

I would like to file this idea away for future reference, in case I want to make my own headboard. So, I click the "Pin It" bookmarklet I installed (really easily and totally free!) from Pinterest, which opens a little pop-up window. Here I add a title and a description to my "pin" and also label tags that will help me find this idea later. I click okay and voila!, there it is on my pin board (along with the other hundreds of home decorating things I've pinned)

The best thing about Pinterest is that you can have multiple boards, which can organize things in different categories. For example, I have a board that is all about decorating, one just for crafts, one for sewing ideas, one for parties and one for graphic design ideas. Its so nice to have things organized and in such a visually appealing way.

If you'd like to join Pinterest, just go to their website and request an invitation. (I received mine the very next day!)

OR

be one of the first four people to comment on this post to receive a personal invitation from me!

If you're already on Pinterest and would like to follow any of my boards, my username is kbthomp! Happy pinning everyone!