I'm Obsess-ed! I'm Addict-ed! I'm Pinterest-ed!

Edit: This information is pretty out of date now that Pinterest has made many, many updates to their site over the past year. Check out Pinterest's help page for more info on how to get started!

Have you heard all the rage? Have you seen the latest news? Am I the only one behind the game on this? Surely you don't have the same addiction I do?

What am I talking about?

I'm talking about PINTEREST!

What is Pinterest? Oh, only the latest and greatest online tool around! I'm tellin' ya it's the cat's pajama's! It's the bee's knees!

Think of Pinterest as a virtual pinboard — a place where you can create collections of things you love and "follow" collections created by people with great taste.

As I like to say, "It combines INSPIRATION and ORGANIZATION into 1 place."

People use Pinterest to collect and share all sorts of things -- wedding inspiration, jewelry inspiration, home design inspiration. You name it, people are pinning it. And you create your own pinboards - as many as you want, named anything you want - for storing your pins.

I'm a visual person - maybe you are too - so, here are examples so you can see what I'm talking about.

This is the top right side of the screen on my account. It shows the number of people I'm following (yes, you can follow other people's pinboards) and the people following me. It also shows that I have 19 (!) boards set up and 406 items pinned. If you click on "19 Boards" like I did, it will pull up all the boards you have so you can access the items on that board.



The left side of the screen gives me access to everything in my account. It also lets me pull up my boards/pins, add new boards/pins, view other people's boards/pins, and learn about the site.


Here is a small example of 1 of my boards. It's my "Art and Photography Inspiration" board. Most of the items I've pinned were taken from other people's boards on the site. You have full access to all boards from everyone who has a Pinterest account.


Here is my "DIY Inspiration" board - pinning all the items I'd like to DIY someday.


One of the many great features of Pinterest is being able to search for inspiration that already exists on the site (like searching Google Images). For example, if I want to pull up examples of picture collages because I'm thinking about implementing one in our home (for real), I can type that into the search box and the site will pull up examples (in this case it pulled 56,680 pins). I can then repin items to my boards.


Here is another example. Say I have a love for baking, and I want to create some interesting cupcakes for a party I'm planning. I can type "cupcakes" into the search bar to find 32,103 examples! And then repin items to my "Food and Recipes" board I created.


Here's one more great feature for ya - no matter how many times a picture is repinned by someone, it always links back to the original website the picture/item was first pinned from. That way if there's something you want to purchase or read about online, you can find the website.



A few Q&A's:

Q: How do I start pinning?
A: The easiest way to pin an item is to use the Pin It bookmark. This is a special button that lets you grab an image from any website and add it to one of your pinboards (you don't have to have your account open to do this). When you pin from a website, it automatically grabs the source link and credits the original creator.

Q: How do I "follow" a pinboard?
A: Every pinboard has a follow button. When you follow a pinboard, you will see all of the pins that are added to that board on your home screen in real-time. By following lots of Pinboards, Pinterest will bring you a visual feed of things you love.

Q: What is repinning?
A: Repinning means re-posting a pin you find on Pinterest to your own collection. When you repin we credit the person who first pinned the item and bring along the original source.

Need more help? Here's a great tutorial demonstrated by Beth on her blog Home Stories of A2Z.



There's so much more I could say about this site, but I'll let you discover it for yourself (if you're pinterested!).

To take a looksy at MY Pinterest account (and the 407 items I've already pinned in the 1 week I've had it), click HERE.


Note: This is not a paid advertisement for Pinterest. I'm just dead obsessed! Now back to pinning...

DIY: Shell Art

I mentioned yesterday that I DIY'd the shell art that is hanging in the silver frames in the dining room, and I just wanted to follow up really quickly and show you how fast, cheap, and easy-peasey this little project was!


I came up with the idea out of nowhere while wandering around Hobby Lobby. They had a section of the store that had seashell-type items for sale. I actually wanted to use 2 white sand dollars, but the few left were broken. I also thought about sea stars, but I think they would be too thick for the frames I was using. So, instead I purchased a little 4-pack of these shells for $2.99.


