Are you a pinner?

One word...Pinterest.

It is a crazy, amazing, addictive, pretty, inspirational, user-friendly site.  It's one that makes me say, "why didn't I think of that?"  It's been around for a few (almost four) years and I was very hesitant to use it.  I originally heard about it from a blog I had been following for a while.  At the time I was following blogs and I was on the book of face (aka Facebook for those of you who aren't following me here!)  I didn't really want another site taking up my time.  I knew I would get sucked in for hours upon hours of searching, reading, thinking, pinning and wishing I had a house the size of Georgia and as much money as Donald Trump to complete all these beautiful projects I kept reading about.

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Fast forward to now and I can honestly say, I love Pinterest and I have had an easy time keeping it under control for the past year or so. There's is a method to my pinning and I have always kept my Pinterest boards clean and organized.  What more would you expect from me really?!  So today I'm going to share how I do it, the things I think while I'm pinning or looking at pins and what I do with my pins on my boards every once in a while.

First things first.  Here's a great description of Pinterest if you don't already know about it.  

It's best to think about it as a collection of giant bulletin boards.  You know, cork boards, good old fashioned cork, with colorful little push pins holding up pretty pictures.  Does anyone use bulletin boards these days?  I had one when I was younger and  I'm pretty such mine had tons of pictures of Jonathan Taylor Thomas on it.  I hope you know who that is!!  Anyway, teen boy crushes...that's a topic for another day.

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So, on to my method.  First, how I organize my boards.  I have 11 public boards.  Here are the categories I have and a brief description of what I keep in each:

Craft, Tips & Ideas - anything helpful for around the house, crafts I want to try, tips to completing crafts
Basement Ideas - we are still in the process of finishing our basement, these are ideas to help get there
Let's Eat - anything that sounds yummy!
Lookin' Good - workouts, clothing, jewelry, etc.
Ideas for L - things I want to try with Liam, gift ideas for him, decorating ideas for his room
Ideas for D - things I want to try with Dallas, gift ideas for him, decorating ideas for his room
Pictures - new and fun picture poses, tips on using our DSLR camera

Pinterest Ideas I've Tried - anything I have completed from Pinterest, comments of what I thought

IKEA - things I NEED from IKEA.  Yes, I need these things!

Master - ideas for our Mini Master Bedroom Redo
Journey with the Jeffers - pins from this little bloggeroo!

*One note.  The "Master" board, once the master bedroom is finished, this board will get deleted and a new one will take it's place regarding the next room I plan to work on/finish/redo.  I don't like to have a board for the kitchen, one for the living room, one for that bathroom, etc.  I get too overwhelmed finding things for all over the house.  It works better for me to focus on one room at a time.  When the next room comes along, I'll search for new ideas for that room.  Chances are there will be 18 million ideas for the next room, there's really never a shortage for ideas on Pinterest :)

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Next, how I decide if something is pin-worthy or not.  While I'm scrolling though, I see tons of things I would love to do..someday.  But Pinterest for me is about the now.  What I think I'll do either now, soon, or in the near future.  It's not about what I may want to do in five years.

Let's be real here, there's a good chance Pinterest is not going to be here in five years. There's probably going to be some other new hip site that does just about that same thing, but they will have some cutting edge sort of ideas that will blow Pinterest out of the water.  Maybe we will be able to order samples of cookies to try before we bake them using a recipe we found on this new site.  Maybe we will be able to feel fabric through our computer screens before we buy it for a craft project we found on that site.  Maybe we will even be able to Skype (assuming that's still a "thing" at this time) with someone who actually tried a workout activity we found on the new site and ask them one million questions about their experience.

So, in order to keep things practical and organized I pin things I will try in our current house.  I pin things I want to do with my kids in the next year or so.  I pin things I would actually wear now or eat soon.

Another way I decide if it's worth it is looking to see what the pin all entails.  Is it a recipe with 16 steps and odd food items I can't get locally?  Is it a craft project that requires a product you can only get from New Zealand?  Is it a building project that's going to cost double for my husband to make than it would to buy (probably from IKEA)?  If the answer to any of these questions (or any other question I find myself asking) is yes.  I don't pin it.

