If you must know, I found it on Pinterest.
Who hasn’t said that at least once?
Pinterest is all the rage these days – the cat’s pajamas, the bee’s knees. Somehow, on the daily, it takes several million pins – ideas, projects, photos, recipes, outfits, designs – and makes it a whole lot less overwhelming.
So, yeah, I use Pinterest. Although it’s important to note that there isn’t some Pinterest Robot pumping out all of these ideas on his lonesome. Pins come from people – crafters, designers, artists, stylists, chefs, photographers – and then we have the privilege of peeking into their minds, hoarding their thoughts on boards like we’re storing up nuts for winter.
And by winter, I mean a ferociously bitter and brisk winter, the kind that requires several coats and many multiple socks to avoid frostbite. That’s why we need so many pins after all, because winter is coming. Right. That’s why.
I have a modest collection of 6,377 pins.
How will you ever utilize all of those pins? You might ask.
To which I might reply, Touché. But a good Girl Scout is always prepared.
Honestly, sometimes all it takes is a pin of a deliciously crafted sandwich to make me eat the breakfast I should have had three hours ago when I woke up. Sometimes all it takes is a pin of a fabulously styled mid-century dresser to make me go organize my fabulously messy mid-century dresser. Sometimes all it takes is a pin of a smokin’ outfit to encourage me to throw together my own smokin’ outfit.
And this week a pin of a woolen bunny inspired me to design a print for a friend’s upcoming baby shower. I collected the pin months ago, but often times I actually do utilize my several thousand pins by scanning my boards for the suitable muse of an approaching project.
Not only did this bunny make me want to design and illustrate, it made me want a baby. Can’t you just picture Junior dragging Mr. Bunny behind all Linus-van-Pelt-style?
This bunny, I should add, however inspiring and precious, is from The Purl Bee, a knitting, crocheting, sewing, crafting blog that’s busting with beautiful projects. I don’t even know how to knit, and I’m consistently pinning from their site.
This one happened to help me come up with this:
For digital illustrations, I use my Wacom Bamboo Tablet. It sort of rocks, and it’s probably helping to delay my carpal tunnel diagnosis.
As you can guess, I was also inspired by the above quote from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” pinned conveniently to my ‘When I Have Babies’ board. The baby shower is actually celebrating the birth of a friend’s little girl who was born about 12 weeks early, so she is in fact very itty-bitty, and yet clearly a fighter, and a cute one at that.
Even though my pinspiration didn’t lead me to assemble by own woolen bunny or write a Shakespearean play, I used them to influence an entirely unique project. Someone probably isn’t going to say, You got that idea on Pinterest, didn’t you? I might reply, not exactly. But, secretly, I sort of did. Boy, am I sneaky.
So are you a Pinspiration Ninja too?
Which pins, however unrelated to the project they’ve inspired, are motivating you lately?
Emily Ann Moschner 