I have a confession: I have a big crush on Pinterest. If there were only one app I could have on my phone, it would be Pinterest. My favorite social media? Pinterest. Where do I spend the majority of my time? Pinterest. I think you get the gist. I just wanted you to know how much I love Pinterest. If you have never heard of Pinterest, or it’s been sitting in your app library untouched for years, then I want to explain why you should open it up again and fall in love just like I have.
What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is a photo search engine where users can upload media for ideas, recipes, crafts, and inspiration and organize them in folders called boards. For instance, my mom uses Pinterest to save family meals, scrapbooking ideas, and family Halloween costume inspiration. I, on the other hand, use Pinterest to make curated boards with a theme. I also use it to find ideas for my art and to search for pictures to use in my collages. Its versatility opens the app to a wide audience and provides room for creativity.
I’ve linked my Pinterest account so you can see for yourself how I like to save pins to my boards and the different boards I enjoy making!
https://www.pinterest.com/gracekathryn_/
My Boards
One of my favorite boards is titled “evermore as a person” where I think all of the pins represent the album Evermore by Taylor Swift. I see Evermore as a fall/winter album, and all of the pins on the board are from fall & winter with fireplaces, Christmas décor, books, baked goods, and cozy sweaters. I really enjoy listening to music and then making boards based on how they make me feel. Take a look and see for yourself, and if you’re a Swiftie, I hope we see the album in the same light!
https://www.pinterest.com/gracekathryn_/evermore-as-a-person/
Another favorite board of mine is my “autumn” board, which, as you may have guessed, is centered around fall. Pumpkins, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, coffee, books, fallen leaves, black cats, cute boots, and moody nails. A lot of mauve, burnt orange, black, and brown fill the board. When you scroll through it, you get that perfect taste of fall nostalgia.
https://www.pinterest.com/gracekathryn_/autumn/
Lastly, another notable board of mine is called “art inspo.” It is filled with art of many different kinds that catch my eye. Inside the board, there are various lyric posters, cut-and-paste collages, vintage illustrations, postcard designs, paintings, and sketches galore. Anytime I see something art related on my homepage, I save it to this board to reference later when I need inspiration for my own art.
https://www.pinterest.com/gracekathryn_/art-inspo/
My art
Here is my Instagram to give you an idea of the art I like to make! I love making collages featuring my favorite celebrities, lyric posters from my favorite artists, and wallpapers that I started making when I first found my passion for art. I like to search Pinterest to find images to cut out and use in my art and enhance the aesthetic I’m trying to go for. If you search “Collage Kit” on Pinterest, it will show you a bunch of pins that I have used before, collections of cut-out images that have the same color scheme/mood, etc. They are super helpful when you don’t have much experience using specific key terms when searching for what you want. They make compiling images sooo much easier.
https://www.instagram.com/gkatecreates/
Shuffles
Now, let me introduce you to a new feature on Pinterest. It has blown up on social media, but it isn’t accessible to everyone quite yet as it is invite-only. Pinterest has released a new app called Shuffles, where users can link their Pinterest accounts and make collages with their pins. During the beginning of the pandemic, I would make collages using a different app called PicsArt that does the same thing, yet, it was a lot more time-consuming. Shuffles streamline this process making it accessible to more users. Now, I have been searching high and low for an invite code for weeks. Each time a new user joins, they get five invite codes to share with their friends and family, and people are sharing them on social media for others to use. The only issue is that with every invite code posted, the amount of them eventually runs out. So each time I would try to put a code into the app, it would say “Sorry! That invite code has reached its number of users!” and I would frustratingly swipe back to Twitter or Tiktok milling through hundreds of codes. Finally, I found a code in the comment section of a Tiktok that was posted a few weeks ago, and miraculously, it worked! I was ecstatic! I was finally into the app, yet I felt like a digital immigrant- I had no clue how to work this thing! It took me a minute, but I eventually figured things out and made a very haphazard first collage. I felt like my old self a bit. My art style has developed so much in almost three years, and I felt a little sentimental going back to my roots :)
Once Shuffles is accessible to everyone, or you have dug around for a working invite code, I hope you check it out and play around with the app. Making art is really cathartic and a fabulous way to express your feelings and emotions in a form other than words. I encourage you to hop on Pinterest and explore everything interesting to you- makeup looks, outfit inspo, new recipes, and more. Afterward, I think you’ll love Pinterest almost as much as I do.