Do you Pinterest?

If you don't you should really get on board.  

What is it?  I'll let Pinterest explain.

Pinterest is a virtual pinboard.  It lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.  Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people.  Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people that share your interests.

When I first heard about Pinterest several months ago I didn't understand how it's supposed to be better than an image hosting service.  After all, you can organize those too. 

Ha!  O ye of little imagination...  There's this nifty little tool called a pinlet that you download onto your toolbar.  Anytime you come across an image you'd like to save you click the pinlet, select which image you want and which Pinterest pinboard you want to save it onto, write a description, and then you're set.  

The best part about Pinterest, for me?  The pinlet also stores the source links for the images.  So say you see a pair of shoes that you want.  Pin a photo of the shoes onto one of your boards and then anytime you go to that photo you will also see where the photo came from.  

This comes in extra handy for recipes.  I have a food board.  I click on the photo of the creamed avocado and lime chilled pasta.  Then I click on the source and it'll take me right to the recipe!  (Which, btw, is delish.)  In the past I've bookmarked entire pages in order to save recipes.  Then, if I'd want to find a certain recipe I'd have to scroll through my bookmarks looking for it.  Now, I just save one photo onto a pinboard and I can retrieve that recipe in about 5 seconds. It's genius!  

Here's a peek at my Pinterest page with some of my boards.

I love that you can follow other people's boards.  For example, I'm following my mother and my sister so anytime one of them pins something new Pinterest will let me know.  And if my sister pins something that I want then I can simply repin it onto one of my boards.  Pretty cool!  

It's typical to follow people that you don't know.  If you come across someone that seems to have similar taste in food, fashion, crafts, whatever, follow them!  It's the Pinterest way.

Also, even if you have no interest in joining, it's a good place to search for images.  I used it exclusively to find pictures for the writing spaces post.

If I haven't managed to convince you to join Pinterest, well, I suck.  Or maybe you suck?  ;-)  Seriously, I highly recommend it.  It's easy to use and extremely helpful.

I've added a Pinterest button to my sidebar over there on the right if you're interested in checking out my pinboards.