Pinterest inspires baked goods and dorm décor

While some Pinterest users gravitate to the site purely in pursuit of attractive celebrities, high-end clothing and inspirational quotes, one of the biggest draws for users are the do-it-yourself crafts and recipes which are inspiring homemade additions to bedrooms walls and dining room tables everywhere. 
Already this school year, the Pinterest/DIY trend has begun to cultivate a presence offline. On Aug. 1, a Pinterest craft night was held in the lounge of Brown Hall . Senior Resident Assisstants Kelsey Woolcott and Christine Howard organized and hosted the night.

Rebecca Krylow, complex coordinator for Central Campus, says the staffers’ enthusiasm for Pinterest inspired the activity night.

“Many RAs in Central are personally on Pinterest,” she says. “[They] use the website to find inspiration for floor visuals, bulletin boards and, now, programming ideas.”

Krylow says the hosts selected an inexpensive but fun and creative Pinterest craft of outlining shapes with pins onto foam boards and then filling in the design with yarn woven around the shape’s border.

“It was inexpensive, but allowed students to create a piece of art to display in their rooms or give as a gift,” she says.

Home décor DIY is popular with students, particularly due to the low cost, allowing students to decorate inexpensively.

Avid Pinterest user sophomore Rhiannon Hare says she finds a lot of practical and creative ideas on Pinterest .

“I’m all about trying to make my dorm more like a home, and I’ve definitely gotten a lot of home decoration ideas from it,” she says.

Sophomore Ellen McGirr says that in addition to using Pinterest to spruce up her dorm, she also uses the recipes she finds online.

“I made a bunch of the cookies that look like melting snowmen for a family party and my little cousins went nuts over them,” McGirr says.

Among McGirr’s DIY décor are decorative letters made out of cardboard and sequins. In addition, she crafted together an elaborate floral sculpture made out of painted and cut up toilet paper rolls that adorn the walls of her dorm room.

McGirr says her new creative kick has not only helped bring her living space to life but has also saved her some money.

“I feel like it’s more fun to decorate your room yourself than to buy a bunch of posters,” McGirr says.    
But for every hit there is a miss, something the budding website PinterestFail.com has chosen to capitalize on, stating in the site’s tagline that it is “where good intentions come to die.”

The site allows users to upload expectation versus reality pictures, citing the original inspirations for their crafts, followed by what they ended up with, which is not always a pretty picture.

Hare says she thinks the site is spot on for some pins that just do not live up to the precedent the original pin sets.

“[Pinterest Fail] is kind of hilarious because the original pictures present everything so beautifully but it doesn’t always come out that way,” she says. “I’ve never really been a cook but I wanted to make my mom a Mother’s Day dinner, so I tried to make this pasta casserole, and it did not come out well at all.”

McGirr, too, says she has had her fair share of “Pinterest Fails,” mentioning amongst various cut-up T-shirt failures a particular time when she attempted a magnetic make-up board but realized upon finishing the project that the metal she had covered in fabric was not magnetic.

“I ended up not being able to use it but it still looks really cute in my house at least,” McGirr says.

Hare says that users must have at least a minor level of creativity in order for the pins to be successful when they come to life.

“It does bring DIY to a lot of people who wouldn’t have discovered it otherwise,” she says. “It takes a lot of practice to know what supplies you need, how to follow the rules and how to bring your own vision into things.”

Students hoping to hop on the DIY train can rest assured that there will be plenty of time this year, as Krylow said her staffers certainly plan to host more Pinterest nights.

“Crafts tend to lead to successful programs,” she says. “And now, with the plethora of creative ideas on Pinterest I think staff will frequently use this resource for ideas.”