I first learned about Pinterest from Dessert Darling and Autumn Reeser when they asked me to design a little button for their sites.

Pinterest? I asked with perked ears.

And now, its my new favoritest thing on the web.

In a nutshell, it a virtual pin board where you can collect and share things that you love. Simple as that.

Its very visual in nature and a great way to organize ideas, inspiration…you name it. The sky’s the limit. You can have boards for recipes, boards for home decor…anything.  Its also a great way to find such things. Because it is so visually based, when I need a little creative spark, I just start perusing some of the boards I follow and Im instantly inspired.

Here’s one of my boards I call “Design Inspiration”…

And who could go through life without a “Cupcakes” board?

So here’s a breakdown on using Pinterest…

1. Request an invitation here. Or if you know someone already on Pinterest, ask them to send you an invitation (you can ask me, too!). That way, you can get started immediately. But if you dont know anyone it only takes a day or two to get your invitation through the Pinterest team.

2. Sign up. You can sign up with your Facebook or Twitter account or create a new login/password.

3. Find some friends to follow. There are several ways to find friends who are already “pinning”. Just run the friend finder processes and it will search your Twitter, Facebook, and email accounts.

4. Create your boards. Create however may categories or “boards” to organize the pins that you want to add. They start you off with the standard set but you can add, change, delete, etc.

5. Start pinning! There are three ways to start pinning, basically. First, follow some people you already know and check out their boards. You can repin their pins onto any of your boards. Secondly, you can go to “Staff Favorites” under your Boards menu and search there. Also, try browsing the “Everything” category on the main page. You’re bound to get lost in pinning awesomeness.

6. Keep the pins coming. Once you are comfy with your boards and pinning, you can start adding new pins. The next time you come across a recipe or tutorial with great images, use the Pin It bookmarklet (that you will be able to add at sign in) on your browser to create the pin. Keep in mind it will only allow you to pin a page with a decent size image, to keep with the whole nature of the site. You can always upload your own image of things you find offline. There’s also a very handy iPhone app.

I will likely start doing a regular weekly update on my favorite Pinterest finds. Stay tuned.

Are you on Pinterest? Speak up! And if you want to follow my boards, I’m here.

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