Pin pricked – The stress and striving of the Pinterest life

When Sunny Brogan wanted to create a brand-new laundry hamper to help her son River become more independent about putting his clothes into the wash, she went to Pinterest, a pin board style photo sharing website, for inspiration.

“I have learned to turn to Pinterest for homemade craft projects that involve me and my toddler working together, projects where he can do most of the work and just have fun with it, then play with the finished project or make use of it somehow,” she says.? “My hope is to teach him to make or fix things himself rather than just running to the store to buy something he wants.”

Brogan clicked on the image of a tidy, pristine hamper, made by suturing a pillowcase to an embroidery hoop, and got to work on her version, even though her second child, Aster LaRynn, was a baby in arms at the time.

“I knew it wouldn’t look like the one on the site because I wasn’t trying to copy it completely,” Brogan says. “I just wanted ideas to help create our own.”

Though bolstered by a strong belief in the creative process, Brogan wasn’t crazy about the end result.

“When we finished painting it, I thought it looked horrible,” she says. “I was expecting it to be more colorful and painted, but River had other thoughts. He wanted to paint all in one spot.”

Brogan chuckles now. But her experience is also a national phenomenon coined Pinterest Stress. It’s the swirling feelings of fleeting inadequacy brought about by gazing online at perfect, orchestrated photos of self-made projects, fashion and culinary adventures.

During the holidays, Pinterest Stress can reach epidemic proportions for some.

Earlier this year, USA Today surveyed 7,000 U.S. mothers, and nearly half admitted they suffered from Pinterest Stress.

Talk to the kings and queens of Pinterest, though, and you’ll find most of them have an army of flops and messes behind them.

Even the most gorgeous things can feel hodge-podge as they come together.

Laugh at the flops and move on.

When Laurie Chiasson, a clinical informatics analyst and mom to Anthony, 9, and Benjamin, 5, in Baton Rouge, saw the banana chips on Pinterest, she felt unbridled hope and determination.

“We love banana chips, but I’m trying to make those kinds of snacks at home instead of paying crazy prices for them at the store. Plus, I can control the sugar and sodium if I do it myself,” she said.

On Pinterest, the bananas held a perfect sheen. But in the real world?

“I followed the pin word-for-word, and wound up with gummy, disgusting banana [expletive],” Chiasson says.

She tossed out the whole gloppy mess, but she didn’t delete her Pinterest account.

When it comes to Pinterest prime ministers, Kimberly McDaniel, an engineer and mom to William, 5, and Madeline, 3, is a front runner.

McDaniel’s Pinterest page is packed with a lot of ideas, only a smidgen of which finally make it to real-life production.

She’s learned over time not to go overboard, though it’s been a process. She’s keen to stay up all night striving for perfection.

“I like to say that Pinterest is a graveyard for good intentions,” she says.

She’s got flops in her closet—like tiny biscuits that looked puffy and promising on the screen.

“Flat as hockey puck,” she says. “But I buttered those suckers up, put them on a plain old dinner plate, and we ate them.”

The sidewalk chalk paint fiasco: “Several pins said to simply ‘grind up’ sidewalk chalk using a coffee or spice grinder, and one suggested a small food processor. So one day during my kids’ naptime, I went into the garage and grabbed a few pieces of chalk,” she says.

McDaniel had ruined a couple of appliances and still had big chunks-o-chalk when she realized how crazy this was.

“By the time I killed half our kitchen appliances, I could’ve bought a dozen little containers of sidewalk chalk paint from the local boutique store.”

And don’t mention the words “cake ball” to her. They’ve stymied the daughter of bakery owners, who has made wedding cakes for her friends.

“Don’t ask me to make a single one. I’ve tried. And tried again. It is not going to happen.”

When you flop, just know: You are not your Pinterest oopsies.

Professionals painstakingly construct the pretty worlds in Pottery Barn catalogs and Martha Stewart magazines. The kids in those shots were brought in at the last minute. It’s not real life.

Pinterest athletes don’t live in a place that’s any cleaner than the rest of us, McDaniel says.

Her advice: Just have fun. And if baking and hand-painting holiday cookies that Uncle Earl will blindly nosh in a dash doesn’t make you smile, skip it.

“I do a lot of my Pinterest projects at night, as well as on the weekends,” McDaniel says. “I work full-time as an engineer. ? The engineering world is black and white. There’s not a lot of room for creativity there. So crafting and Pinteresting is my outlet for those energies. I tackle things one small project at a time.”

When McDaniel’s working on a big project, she doesn’t sleep. But that’s all right with her—she likes these full-heat creative bonanzas.

Even the most photogenic final products, she adds, always have a behind-the-scenes tale that makes them more memorable.

On a recent Saturday morning, McDaniel staged a princess-themed third birthday party for her daughter Madeline.

Though she saw 50 pinned notions she wanted to pull off for the big day, McDaniel distilled the list down to a handful of things she knew she could accomplish with the time she had.

The event was Pinterest-prizewinning, with a cake that actually looked better than its Pinterestpiration, with Disney princesses doing a dance around a Maypole that sat atop the pastel pink confection.

Tiny signs adorned the colorful, tiered snack foods.

But the backstory: The location of the party had to be moved at the last minute because an unpredicted thunderstorm stalled, then flooded the backyard the night before. ? McDaniel forgot to put on makeup as she rushed around getting everything ready for the party.

None of that mattered. Nor did the gorgeous crafts, it turns out.

“After Madeline’s party, that night when I was putting her to bed, I asked her what her favorite thing about the day was. ? Her response: ‘Playing with my friends.’ So all the thoughts of my missing pins that I didn’t get to didn’t matter anymore—she put that into focus with her sweet little words.”

Follow Kimberly McDaniel on Pinterest and also check out contributor Amy Alexander’s 225 board for more “pinsperations” and flops!