Pin It Forward

A while back Pinterest emailed me about their new Pin It Forward UK campaign, the aim of which is for bloggers to help spread the word about Pinterest from blog to blog and increase interest in Pinterest in the UK.

I agreed as, despite a rocky start, I've come to love Pinterest. 

Someone once said to me that Pinterest was like fantasy football for women; very enjoyable, time consuming, something that involved a great deal of tinkering and time online but didn't actually serve any real purpose...and I suppose I agreed with them. I was put off by so many things - there was a rumour for a long time that you had to be "invited" by a friend to join, so I though it was pretty elitist, and I am always wary of anything with follower numbers as it can become competitive. I've had a Pinterest account for a long time now, at least 18 months, and I hardly ever used it until recently. I couldn't really see the point of it.

But then something (pretty obvious) occurred to me. Whenever I used to see something that caught my eye - a recipe, craft project or book - I used to bookmark it on my laptop so that I could find it later. It would get muddled in with so many other things and I'd forget all about it. "I need some kind of electronic notice board", I thought to myself. "Someone should make one." And then I thought - "Oh, hang on, I do have one and it's called Pinterest!" It occurred to me that as well of filling my boards with random images of pretty things (which is fine) I could use them for practical things too, like craft ideas, recipes - things that I don't want to do straight away but I know that sometime in the next few months I will think "Now, where is that brilliant idea I saw for how to make a paper feather" or some such essential piece of information.

So that's what I've started to do. My boards are few and my pins little but they'll grow. It's quality not quanity, I tell myself! It's a mixture of things I've made that I'm proud of, ideas for things I want to make, inspiration for the home. I can indulge my love of all things yellow, of russian dolls and apple motifs, and some boards are more visual eye candy, like feathers and flowers. 

And, as part of the Pin It Foward campaign I'd like to introduce Jessica from Yiskah Knits - do pop over and say hello! You can see her pins here.

Pinning is enjoyable, addictive and, best of all, the most amazingly inspiring place.