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Finally, how do I keep my boards organized?  Once in a while I go through my boards and decide if I pinned something I now have decided not to complete or saw someone else tried to complete and said it was not worth the time or effort.  I also look for things I tried and move them to my "Pinterest Ideas I've Tried" board.  At that time I also change the comment of the pin to include my thoughts.  I also take the time to make sure each pin is on the correct board.  Technology is funny sometimes and even though you think you saved something somewhere, it doesn't end up there!  I've found shirts I pinned for myself on my "Ideas for D" board.

I have been able to keep my total number of pins to a manageable amount by completing all these steps and I like it that way!  I  currently have 449 pins and 108 of those are on my "Pinterest Ideas I've Tried" board. I think that's a pretty good record!

Using Pinterest for practical things, that's my tip numero uno!!  What's the point in keeping a bunch of stuff around that you will never really do?  That's the question to ask yourself when you organize your Pinterest Boards, or a room in your house.  Here's an interesting article about what clutter can cost you.  I heard this concept a few years ago and I always thought it was interesting.  Even though this post is about keeping your Pinterest clean and organized, I think this is a great place to share the article with you...

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Pinterest.  What do you use it for?  Have you even heard of it?  Do you loose hours of your life daydreaming about Pins you wish you could do?  Share in the comments!  And in closing...

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and yes, this has happened a time or two!  

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Organizing: Craft Paper

For as long as I can remember people have told me I am good at organizing.  It's something I love to do and in another life, I would be a Professional Organizer.  I would love to go into peoples homes and help them organize their pantries, craft supplies, office areas, closets, cars, etc.  I would not be opposed to going to office buildings and organizing file rooms, desks, and supply closets.  Not only would I not be opposed to it, I would love it!  Maybe even so much that I would do it for F-R-E-E.

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I really think that having everything in it's place makes life so easy.  Yes, it takes time to find a place, decide what to put there, pick a container (if needed) and put the items in their spots.  But once you have that area figured out and in an order that makes sense for you and your needs, it's done.  From then on you don't have to do anything other than remember to put things back in their place.  Sometimes you may not put an item back immediately after you use it, but you will eventually and you will know where it goes.

For my first "installment" of my "organizing series" I am showing all of you how I organize my craft papers.  I have a six drawer system which my mom got me a few years ago for Christmas.  Side note: Remember how I said people have told me I'm good at organizing?  Some of those people also know how much I like to do it and they know the way to my heart...buy me organizing supplies and I'll love you forever!!  The drawer unit I have it just like this one.  I'm pretty sure my mom got mine from Hobby Lobby and it has held up great, so I highly recommend it.

First I separated all of my craft papers into piles to decide how I needed to organize them.  I tried to keep the number of piles to five so I would have one extra drawer for supplies (mainly the wheels for the unit since I didn't intend to use them).  

Next I pulled out this great label maker.  It's the Brother P-touch Home & Hobby Label Machine.  I created labels for each of the drawers.  If you are interested these are the categories I came up with for my storage drawers: Travel, Holidays, Seasons, Dogs, Family, Friends, Patterned Paper, and Plain Card stock.  Some drawers have more than one category in them, either because they go together or because I only had a few of one type of paper and plenty of room in the drawer for multiple categories.  The drawers are clear so it's easy to tell what I am running low on.  Also, these drawers pull all the way out so when I'm working on a project, I can pull one drawer out completely and bring it to my desk to look at all the paper at once that I may need for that particular project.

Then I labeled the drawers and filled them up with all of my paper.  (I just noticed I forgot an "e" and it has since been fixed, can you spot it?  One million bonus points to you if you can!)  Another great feature of this storage unit is that it fits 12x12 paper.  If you do any kind of crafts, you know this is great.  I mix 8.5x11 with the 12x12, so this eliminates having two separate storage units.  

Storage Unit, I hope you're ready for your close up!! 

What have you organized lately?  I know getting organized is a popular New Year Resolution, so I'm sure there is some organizing going on out there! Spill all the details below in the comments!