Inspire Bohemia: Pinterest

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Oh Pinterest, thou art the knight and shining armor of internet image sourcing and sharing! Sorry Google images, we had some good times (and from time to time still do), but Pinterest is my main squeeze these days... haha.

Pinterest is a picture sharing website that provides a unique feature called the 'Pin It' button, which you simply drag and drop on the shortcut menu bar of your browser. From that point forward, whenever you're on any website and spot some awesome pictures, you can simply click that 'Pin It' button and it enables you to "Pin" (add) any photo on that page to what is called a "Board" (a virtual inspiration board) - you can have one or thirty boards and name them/categorize them however you want! What makes this concept and tool so great is that it eliminates the need to save a billion photos to ones computer (that's a big problem for me, and even now I still save a bit of photos), also it tracks the source of the image and allows you to cite sources as well as offers an HTML embedding tool once "pinned" to your board. If you embed the image into your blog post with said HTML embedding feature, it will automatically provide a source citing at the bottom of the image - complete with links for easy reader reference (see images in my previous posts for examples)! Talk about stress relief and time saving!

If this is the first time you are hearing about Pinterest I suggest you hold onto your seat - it's pretty awesome. However if you're one of those people who applied to Pinterest and are desperately and impatiently waiting to be accepted and wondering why it's taking so long, let me be the one to break the bad news - it might not happen for a looooooong time. You see, it has been almost a year since I applied and I have yet to be accepted to this photographic secret society! Well, that's what it feels like right?? It's so exclusive that you have to apply and go on a virtual waiting list to be accepted? Meanwhile the exclusive few that got the first beta slots for testing it out (or however the heck it started, I don't know exactly) are able to send tons of invites to whoever they want for instant joining access, thereby creating some type of exclusive membership thingy... Soooo, how did I get in you ask? Well, I clicked on over to their Facebook page and saw that existing members of Pinterest were posting on the wall offering their "invitations" to anyone who wanted to join immediately. So I responded with my e-mail, and I kind stranger promptly sent me an invitation! I was thrilled...

As for the endless waiting to be accepted by Pinterest into their exclusive little photographic society? I say that is some cruel deprivation, and after receiving a comment on one of my posts from reader Linda about anxiously waiting to be accepted, I thought it was high time to pay it forward! I visited Linda's awesome cooking blog Dinner with the Welches: Eat, Drink, Live and, only after getting swept away and distracted by her delicious meals and thorough recipe sharing, I left her a comment asking her to send me her e-mail so that I could directly invite her to Pinterest. That immediately got me thinking about doing this post and offering all of my readers who are interested a direct invitation to Pinterest. I don't know what the cap is for sending invitations to friends, but I'll invite until they run out! So go ahead and comment on this post with your e-mail and I'll send you an invite! If you don't want to leave your e-mail address in the comment section, please feel free to send it to me in an e-mail at InspireBohemia@gmail.com.
If you're already a Pinterest member, add me:

In case you missed my past few posts, check out:
Fall and Thanksgiving Wreaths
Thanksgiving Tablescapes, Pumpkins and Decor
I'll be back within the hour with another Thanksgiving decor post!

Friday, September 23, 2011

Ooh la la Art

Morning!

I've been pinning a lot over on Pinterest lately, particularly art, and let me tell you that I could go on pinning for DAYS! It's a sickness! My boyfriend makes fun of me and says I look hypnotized every time I'm on it! Welllll, it's like a rabbit hole of awesomeness that I get sucked into! Guilty as charged, and who can blame me? I'm not the only one that loves looking at stuff and then digitally hoarding it, or else there wouldn't be a Pinterest! He has lovingly called me that too by the way, a digital photo hoarder... hehehehehe! Not like the show on hoarders though, although from time to time he has poked fun at me about potentially growing old and filling the house with vases, suzanis, trinkets, succulents and pretty much everything else! As for that, all I'm going to say is... no comment! Just kidding!

So anyway, I realize now that I've mentioned Pinterest quite a few times and have yet to really explain what it is for those of you who may not know, sorry about that! Pinterest is a free image sharing site where you can "pin" a.k.a. save images to one or more online boards/photo albums. However its most unique and innovative feature is the "Pin It" tool, which you simply drag to your bookmark menu/bar (from here) where it becomes a button. From then on, whenever you're on a site and you see an image you love and want to ~~hoard~~ save for later inspiration and ideas, you simply click that little "Pin It" button and suddenly the page you're on turns into a little picture shopping platform of sorts, wherein you can select any images from the site that you would like to pin/save to any of your "boards" a.k.a photo albums. There's also a handy HTML embedding feature, which you may have noticed I've been using in my posts lately. I'll admit, sometimes I feel guilty about pumping out so many images and not sourcing/linking each one individually, but now that Pinterest has come to save the day I think I can manage, most of the time. Oh, and since Pinterest eliminates the need to save images to your computer (except those really special can't-take-your-eyes-off-them images of course), it's saving my hard drive (and many others, I'm sure) from a potential picture crash! Ok ok, so I suffer from severe picture mania, but I'm at peace with it - I simply plan to purchase one of those terra byte stand-alone external storage towers, or whatever it is those sexy black beauties are called! On that note, can you believe how far the whole external flash drives/other external USB storage devices have rapidly evolved in storage capacity and decreased in price? I remember when a 128MB USB flash drive stick was super expensive, HA! :)

Okay enough! On to the topic of this post... art! I love art, then again who doesn't... is there someone who doesn't? Art is the expression of passion and creativity and it is a visible evolution of creativity and innovation throughout time! There's a lot art out in the world and I'm really having fun discovering a lot it, particularly newer/recent artwork! Bottom line folks - I've "pinned" and saved an insane amount of art and I'm gonna bring it 'atcha over the course of several posts, and I'm calling it the Ooh la la Art series! Ha... enjoy!

PS - I'm particularly taken with the wild rainbow hair watercolor ladies (the one above and the one towards the end of this post) and wish I knew the artist's name.... I did some quick Google searching but didn't turn up anything, I can't trace it back to anything that appears to be an original source on Pinterest either. Does anyone out there know? They are striking and have inspired me to try out the look, in watercolor painting that is, not dying my hair rainbow colors! Boy am I chatty today, especially considering it's 6:00am and I haven't gone to sleep yet! What can I say, I was watching all the new premieres of my favorite shows on XFinity and Hulu and after battling the dry sleepy drooping eyes bit I've come upon a second wind! I assure you, this "PS" could go on forever and, so, I bid you farewell and adios amigos! Have a wonderful day!

If you're interested in joining or finding out more about Pinterest or even checking out all my "pins" and "boards" then check out the links below: