Organize your DIY & Craft Pinterest boards {so you can actually find things}

It’s pretty clear that the crafting and DIY communities LOVE Pinterest. I absolutely do, and Pinterest is a wonderful way to organize all of your holiday crafts. In fact, I pinned about a hundred “pin now, read later” pins last year (you know the ones I’m talking about) for craft ideas for this Christmas…..except just one thing….I went back & couldn’t find anything. Correction, that’s not totally true. I usually can find what I’m looking for, but only after searching a few hundred pins, going to a few different boards, and going down a few rabbit holes. Why can’t I find what I’m looking for when I’m looking for it?

So, I’m on a mission…. This is going to be the year. The year, when I organize my craft & DIY pins, so I can actually use them when I want to.

I love Pinterest. But once I got up around 2,000 pins on 50 or so boards, I hit a wall. I started repinning the same item. I would go to do a craft and not have a link to the right information (a “bad pin” to begin with). I would see pins and wonder what was I thinking when I pinned that….Is it a link to a project? A product I want to try? Just an inspirational image?

I started to laugh at myself when each pin became an internal dialogue I couldn’t finish. When should I pin a craft project to “Cute Crafty Things” and when is it appropriate to pin it to my “Fun Crafty Things” board? Does this pin belong under my “Sewing Love” board or is this pillow something that’s more of a “Fun Thing to Do with Fabric”?…..I forgot why I made the boards and what was even in them!!!

My boards are a work in progress and I’m continuously editing them. Over time, I came up with some suggestions to help keep my projects organized, and to make Pinterest act like it was intended to, by helping you get the actual content behind the images.
If you just use Pinterest to collect images to look at, or you’ll never want to read the content that goes along with an image, then you are probably fine, though it’s nice to give credit to the image sources. For crafters, DIYers, and makers like us, you need to be organized and you need good content.  Here are some suggestions on how to get both.

1. Don’t pin anything until you’ve verified the content. When I’m looking through potential pins, all I want to do is pin the image and move on. However, I’ve gone to create something and the link goes to spam. I’ve had situations where I assumed the pin went to a tutorial (based on another pinner’s comments) but, surprise, the blogger gave only a very high level explanation of how she did the craft, not the step by step instructions I expected. So if I’m on my phone or don’t have time to track images down, I will “Like” the pin, then when I have free time, I go back and verify that it goes to what & where I assumed it goes before pinning it to a board.   Funny note:  I was about to pin the “awesome edible glitter tutorial for Christmas cookies” (according to the last pinner’s wording). I’m grateful I checked out the pin beforehand….it did go to a glitter recipe, but the recipe involved foil and glass, and last time I checked, I’d rather not eat my glittered Christmas cookies in the ER! Don’t believe everything you read on the internet  : )
2. Clean up your pins. Face it, lots of people do not pin images correctly. If you repin without checking the pin out first, you’re perpetuating the problem. The best time to clean up a pin is right before you pin it. There is nothing worse than getting ready to do a tutorial, thinking you’re a click away, and being brought to an image with no directions, a tumblr post, a lone Google image, or some part of the right blog, but a totally incorrect series of entries. This creates extra work to find what you really wanted, and that’s no fun….especially when you finally have free time & are all excited to do a project. Be sure the pin goes to the individual blog post entry with the content (always click on the blog post’s title to get there)….not the website’s / blog’s main page, a blog’s monthly posts, or a Google image search picture. It’s true that a tutorial may be on a blog’s front page when you pin it, but when more content is added, the pin that only goes only to the blog’s main URL, will no longer take you to the right content.

{Hand Stamped Cheese Spreaders via BeachHouseLiving}

3.  Label craft / DIY pins accordingly. I follow some popular pinners that have lots of pins with descriptions as “.” or “<3”. That’s great if you are collecting images, but for crafters & DIYers, that doesn’t help. You can label each pin with 500 characters of text. I’ve found it really helpful to not just describe the image, but write some text about why you pinned it, e.g., “great idea for leftover small scraps of paper” or “love the color combo used in this ornament” instead of simply saying “ornament” or “love this.” The comments section is also a great place to write a little detail about what the informational link behind the image represents….Is this a full, written out tutorial? Is this a link to a product you want to buy? Is this image the result of a technique you want to try? Is this image just inspiration & you can figure out how to duplicate it yourself?

In addition, be specific so others can find your pins in the search feature. A description like “great idea for kitchen back splash” is much more helpful & searchable than the description “great kitchen idea.” {Tip courtesy of Cyndi}

4. Always add the content or image’s source…the original source. The Graphics Fairy has this popular post on how to use google images to find the source if you don’t already know how to do it. Aside from helping you easily find the people, blogs, or products you want without clicking on the pin, giving credit to the individual who took the photo or created the tutorial is good karma.

5. Use multiple boards and separate by content purpose. It goes without saying and you probably already have multiple project boards, but do you really know what each one means and how they are distinct? Did you create cute & catchy names, and now you just pin everything, to….wherever?

Pinterest recommends you use cute, catchy names for your boards. I admit, it makes me jealous when someone else has thought of a clever board name. However when you get 1,000’s of pins and you have 15 boards each
with pieces of tutorials, DIYs, & inspirational pictures all mixed
together, a board like “The Crafting Life” won’t cut it. What are you
supposed to do with those images?…be inspired, create something, read
further / learn something, just
look at the pictures, buy something? It helps to be clear about what are actual tutorials, what
are “fun to look at” pictures, what are products, etc. in the board’s
name.  Here is an example series of general crafting board names that separate pins by the purpose of the content:

Craft & DIY ~ Digital Art & Photoshop Resources

Craft & DIY ~ Downloadable Images I Love

Craft & DIY ~ Image Transfer Techniques & Tutorials

Craft & DIY ~ Painting Techniques

Craft & DIY ~ Project Tutorials

Craft & DIY ~ Supplies & Products

6. Create multiple boards for each craft / DIY medium.  If you do a lot of crafting in a certain medium (e.g. sewing), putting 100’s of pins under a generic Craft &
DIY board and mixing them with other projects or creating “Sewing 1” (and then “Sewing 2” when that gets full), could be very confusing. If you’re an avid paper crafter, create multiple boards that start with “Paper Crafts.” You could do something like this:

Paper Crafts ~ Project Tutorials & DIY’s

Paper Crafts ~ Christmas Projects

Paper Crafts ~ Inspiration & Ideas

Paper Crafts ~ Products to Try

I started each board with “Paper Crafts”, so when I’m choosing a board
to pin to, I have 3 or 4 Paper Craft boards next to each other
alphabetically and I can quickly select the right one. This is a lot easier than
remembering to scroll through and figure out the difference between my old boards called “paper
projects”, “fun things to do with paper”, “crafts I simply MUST Do”,
and  “neat craft and DIY projects”….all of which used to contain paper
crafting projects but were alphabetically mixed since they started with C, F, N, & P. If you get to 100+ pins in a category, you may want to segment the category further or see about editing down your pins.

7. Rearrange your boards.  In my boards menu, I group similar boards together (e.g., all my Paper Craft boards are together), so I find things more easily. Your boards don’t need to be organized alphabetically on your boards page, in fact, I have some of my prettier, more popular boards at the top of my boards page in case people stop by and visit me. But, you may want to group like craft / DIY boards on the same row of your board page so if you need a certain DIY pin, you can find it easily.

Whew….that post took a lot longer than I expected. I’ve only been pinning for over a year, so I’m sure there are more tips & tricks to learn. If you have some, please share using the comments below & we’ll keep this post updated so everyone can benefit!

Happy Pinning!

Emily  {You can find me online. I’ll be the one fixing up & relabeling all my pins}

You can follow My Boards HERE and you can follow The Graphics Fairy Boards HERE.