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Me Made May Post #3: The Purpose of Pinterest

I have a Pinterest problem.  I love it, so very very much.  When I have moments of downtime during my days, I'll peruse it at my leisure for craft ideas, hair ideas, fashion ideas, teaching activity ideas or just basic inspiration.   My husband often wonders why we run out of data every month.  Between Pinterest and Instagram, it's me.  It's all me.

Now to the purpose of this post.  As I began preparation for Me Made May (see last post), I found myself spending an increasing amount of time on Pinterest, and I found myself actually starting to consider some of the projects I've Pinned.  A lot of the modification and project idea (as well as informative tutorials) have found their way onto my boards, and I want to share this journey with you.

How We Met
I was introduced to the magic that is Pinterest via my teacher education program.  No, I'm not kidding.  During our technology class, we learned about Blogger as way to share our teaching experience (if you're curious, it's my other blog where I talk mostly about my experience as a teacher.)  As a teacher, Pinterest is an amazing way to amass and organize classroom organization ideas, activities and assignments.  While going through the educational wonderland, I also found the wedding section of Pinterest, which my friend and I would patrol when we needed a break from working on our grad program stuff.  As you pin more things, your suggested pins will change.  My pins have gone from "How to Teach Momentum" to "How to Sew this Thing" in recent days, but I still use it for educational purposes.  

How I Use It
As I just said, Pinterest has transitioned from educational content to crafting and fashion content for me, but the basic method to my madness has not changed.  The way I use it depends on what I'm doing.  For big art projects, I'll search for graphics and color stories that fit in either the topic of what I'm trying to create or has a style similar to one I want to emulate with tutorials to go along with it.  In terms of sewing, I mostly use it as an inspiration board where I collect tutorials for different skills, potential upcycling projects and pictures of fashion that I find inspirational and something I would want to wear in the future.  I think I want to be more stylish than I actually am, so mostly that board is aspirational.  

Pinterest has a great search function which makes it super easy to either add more specific things to existing boards or find new pins for your new project.  I don't do a board for each project, more a board for a type of project where I keep things related to it that I find.  I also tend to send things to people I know who are also crafty.  Now, this looks exactly like how everyone uses Pinterest...because it is.  Basically it's all about organizing resources in a way that means you will actually look at them again.  I can't tell you how many bookmarks on my computer will never be navigated to again, but I can flip through my boards at my leisure and easily find some ideas.

My Top Boards for Me Made May
The big one would probably be Upcylce Like a Boss.  I've saved a bunch of different DIY clothing redo projects there and I've even actually tried a few, mostly to make some of my favorite shirts larger.  I wasn't ready to give up that cat fabric.  I also have a specific sewing board and other craft board.  For the general craft board, since I have so many interests, it changes form of what I'm looking for from week to week.  Basically, these boards provide me with a bunch of ideas to use in current and future projects.  `


Next Steps
My big plan is I have a pin for watercolor dyeing that I'm dying to play with.  I have a shirt that had an unfortunate meeting with a chapstick in the washer and I think if I just lean into the fact that it is now partially red, it can be saved.  I also have some t-shirts and sweatshirts that need some love or they will never leave the dresser again.  I have some pins for embroidered embellishments that would be perfect for those pieces, and I have thread to do it with.  The only challenge?  To actually make time to do it.  I've done it in the past so I can do it again.  So look for posts on those projects as they happen this month.  I think that's the nice thing about blogging the process.  It makes me sit down, think and then actually feel accountable to do it.  
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