A few things to think about

Like quite a few friends, I’ve been grabbed by the Pinterest bug.  I won’t say I spend hours on there, but I can see how easily I could get sucked in.  Like the old days of internet surfing, it’s easy to follow one bit of eye candy to the next and before long, an hour has passed and little has been achieved!

We’re currently planning our summer road trip and South Dakota will feature, so I was amused to find the SD Pinterest board.  In fact, I was impressed by the fully featured website for the state which made planning our visit really easy!  I repinned a couple of the photos to my own Pinterest board and moved right along. As I did,  I muttered something about it to the Chief Road Trip Planner sitting beside me, which prompted him to look up quizzically and ask “What?  Pinterest?  What’s that then?”

Question #1: Is Pinterest a woman thing?

Generally speaking, I use my Pinterest board as a repository for things I might otherwise lose track of, as inspiration for a project or to store one or two ideas and thoughts.  It’s a great way of storing all these visual prompts and I would say that it fulfils the same purpose as my bookmarks did – before it was quicker to google everything!

So, here we are in February and I notice that my blog has suddenly rather a lot of referrals from Pinterest.  That provokes a little curiosity so I dig around in my stats and find the picture above was pinned by someone onto their Valentine page.  Fine with me – no problem.  I posted a tutorial on how to make the little cards last year and since it’s hardly rocket science, I wasn’t really giving much away.  But once again, the word “pinterest” was on my mind, even if it was for a slightly different reason this time.

Today, however, I am reaching the conclusion that Pinterest must have reached a critical mass.  Firstly, I come across this article which raises all kinds of very pertinent points about ownership of images, ideas and material and certainly offers food for thought regarding what I share and how I protect my photographs and ideas.

Question #2: Have you given any thought to potential copyright issues?  Will it change how readily you share ideas and post photographs of your work?

No sooner had I read this, than I came across someone else asking herself this very same question.  Amy has written a blog post about how she is thinking carefully about to protect her work too.  Well worth a read, as are the posts immediately preceding that one.

And then, as if to hit the message firmly home, I opened the “Social Media” section of Zite as I was reading my ipad and what headline was there, staring me in the face? 

How to Market your Consumer Based Business on Pinterest.

Which brings me to my final question #3:  How much longer will it be before Pinterest is overrun by commercial sites and marketing men?

I haven’t even begun to think about this aspect yet.

Oh my.

A sense of humour

I don’t normally post commercials here and following a conversation with Jordi recently, prompted by a post on Loretta’s blog it’s all the more surprising that today, I want to post a picture of a product.  As I sat at the breakfast table this morning, I found myself reading the back of the smoothie carton, though.

It’s hard to read like that, so forgive me for enlarging some of the list of “Ways to get in touch”

The list begins with amusing suggestions

continues with reminders of my own semaphore skills learned at Brownies and never forgotten

and finishes with a couple of totally absurd suggestions which made me laugh out loud before I’d finished my breakfast.

Innocent is the company which tops the small bottles of drink with woolly hats each winter, raising funds for charities supporting elderly people.  Going to their website to add a link and discovering their fun blog made me appreciate the value of a creative approach to marketing.  After all, it costs the same to put out a serious message as it does to make people smile.  I’m not suggesting that I really want 100% silliness all the time, but a little creative originality is refreshing and adds a human touch to a commercial operation.

What do you think?

A Day in my Life

Prompted by Ali Edwards challenge to record a day in my life, I thought I’d record the events on Wednesday this week.  Though the visit from OFSTED means this is a far from ordinary week in that I’m working more than usual, I couldn’t really say what a “normal” week looks like around here and this Wednesday was about as normal as it gets.

Except I forgot!

Half way through the morning, it dawned on me that I ought to have had my camera by my side from the get go and of course, I hadn’t even taken one photo.  So, a quick reschedule to Thursday, yesterday, the 9th February.  I dutifully took photos all day, made a few hasty notes on a timetable and thought I’d put the results together at some point in a very simple fashion.

Today, we got a snow day!

My simple ideas flew out of the window as I found myself constructing a concertina book from the photos and a bit of narrative alongside. With time to spend on it, I did it from scratch and didn’t resort to purchased digital templates or overlays.  But it took time.

Still, the end result is rather lovely and I’m pleased I made the effort to do something with it all.  All too often I take photos, collect the stories and then leave them lurking on my computer somewhere with just the good intentions in place.

This time, I’ve made a real book, completely finished and rather satisfying to read.

 

It’s bigger, longer than I envisaged, though it’s hard to imagine how it could have been smaller.  There are 24 pages in total.

I used Picasa to create some collage pages which I then imported into Photoshop to make the page.  I tried to include as many aspects of our everyday life as I could – the red photos above are of two cashmere sweaters I darned yesterday morning.  One got thrown in the bin before darning, when I saw the scope of work needed, the other went to the same destiny when I’d darned two holes and thought I’d finished – before going on to find another three.  I’m hoping our new wardrobe set up will have no moth problem!

Of course yesterday was a day spent waiting for snow, so there is an element of uncertainty.

The snow did come in the end, whilst I sat in a village hall two valleys away,  listening to the most inspiring woman and mother of an autistic son – linking nicely back to Ali and the stories she records.  Having spotted the white stuff outside, I dashed home and made it back in time, thank goodness.

In the salad section

and prompting much discussion there as well.

Who wears the trousers?

I’ve had a fun morning filling my new wardrobe.  Well, I couldn’t really wait until this morning – the minute the builders left on Thursday afternoon, I began to hang things in there and this morning I’ve been bringing up the boxes of folded T shirts and things which have been living in the garage since last October.

One thing is immediately apparent.  Those who know me won’t be surprised to see the colours are very consistent!

In fact, perhaps one day when I have even more time to play, I should organise by colour rather than jacket/skirt/trousers.

I’m sure there would be clear divisions between the spring green, the pink, the blue and the purple.

The one single yellow shirt I have could hang on its own.  Yes, really, I have one yellow piece of clothing!  But you won’t have seen it because I don’t think I’ve worn it once.

The rest is so very predictable!

But I have a guilty secret which I was told to confess.  See that little pile in the back of the photograph?  I’ve run out of room for my trousers.

I really couldn’t believe it when I came across another box of folded jeans and trousers in the garage this morning, and brought them upstairs fearing the worst.  Never having had all of my clothes in one place before and always having them split between two or three different rooms, wardrobes and packed away according to the season, I have never had to confront the rather curious fact that I appear to own ninety pairs of trousers!

Ninety two actually, because I didn’t count the pair I was wearing and then I found another pair, hanging in the guest room.

My Hero decided that it was a fine time to pile on the guilt but it didn’t work.  I have no shame – they’re all paid for and (I think) they all fit!  But clearly, it is time to reassess just how many pairs of black jeans I need, not to mention the navy blue wool trousers which might just be slightly old fashioned, because some of these trousers do go back quite a while, I’m sure.  So, one day soon (when I get the mirror fixed up) I will have to spend a day trying them all on and consigning some to the charity shop.

I left that little pile on the floor and went to empty the washing machine, to hang the contents up to dry.  I opened the machine door and found two more pairs inside ;-)