Perfect your craft by dropping 2012’s worst Pinterest trends

by Chase Wade

• Tweet
• Email
• Print
• 1 Comment

You look like a Portlandia extra who accidentally stumbled off the set.

2012 was the year of all things craft, and Pinterest, mostly, was to blame.

The social network took off this year, and according to this great article at TechCrunch, the number of Pinterest users who visit the site daily has gone up 145 percent since the beginning of 2012.

While the site may have done much good in the realms of marketing and decoupage, the female-driven phenomenon (women make up 80 percent of the website’s users) has unleashed upon us unsuspecting spectators a wave of horrid craft creations destined for the nearest trash bin.

Amid the flurry of hot glue guns and googly eyes, here are five Pinterest trends that 2013 could totally do without:

5. Glitter

True story, y’all: One of my three sisters’ wedding themes was glitter. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. Just glitter. As you can probably tell, the whole experience left me with a slight aversion to the crafty substance and Pinterest does nothing more than feed the glitter-holics everywhere. This year, we’ve seen Pinteresters douse anything they could get their hands on in glitter. From house keys to toilet seats, nothing was safe.

4. Mason Jars

Somewhere deep in the crevices of the Appalachians, a homely, 98-year-old jam enthusiast is wondering where all her Mason jars have gone. Well granny, they’re all on Pinterest. Pinterest went crazy in 2012 with the glass containers, and before the unassuming public knew it, wedding favors, pencils holders and even light fixtures had been fashioned out of the vintage trend. Oh, and of course, what’s a Mason jar without a little glitter?

3. Chevron

Before Pinterest came to popularity, I thought Chevron was just a name of a gas station. Boy, how I was wrong. The pattern, which I simply used to refer to as “zig-zag” before a Pinterester raised her nose and corrected me saying, “It’s Chevron,” made a huge dent in the social networking site as users used the pattern to fashion kitchen back splashes, pillows and even cookies. Let’s hope that in 2013 this trend, ironically, runs out of gas.

2. Burlap

Is there possibly an uglier fabric than burlap? Probably not. But that didn’t stop Pinteresters from abusing the tan atrocity by using the material to form a cornucopia of crafts ranging from picture frames to Christmas ornaments. At one point, Pinterest had become so flooded with the fabric that the site slightly resembled the Dust Bowl era. Let’s just hope this trend was a burlapse in judgement (yeah, I just went there).

1. Inspirational Quotes

As a singular item, quotes are great, we love them. However, when deep, meaningful soundbites from our time’s greatest minds are sprinkled among the above crafted nightmares, we can’t but laugh (and cry). Please Pinterest, I am begging you, stop pairing your glitter-covered Mason burlap jars with quotes from Ghandi. He wouldn’t want that. In fact, no one wants it.

What bugs you on Pinterest? Let us know if the comments below!

Tweet