Light, dark, and lacy {& saying goodbye to Pinterest}

I took these photos of myself today in my living room.  I wanted everything to be super white and washed out, except for my eyes and hair.  This may be the most vibrant eye makeup I have ever worn, and I think I like it:)  I might have to go on over to Target later and see what kind of weird looks I get….

Speaking of weird looks – wanna hear something kind of shocking?  I quit Pinterest.  On March 4th I deleted my account, and all of my pins and repins.  I can just imagine your gasps and dropped jaws on this one.  Pinterest is one of the hottest sites for women (and some men) right now, and has completely taken over the lives of some of it’s users, so why would I want to quit?  I thought about that question a LOT before I deleted my account, and I will share some of the reasons with you in this post.

Let me start this by saying:  I don’t dislike Pinterest.  I think it’s a super cool idea, and I got a lot of use and enjoyment out of it last year.  I’m definitely not writing this post to tell anyone that they should quit Pinterest.  I made this decision for myself and only myself.  When I first joined, I used it constantly – everyday, multiple times a day.  I was mostly looking for ideas for my sister’s bridal shower and wedding, and it came in very handy!  But once the wedding was over, my use of it became more and more sporadic.

One of the things that started bothering me was that I was constantly seeing the same pins over and over again.  I was looking for new ideas and fresh inspiration, but wasn’t finding it in 90% of the pins I viewed.  Another thing I didn’t care for, was how easy it was to repin something and be completely oblivious to where it came from.  I can’t tell you how many times I repinned without clicking into the photo to see what blog, designer, website, ect… it originally came from, and I don’t think that I am the only one.  I  often hear users giving all the credit for their finds to Pinterest.  “Where did you get that idea?”  “PINTEREST!!”  <—these kind of statements make me sad because as a creative person, I believe in giving full credit to the person who originally created and executed the idea; not the means of  which it was found (and copied) by us.

The most important reason that I gave up on Pinterest was this:  I want to challenge my creative process to be more organic, original, and unique.  If I only get my ideas and inspirations from one place, all of my projects, crafts, ideas, art, and design will quickly become nothing more than mediocre copies of other people’s creativity.  I want to look more to the things that I already know, and begin to create from that place before looking to others.

I read this great blog post from Free Range Mom about “idea hoarding”, and how it can actually have an undesired affect on a person’s creative process and productivity.  I love this quote in the post:  “Creating something is hard work, fraught with angst and self-doubt.  It requires enormous energy, will and (dare I say) magic, to come up with a new creation – be it an idea, painting or cookie recipe.”

I want to experience more self-doubt in my creations.  I can only have self-doubt when something is coming from me, and that is both frightening and exhilarating.

Feel free to share what you think in the comments – I won’t be offended if you don’t agree with me (or I won’t tell you at least…HA!), and I would love to know why you use or don’t use Pinterest.

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