Piquing Your Interest in Pinterest!

There is a new social networking site that has been taking the internet by storm:  Pinterest.

What is Pinterest, you ask?

Think of it as a giant, digital bulletin board that you can tack pictures onto.  Or think of it as a giant, digital folder that you can stuff new recipes into.  Or even think of it as a giant, digital dish of creativity ice cream topped with do-it-yourself sprinkles and a cherry of inspiration on top!

Basically, Pinterest allows you to share website links via pictures or "pins."  Right now you can only join Pinterest if you are invited by a current Pinterest user (feel free to ask me for an invite...) but once you become a Pinterest user you can organize these interesting websites or "pins" into different groups or "boards" and you can share your "pins" with other users.

So before I found Pinterest I would search the web for interesting craft projects that I wanted to try and I would bookmark blogs and websites with cool stuff on them.  However, a bookmark in a typical browser is usually just the name of the webpage.  This is fine if the bookmark is for "Facebook" or "e-mail," but after a week I would completely forget what "a glimpse inside: fall garland" was... and I realized that I had lists and lists of meaningless words...

But then I found Pinterest and my vague bookmark link became this:

source

They say a picture is worth a thousand words... and this is especially true of Pinterest.  For us visual learners and creative types it is wonderfully helpful when organizing favorite craft tutorials and recipes.  Of course, there are other people who use Pinterest to catalog their wishlists of the latest fashions or to collect funny cartoons and memes.  Because you can search for and see other pins that people have pinned it's easy to gather inspiration for themed parties or holiday decorations too.

Anyways... I recently found a group of crafty people at our local library who meet twice a month to try out crafts and recipes that they have found on Pinterest!  I was so excited!  It's been an awesome way to get out of the house every so often and it's a great way to try new things.  Last week we tried (you guessed it) the fall garlands pictured above as well as some cinnamon bun popcorn.

The fall garland is simply a number of little pumpkins and apples that have been stung together on jute twine. The pumpkins and apples are made out of toilet paper tubes of all things!  I was quite happy with how mine turned out:

For a little added flair I ripped up some green plaid fabric and tied it in between the pumpkins.

It's beginning to look like autumn!