Organizing the inspiration

Hey all! Some of you may have noticed that Blogger was down for awhile this week, and when it came back up, my last post lost all of it’s comments. So if you left a comment with a suggestion (I’m looking for perennial ideas), I would love it if you would add it to the comments again. (I reference them later!)

Speaking of referencing ideas. ;)

Many of you have asked how I organize all of the DIY project ideas that fill my brain. You know, those ideas that pop into my head right as I’m falling asleep and then keep me awake at night. (For reals…it’s sad.)

If it’s something I want to make sure not to forget, I’ll write it down on a notepad. I have one I’ve written ideas on for years. But many of my projects are born from inspiration I see in magazines or online.

Up till a couple weeks ago, my main method for organizing those was a binder:

I showed you my loverly binders on this paper organizing post – and one of them is filled with pages I tear out of magazines. I have four categories – walls/art, holiday, general projects, and general decorating ideas.

Some ideas I’ve had in there for years, like this project:

And I’ve had the supplies for it all that time too. ;) Need to get on that.

I love these fence pots:

And I look at them every summer and haven’t done it yet. ;)

I keep lots of how-to’s, like this one for all types of bows:

And this one for the proper way to prune a bush:

Most of the sheets are just pictures of beautifully decorated spaces. This Pottery Barn gallery wall is one of my favorites:

Love those lights at the top!

Every once in a while I’ll look back at my filed pictures and wonder what in the heck I wanted to remember. So I started writing on the pages:

The binder is stuffed FULL with ideas. But the problem is, I rarely have a few extra moments to sit and peruse my pretty binder. And if I do have an extra few minutes, you know I’m usually painting something. :)

Then I heard about Pinterest. It’s such a FUN way to organize and categorize all of the inspiration I find online:

I was so scared of it for the longest time – it seemed like it would be so complicated and all…technical. Me and techy don’t mix. ;)

But I tell you what – I had it figured out in about three minutes and I haven’t stopped “pinning” since.

When you sign up you just drag the “Pin It” icon up to you tool bar and whenever you’re online and see something you love, it just takes a click on that little button. It pins it into the category you specify, just. like. that.

You can also follow others and see what they’re pinning, and I find most of my ideas from those I follow. It’s awesome. I’ve already found SO MANY beautiful projects I want to try!

Like outdoor projects:

Or fun stuff, like how to make moon sand:

The stuff is evil, but the Bub loves it.

There’s all kinds of helpful tips I didn’t know about, like how to remove a stripped screw:

A bunch of yummy recipes and ideas:

And plenty of good old beautiful decor ideas:

I LOVE that red door!

My favorite part is that it saves the permalink when you save from your computer – so you just save it to your account, and you can always go back later to see more details.

You can also load pictures from your computer and if you have an iphone and the new app, you are supposed to be able to take photos and load them, although it hasn’t worked for me yet. :)

Although many bloggers use it – I think it’s a great resource for anyone! I have a girlfriend who does does a lot of etsy searching for the fantastic birthday parties she throws for her kids. This is a perfect way for her to save those ideas!

It really is SO FUN. It’s easy to get sucked in though – you’ll go in for two seconds and be on for an hour. And all of the sudden I want to search the Internet for every idea I’ve ever had, just so I can pin them. ;)

The only kicker is you have to be invited by someone who has a Pinterest account, or you can request an invite on their site. I hear that takes a few days to come through though.

If you would like a invite, send me an email and I’ll try to send you one! I’m not sure how many I can send out, but I’ll invite as many as I can (and as many as I can get to!)

So there you have it – two ways to organize the inspiration! One for the magazines, one for online ideas. I’m definitely referring more to the online method now that I’m using Pinterest.

**My friend Beth created a great tutorial on how to use Pinterest! Check it out here.

***I have no affiliation with Pinterest, I just love it. :)