Pinterest ~ the learning curve

I last posted about my newest "addiction" to Pinterest and, since then, I have forced myself to limit the amount of time I spend on the site. It's really difficult, though. I see the e-mail messages in my "in box" and am drawn to see who is re-pinning from my boards. Then, I visit their boards and, BOOM!  I'm off pinning again.   {{big sigh}}

For me, pinning has been all about collecting. There. I said it. I am a "collector." I collect fashion dolls in real life. I have an entire room dedicated to them. I created an exhibition of fashion dolls last summer at a local museum and, if you're on Facebook, you can see some of what we did here. I also collect ephemera, which I think stems from my love for the written word. But, back to my collections ... my "boards" on Pinterest.

In the beginning, it was all about the "eye candy." So many beautiful images and I could put them all in one place and revisit them anytime I wanted. "So, what!" you might say. "What good does that do a person?" And, you would be right. For someone like me, pinning images has no socially redeeming value whatsoever. Except, it allows me to organize what I like, and that's important to me!

Prior to joining Pinterest, I collected images from the Internet on my computer. If I saw something I  liked, it was as easy as a right-click and "save image as." I have folders titled "Pink" and "Blue" and "Type and Art" and they are full of things I've seen, liked and wanted to return to without having to, again, search for them. Now, I don't have to right-click! I just pin those little babies to one of my boards and enjoy visiting them!

Yesterday, after breaking my own rule about how much time I had spent on Pinterest, I took a closer look at what I was doing. I have 19 boards and they contain 2,787 pins. And, there are 274 "LIKES," which are completely separate from my boards. Now, I'm not quite sure what the logic is behind "liking" something if you can pin it. I'm thinking it's to track those things that don't belong to one of my boards. Of course, there could be some other reason for it, but I haven't a clue what it might be.

My favorite boards at the present moment are "All Things Pink!" and "beige to white and back again." I guess I'm on a color trip here lately. But, I also like my "Type & Art, plain and simple" board a lot, too, and that board has 132 followers after just a few weeks, so I must be doing something right if people are watching what I pin.

And, that's really what it's all about, if  you ask me. People have a chance to see how I see things. Why did I include this "blue" image and not that one? What criteria do I follow for "All Things Pink?" These are the questions I ponder when I consider this addiction of mine. And, as the number of my followers grows, I find I am even more critical of my boards. I check them to be sure I haven't pinned the same image twice. If it's pinned to the "Blue" board, it must be all about that particular shade of blue; no pink background; no green or yellow anywhere. It's about pure color and how the image conveys it.

I have become aware of legal issues with Pinterest this week. I was reading on other pinners' blogs about how they use Pinterest, good etiquette on Pinterest and discussions about the impact pinning might have on artists and internet businesses and I stumbled on this. So, now I'm not sure how much longer I'll be doing this. I may have to return to the right-click, "save image as" to keep up my collection madness. We'll see.

In the meantime, happy pinning! I'm going to balance my checkbook now!