DIY (Do It Yourself) Coffee Bar – Creative Party Ideas

Pinterest, Pinterest, oh how we love thee.

You have opened our eyes to recipes, creativity and inspiration, but who ever would have known that for a blogger, you would bring both beauty and bedlam.

My time is valuable, and when I first heard the word pinterest, I categorized it as one more social media tool I didn’t have time for. As a professional blogger, that attitude put me behind, and little did I know the fun that I was missing out on.

For me, now Pinterest is such a valuable tool because it does my on-line organizational thinking for me. I don’t have to wonder anymore where I bookmarked that last project idea that I “had” to do. I strategically use it to only pin things that really inspire me, shout outs for my friends,  or ideas that I might actually do. When you follow me, and I hope you will, you don’t have to worry about gazillions of pins showing up 24/7. I love to be inspired by Pinterest, but I have set boundaries.

My emotional encouragement regarding Pinterest cautions you. Don’t allow it to snare you and make you feel as if you don’t measure up, let it inspire you. Bloggers are beginning to change how they blog just to be more Pinterest friendly, but the reality is that we don’t live in a Pinterest perfect world. They might take hours to take photos and make photo collages, just to get those great shots.  My commitment is to continue showing my bedlam, even if it’s not “pinnable” because that’s my life (and most likely, your life as well.)

One of the ways you will see my pictures changing is by seeing watermarks on my photos. Over the years, I avoided taking the extra time to put my “stamp,” so to speak, on my pictures because it was more thing “to do,” and I thought I just didn’t have the time for it. Now, I regret that decision. I had no idea how many times my photos would be taken and claimed as someone elses.

A huge downfall with the rise of Pinterest are copywriting issues and basic stealing of content. This happens WAY to often with recipes, and I want to take a small moment to educate some of my readers who are not familiar with how it works.

Anyone can pin anything onto Pinterest. Unfortunately, I have seen pins go “viral” (meaning a crazy, huge amounts of hits and traffic) and there was no original source found, or someone has purposely used a pin for traffic and didn’t give proper credit . I’m sure you’ve even repinned something innocently enough, and when you double clicked on it to get the instructions, it led no where, and you really wanted to get that recipe or DIY project. Double clicking and going to the original source is something we have all learned the importance of as Pinterest as grown.

But the main issue that really irks me with Pinterest is how bloggers are abusing it. Stealing of content has become a new form of blogging, and I want to encourage you to realize its form if you see it.  Too often lately, I have seen bloggers copy and paste pictures and entire recipes onto their own blog (without permission), and then said somewhere on their page, “Oh, and I found this on pinterest, isn’t it great?” By giving one small link saying they got it from pinterest, in some way, made them assume they had the right to take other people’s content without permission. It’s always right to ask first.

Now, I am not talking about someone using one of my picture and then stating, “Go to  Balancing Beauty and Bedlam for instructions.” That sends me traffic, and I appreciate that.  I am talking about the number of recipes that are being copied in its entirety on other blogs. As a professional blogger, our content is our livelihood. For food bloggers, recipes take a lot of work. The ability to snap a good picture takes time, and most likely a lot of self study in good photography. I haven’t arrived in that avenue yet, but I’m working on it.

I ask that if you see that being done on other blogs, please do not pin those posts or recipes. Take the extra second to click over to the original source and give proper credit where it is due. Celebrate other people’s hard efforts because blogging is hard work.

I learned this the hard way, most recently with my  Gratitude Rolls (at Thanksgiving.)  I love to inspire others and my desire is for others to take my ideas and use them, but if it’s going to be reprinted on a website, copywrite issues should be respected. With this tradition idea, I did not have my pictures watermarked, and soon my concept went viral. The problem? No one had taken the time to find the original source, so soon, my pictures and ideas showed up on many blogs with no link going back to my site.

As technology changes and more social media ideas pop up, we learn and grow. Hopefully, by understanding the importance of finding original sources and giving credit where credit is due, things we learned in kindergarten are rising to the surface. We should know better. 🙂

I think I better stop now because either my teacher soap box voice or my “frustrated momma” voice is definitely on the prowl.

I do not have the time to go back and watermark all my photos, but slowly, I am trying to do a few every week.

Here are some of my top older posts that were not watermarked and have been stolen “shared” liberally. It was fun to look all the way back to 2009, and I think you will enjoy these posts that have been buried.

And yes, I’d love for you to Pin them, if they inspire you. 🙂

DIY (Do It Yourself) Coffee Bar – Creative Party Ideas

Too often, we forget that some of the best and most creative party ideas do not have to cost a lot of money.

Cake for veggie lovers1 Veggie Cake (Great Twist on the Typical Veggie Platter)

Veggie Cake – something so fun for the non sweet eater in our life, or just a creative way to jazz up the traditional veggie tray.

Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookies Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

$250 Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe (Feb. 2009) – Yes, I’ve had this $250 recipe in my binder since I was a child. Now, I’ve improved on it, if that’s possible.

Cinnamon Rolls Cinnabon Homemade Cinnamon Rolls (Copy Cat Cinnabon Recipe)

Copy Cat Cinnabon Recipe – Homemade Cinnamon Rolls – the closest thing you will get to a clone of a Cinnabon, and one of my most searched recipe.

Easter Resurrection Rolls Resurrection Rolls –  Making Easter Recipes MeaningfulResurrection Rolls (Easter tradition) Such a special food tradition to do this year.

Sesame chicken Simple Sesame Chicken at Home

Simple Sesame Chicken – Have that yummy Chinese take out taste without all the fat. So simple – a family favorite.

Gratitude Rolls – a special way of showing gratitude and celebrating the little things.

Beer Dip for Pretzels1 Beer Dip

The infamous Beer Dip. This recipe has been posted more than any of my recipes. I continually laugh about that because I do not drink beer, at all. The only time I use it is for recipes. With summer coming, you will definitely want to keep this one handy.

It’s a very unique tasting dip, which is highly addictive. So far, just one reader hated it, yep, didn’t like it at all, and I keep thinking they had to have done something wrong. 😉

So, I hope I didn’t sound like that mean teacher from your 6th grade nightmares. I just want to encourage everyone to share liberally with credit. Honor others work and rejoice in their hard efforts, not take advantage of it. 🙂

Now, it’s time for you to inspire us with your Tasty Tuesday recipes. Remember, link up, link back and share your original post.