After scooping the shells of the rack, I moved a few aisles down to the scrapbooking section of the store and found paper that looked like sand. Cost was something like $0.29 per sheet. I bought 2 sheets of paper to be safe.

At home, I gathered my supplies, including the frames I already owned and gorilla glue we had on hand. I took apart the frames and removed the cardboard stuffing that sits inside to fill the space behind the picture. The cardboard's not needed since the shells were thick and took up the space.


I then took the glass and spent all of about 10 seconds tracing the glass onto the back of the paper. Turns out I only needed one piece of paper instead of two. Better safe than sorry, right?


I laid the shells out on the paper, just to be sure I like the look and spacing, and then dabbed gorilla glue on the back of them and stuck 'em to the paper. I left it for about 1 minute to be sure it was bonded tight (gorilla glue works fast).


Finally I was able to re-assemble the frames with the new artwork. The space was a little tight between the glass and the backing of the frame, but I got it to squeeze in there without breaking the glass.



So, there you have it. DIY art for about $3.50 and 5 minutes of time (plus shopping). Not too bad, eh?


This project leans a bit toward the Summer season of decorating rather than Spring. If I wanted to do more of a spring vibe with this project, I would have glued some dried flowers or something on different background paper. But I'm lazy and didn't want to redo the project in a few weeks. So, that's that.

I hope to create some more art for other spaces in the home very soon. I need to get my creative thinking cap on!

Have you done any DIY art projects around the house recently? If so, do share!

Spring Up!

I spent a little time this weekend re-decorating our dining room for spring. I figured the Winter/Christmas decor was a little outdated at this point (duh). I wanted to freshen up the room using mostly what I already had on hand (aka on the cheap). So, I brought all kinds of decorating options into the room and then played around with it until I was mostly happy with the outcome.

Here are 2 "before" pictures from winter...


(I did get winter pictures added to those frames. I just forgot to take a pic. Oops!)


And here are some new spring pictures using my favorite colors - blue and yellow...


...the blue is more of an aqua-blue to coordinate with the tone of the "blue" ceiling, but you get the idea.


I bought the yellow plates a few years ago at Marshall's (I think). I only have 4 of them. My mother-in-law gave me the smaller blue plates (also a set of 4). The white pitcher was a Christmas gift from Target a few years ago (they still sell it and I use it all the time for decorating. I love it. I actually plan to get some dried pussy willow branches to put in it for more spring flare.


The flower art was bought at a Bed, Bath, & Beyond-type place many years ago. The white S&P shakers are part of my large Pfaltzgraff dish collection. And lastly, the little glass pineapple taper holders are from Williams-Sonoma.


On the opposite wall, I added a few nail-holes and hung items with white ribbon. I put plate hangers on the plates in order to loop the ribbon through the plate hangers and hang them from a nail in the wall. The Amazing Grace sign at the top of the wall was purchased at Hobby Lobby a few years ago. It already had 2 nail hangers mounted to the back of it. So, I looped the ribbon through those.


I took the winter pictures out of the 2 pewter frames and created some DIY shell art to go inside them. Then I hung the frames vertically. The middle shelf has a glass vase - which will be filled with fresh flowers very soon (and the flowers will reflect in the mirror) - and there are 2 white birdie S&P shakers on either side of the vase (from Pier1).


The table contains my only purchase for the season - a new yellow paisley tablecloth by Ralph Lauren. I purchased it on sale at Marshall's a few weeks ago for $19.99. It was love at first sight, I tell ya.


The jute table runner is from Pottery Barn. A great sale purchase a few months back. I will use this all the time. The napkin holder is also from PB. And there are 2 more birdie S&P shakers.

I tried to keep the design of the room really simple and fresh. I will change it up again once summer arrives in a month or so. But this will do for now.

What have you been doing to invite Spring into your home?