I promised this post a couple weeks ago. It was waylaid by a house full of sickies, and a two year old who grows more mischievous everyday. We recovered from the illness, Wade is not currently writing on anything with a Sharpie and my love affair with Pinterest continues. I’m even more in love actually. Pinterest is a great distraction when you’re lying on the couch with a sick toddler for hours watching an endless loop of Thomas the Train movies on Netflix.
Pinterest is beautiful eye-candy. It’s filled with inspiration. It’s a wonderful resource for crafts, recipes and decorating ideas. It’s just plain fun! It also has practical applications believe it or not.
Cataloging Personal Collections with Pinterest
You can use Pinterest to organize and catalog your collections whether it’s your Franklin Mint commemorative 1988 Olympic plates or your cabinet full of vintage Fiesta ware.
I have a few collections, all in the antique category, and most are displayed in my home. One collection that isn’t as easy to display is my paper ephemera. The designer in me is attracted to the typography and graphics used in vintage printed material like ads and cards. Sometimes I like to pull them out for inspiration when I’m working on a project. Other times I want to know what I already have when I’m browsing at an antique fair.
So, I started photographing my vintage paper scraps, and posting them on Pinterest. I can pull them up on my laptop or my phone app in a second.
This is just a start. I have more to dig out of boxes and photograph.
Source: Uploaded by user via CeeGee on Pinterest
Source: Uploaded by user via CeeGee on Pinterest
The pictures are lousy, but this pin board is mostly just for me. (I need to spend more time reading all the photography tutorials I found on Pinterest.) If somebody else enjoys looking at my collection, then it’s nice to share too.
I know lots of you use Pinterest to organize Recipes. What other practical uses do you see for Pinterest?
Pinterest Academy: Get the Most out of Pinterest
I use Pinterest to organize lesson plans. It has made my job as a K-8 art teacher SO much easier! I organize by grade level and have separate boards for resources and special lessons. I also love that I can “follow” those with similar “pinning” preferences to gather even more great ideas! My latest gig has been using Pinterest to troll for yummy desserts and fattening, cheesy recipes (although, lately most of the pins have been annoyingly healthy. I guess you win some, you lose some… ). <:)
It’s a great place to just store pictures of things you love and get them off your hard drive. I collect vintage paper items too and what I do is scan the item and then save it to put it on Pinterest. That way, other people can use them in their artwork, etc. I am happy to share what I have collected and I don’t care one bit if they want to use them in their art to sell. Feel free to check mine out under the name Mary Avlos-Dailey. I’m new there, so it’s taking me a while to upload.
I use it to find interesting little crafts for my kids. I also have found a whole bunch of inspirational sayings, so I’m kind of collecting those as well. One thing I have collected some of is alternative tips and tricks for getting things clean.