Pinterest- Inspired

Pinterest is the new vortex that’s sucking up my free time.  It’s replaced my ripped out magazine pages and is certainly prettier than a bookmarks folder.  It’s like blog reading for the attention-challenged, and sometimes that’s me.  In fact most pinners wouldn’t make it past this sentence, because Pinterest takes you right to the point… the good stuff… and more stuff…

It also satisfies the innate need to “mark” a project or object:

Mid century decor? Mine.
Jeans under a hundred? Mine.
DIY projects involving pallets? Also, mine.
Cat shaped like Jabba?  Mine, too.

By the time I exhaustedly shut down my computer, I feel as though I accomplished something with all of those new pins marking worthwhile projects.  In fact, the act of noting them half- satisfies the need to make them.  I may not have my own macrame owl, but I skimmed the instructions for 5 seconds and have a neat little image of the finished product sandwiched between other equally pleasing images on my “to do” boards. Why take it any further when there are so many other things to pin?   Ahh, a very satisfying day’s work.

I know I’ll never knit everything I pin, or follow through on all the millions of cheap DIYs.  But I have tried some, like coating junk with glossy white paint and setting it around my house.  I even have a board of finished experiments to encourage me to follow through, though it only has a handful of pins.

And that’s the point: it’s getting me to think creatively about things I could make or repair without any investment at all.   I do waste time on it, but I usually leave the computer motivated to tackle something around the house.   Like this painted owl.  Not only did my search of 70’s owls give me an easy time waster, it also gratified me with a nostalgic warm fuzzy.  (I think my brother and I broke an owl like that in our living room in the eighties with a nerf ball.  We were probably throwing it into the fan to see where it would fly out, a game we called Russian Roulette.)

Pinterest is definitely a ladies world, though.  If you search art, you’ll get engagement photo ideas.  If you search design, you’ll get cupcake recipes.  History?  That would be dresses from the twenties.  Also, the  pinnable quotes that seem to beg for a “wocka wocka” in the comment box or the  “best body inspiration” cheese is killing me.   But, knockoff jewelry, t shirt hacks,  and dress upgrades… well, you had me at “Anthropologie.”  I am, after all, a mom and somewhat crafty, so Pinterest is responsible for more than a few projects around my house.  It’s also responsible for the shortage of large wooden cable spools and the emergence of toilet paper roll art …sigh…  I really did want to find a cable spool on the side of the road.