Ever want to create a Pinterest pin from your own image with a link? Or wonder how to create a Pinterest board, secret or public? This simple tutorial on How to Create A Pinterest Pin From Scratch will help you do both in a flash!
I think almost everyone uses Pinterest these days. For those who may not, it is a social media tool to help discovery and catalog visual images on theme boards created from pictures, and linking to websites. It is a fantastic way to plan trips, by creating a board and ‘pinning’ different pieces of information such as sights to see, places to eat, informational articles or pictures that make you anxious to go!
Want to start thinking of DIY Gift Ideas for the Holidays? Create a board and use the Pinterest search feature to find fantastic options that appeal to your fancy all year long. Planning a birthday party? Start collecting ideas so all your links are in one place when you are ready to start shopping, creating, baking and having fun. Bloggers like me also use boards to chronicle our own recipes as well as other beautiful images that inpsire us. Pinterest really is a visual wonderland for everyone.
Have you ever wanted to upload your own photos into a Pinterest board? Or maybe a photo from the web? For Bloggers, have you created a collage of photos from a certain post and want to link it back to the post but aren’t sure how? Or want to create a pin of a related photo that might not be in the blog post and link it back to the post? It’s very easy to do! Following is a Step-By-Step guide for Creating a Pinterest Pin from Scratch: Uploading Photos or Collages with or without a Linking URL.
I always use Picmonkey, a creative photo editing site, for adding titles to photos in my blog posts or to create collages. It has a photo editing element as well, which is very easy to use. Picmonkey has both a free and paid option. The main difference is the number of options for fonts and embellishment detals.
Picmonkey is great for seasonal projects as well due to their fun options for effects, fonts, backgrounds and more. You can create cards, collages, edit photos; the project opportunities are endless. For this example I edited a photo of our bulldog, Lola, using some Halloween embellishments on Picmonkey and saved it to my computer. Here is a Step-by-Step to turning that photo into a Pin.
**2017 UPDATE:** With the new simplified method of creating a pin from scratch on Pinterest, the photo and URL are added in the same step, no longer risking someone pinning the new pin before you’ve completed it which is why I recommended doing it via a secret board previously. I’m including an update on How to Create A Pinterest Board (secret or public) just so you know how to do it!
If you don’t want to create a Secret Board, proceed to the Create a Pin section below.
HOW TO CREATE A PINTEREST BOARD (Secret or Public)
STEP 1: Open your Pinterest Profile. Scroll below the collage slide show to your current boards. Click on ‘Create Board’:
The screen below will open:
STEP 2: Give your Board a name (once it has been created you can edit to add a description too if desired), select YES (for Secret) or NO (for public), and click ‘Create’:
HOW TO CREATE A PINTEREST PIN FROM SCRATCH
**NOTE: As of 2017, Pinterest has made the process of creating a pin from scratch even simpler! A few simple steps allows you to create a pin from scratch. It can be done from any board and the final board where you want the pin to reside may be selected at the end. The process and photos below have been updated to match the current Pinterest functionality!**
STEP 1: From any board on your Pinterest profile, the first spot will have a red circle with a ‘+’ symbol and ‘Save Pin’. Select the ‘+’ symbol:
STEP 2: When selected, this menu will pop up. Select the location where the photo you want to use resides; either ‘The Web’ or ‘Your Device’. For this example I will show how to build a pin from a photo on your device:
STEP 3: This screen will appear after selecting the photo location (this example for saving from ‘Your Device’):
STEP 4: Select ‘upload image’ which will take you to your computer photo location. This is an example from my computer. Select a photo (I selected Lola again she’s lost weight since the original tutorial so deserves a new pin) and then selected ‘open’:
STEP 5: The photo URL will populate in the ‘Choose a Pin Image’ box. At this point you can add a URL to the Destination URL (I added my website for this example). Select ‘continue’:
STEP 6: The photo will turn into a new pin though there are a few steps to finish it. The description box under the photo will be blank; fill that in. You will also need to select a board where you’ll want the pin to go. Any board, public or secret, may be selected from your board list.
The completed pin will appear on your selected board!
Anne-Marie @ This Mama Cooks! On a Diet says
Awesome tips, Toni. And Lola looks fabulous, as usual.
Toni Dash says
Her beauty plays well to this type of ‘modeling’ opportunity!
Fiona @TIFFIN bite sized food adventures says
Thanks for this Toni. I found it easy to follow and had always wondered how it was done. Now if you could just do a tutorial on Rich Pins… I find the advice on Pinterest is not very helpful. cheers!
Maureen says
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for posting this tutorial! It was so easy to follow and so easy to do. It’s so nice to find generous bloggers eager to share their tips and tricks. So, again, thank you! This newbie appreciates it!
Toni Dash says
Maureen you are SO welcome! These little things can end up taking hours to figure out and for me they often don’t work exactly how they are suppose to. I’m so glad it was helpful and thank you for leaving your generous comment!
Carl Gundestrup says
I created the secret board as you suggested. But THE BOARD DID NOT HAVE THE “ADD A PIN”. I am looking at my secret board and there is no way to “add a pin”. My other boards worked what did I do wrong?
Carl
Toni Dash says
Hi Carl! Thank you for bringing this to my attention! Pinterest has been making a number of changes and I too could not make it work as it worked before when trying it after reading your comment. I did however find a new way to do it. I’ll update all the screen shots and instructions in this post to reflect how it is working now but in the meantime let me list the steps for you personally.
This may be done in either a secret or public board but will take two main steps to turn a photo into a clickable pin that leads to a URL. First select a board where you’d like to build the pin (it will not obligate you to pin to that board). When you open the board, notice in the lower right corner a ‘+’ sign in a small gray circle, press that. Select ‘upload pin’ which will open your photos; select the photo you’d like to use. This will upload the photo into a ‘pinnable window’, basically allowing you to select the board where you want to pin the photo. At this step be sure to fill in the Description of the pin. Next, select the board where you’d like your pin to go. Once pinned, go to the pin on the board and select ‘Edit’ in this step you can enter the URL, ‘save’ and you will have a regular pin!
Please let me know if you run into any difficulties and again thanks for flagging the change!
Toni Dash says
Carl, I’ve updated the Pinterest Pin tutorial with screen shots of the current process. Thanks again for flagging this to my attention!
Green Apple Cottage - Carrie says
Thanks for the post! It was so simple to follow and helpful. Love your pup too!
Karen says
Thank you! I was searching all over for this. Exactly what I needed.
Toni Dash says
I’m so glad!
Michelle Taylor says
Worked great!
Thank you so much!
Toni Dash says
I’m so glad! Thanks for letting me know.
Marie Grabo says
Great! Thanks so much! Simple, easy to follow.
Brenda says
Thank you very much
Ontavia says
Thank you for sharing! Very helpful!
Toni Dash says
I’m so glad! It’s easy once you do it but can be tricky to figure out.
Cheryl says
I really appreciate the 2017 updates – I don’t recall ever seeing a site do that before!
Toni Dash says
I hope it’s helpful Cheryl. The content isn’t really valuable to you unless it works! Pinterest is changing things fairly regularly so I try to test the method and update to how it is operating as often as possible.
Poornima says
Lovely tips!
something I was dreading to attempt was made extremely easy to do.
wonderful style of instructions and LOVELY Lola!!!
Toni Dash says
I’m so glad it was helpful! It’s realy pretty simple to do though imaging how to do it if you haven’t before can be time consuming.