Pinterest Love Or Hate

Lounge By SweetDesire88 Updated 29 Jun 2015 , 2:18am by rwarren

SweetDesire88 Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
SweetDesire88 Posted 27 May 2015 , 11:53pm
post #1 of 17

Pinterest is ok to look a incredible cake the down side to it is a client wanting an amazing cake at a low price. So do you love Pinterest or hate it?

16 replies
embersmom Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
embersmom Posted 28 May 2015 , 2:49am
post #2 of 17

I haven't been on Pinterest for almost two years, if that's any indication.  I find it to be too much of a time-waster, but that's me.


OMG, though, if I hear another "Well, I saw this on Pinterest and was wondering if you could do the same thing..." I'm either going to pull out my eyelashes  or something (figuratively, of course!)  I'm lucky in one respect in that we're strictly buttercream-only and we don't do tiered or 3D cakes.  I had one customer who, upon learning we don't do fondant, wanted to purchase a plain uniced cake from us so she could try doing whatever the design was at home.  We sell all our cakes, uniced or not, at the same price as we would for a decorated cake.  She nearly turned ten shades of green.  My thought was, "You want to try it badly enough?  Bake your cake then."

I know a lot of my cake friends use Pinterest as inspiration.  I find it easier to use Google :shrug:


mark78_fd Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
mark78_fd Posted 28 May 2015 , 4:14am
post #3 of 17

Pinterest just makes me want to hate myself because it's either I'm too unmotivated or too confused to follow instructions. Google is the answer, like what the person above me said.


Cantina Restaurant

mark78_fd Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
mark78_fd Posted 28 May 2015 , 4:14am
post #4 of 17

Pinterest just makes me want to hate myself because it's either I'm too unmotivated or too confused to follow instructions. Google is the answer, like what the person above me said.


Cantina Restaurant

mccantsbakes Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
mccantsbakes Posted 28 May 2015 , 4:36am
post #5 of 17

For myself, I LOVE pintrest.  It feeds the well controlled inner hoarder in me with electronic clutter. ;) I love it for everything from color schemes that I would have never thought of, to flavor combos that I wouldn't have tried and to different styles of cakes that I would otherwise forget of I didn't have them pinned safely where I could refer back.


For customers however I don't like it.    I feel it somewhat robs me of some of my creative license especially when I am expected to be a  cake copy machine based on an obscure photo.    And sometimes I really dislike the designs that they choose......


i recently made my nieces bday cake and my sister and I collaborated on it by bringing together several pintrest Picts and taking elements of several cakes and coming up with a cool design. 


Its a a love hate thing with pintrest.  

embersmom Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
embersmom Posted 28 May 2015 , 11:01am
post #6 of 17


Quote by @mark78_fd on 6 hours ago

Pinterest just makes me want to hate myself because it's either I'm too unmotivated or too confused to follow instructions. Google is the answer, like what the person above me said.


Cantina Restaurant


Well, yeah, there's that aspect too.  I used to use it more for home/garden/craft inspiration than for cakes, and some of the stuff, if you went to the actual website, would make you go "HUH?!?" with the directions.  Or -- and this happened a few times -- the result was nothing like what the pin or website said it'd be.  I have a friend who had a YouTube channel dedicated to stuff like that :)

embersmom Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
embersmom Posted 28 May 2015 , 11:07am
post #7 of 17


Quote by @mccantsbakes on 6 hours ago

For customers however I don't like it.    I feel it somewhat robs me of some of my creative license especially when I am expected to be a  cake copy machine based on an obscure photo.    And sometimes I really dislike the designs that they choose.....


Our customers at least have the decency to print off a copy of whatever they saw and give it to us when they order.  We always tell them that we'll do our best to replicate it, depending on who's doing the order (there are three of us and we each cover beginner/advanced/semi-expert so we divvy up the orders accordingly).  Sometimes we simply can't do the exact thing that's in the copy so we'll put our own spin on it.   We rarely get complaints about this which makes me think that it's the cost that's the driving factor, not the replicate-to-the-nearest-tenth-of-an-inch.

Webake2gether Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
Webake2gether Posted 28 May 2015 , 12:12pm
post #8 of 17

Not a fan and never will be. I've never even joined Pinterest (I'm not even on FB other than the baking page and I have an app for that so I see nothing else lol). A few months back I got a text from a friend to do a cake for her granddaughters graduation party and I couldn't believe they liked it. We sketched out a design based on what she sent me and I talked to her and explained that a lot of the elements of the cake looked like afterthoughts and I wanted to do something great for her and hope she would expect more than what that picture offered. After hearing how much it would cost to do a 3 tiered cake with multiple custom elements they decided cupcakes would be better and that was it's own ordeal but worked out much better design wise.

bottom line for us we won't even try to replicate  for the simple fact it really zaps the creative fun out of decorating. So far it's worked for us just telling them what they sent was a reference and we will change things up a bit and I always get the ok on the plans before I do them. I'm sure there will be people in the future that are adamant about it being just like the picture but so far I've not had to attempt a Pinterest disaster. 

I google for reference :) 

julia1812 Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
julia1812 Posted 28 May 2015 , 3:05pm
post #9 of 17

Oh, I love love love pinterest.com 

Okay, not so much for demanding costumers asking for "the exact same cake they saw on..." But for myself.

It seems like they filter out most of the crap which comes up with Google (or it doesn't get posted there to start with) and pinterest.com "knows" me. Meaning each time I go to pinterest.com it will have many new pins for me I'm actually interested in! Could spend hours on there...


imagenthatnj Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
imagenthatnj Posted 28 May 2015 , 4:02pm
post #10 of 17

I never liked it that much, but did have an account...then I watched one of those free classes at creativelive.com on marketing with Pinterest, and I understand the power of it. Creative Live, for people who don't know about it, is an online/video school that lets you watch the classes for free while they're filming them and then you can buy them if you missed anything. Sometimes they rebroadcast them too. 


Pinterest, done well, can be very powerful. It's not even considered so much social media. It's the search engine for beautiful things; they are competing with Google. And as julia1812 said, a lot gets filtered. The class with Megan Auman really opened my eyes. I like it now.

carolinecakes Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
carolinecakes Posted 28 May 2015 , 4:40pm
post #11 of 17

I love it and use it all the time. Most of cakes I have done, I was shown a pic and told this is what I want. I let people know it will not look exactly like the pic, and so far everyone has been very pleased with the end result.
It gets  my creative juices going and helps me to be organized. I have a board for each cake I do, the inspiration picture, tutorials, tips/helps, color theme, cake stand/board ideas etc  are all in one place. When I'm working on the cake, my ipad is set up in the kitchen. Recently I did my first gum  paste flowers and I found a lot of great tutorials on youtube, but I wanted to see what the actual flowers (peony & succulents) looked like. Found lots of great pics on Pinterest , added those to my board and i was good to go. I find I now have less paper clutter ( binders full of pics, recipes etc. ), when I'm looking for something, I just go to the relevant board.

Yes I did have a bad experience recently, my friends daughter was having her baby shower and asked me to do the cake. We talked in March, she (the daughter) showed me pics from Pinterest. April I reached out to the expecting mom, only because her mom is a good friend. No response..........the shower was May 24............May12 the daughter calls to talk about me doing cupcakes instead of the 2 tier cake we talked about in March. I had to tell her sorry I could not do it because now I was doing a cake for a First Communion. I'm a one woman operation. Before Pinterest existed there were nightmare customers, that's part of life. There will always be difficult people to deal with in any industry especially the service industry.

As for google, I use that a lot to search CC, since I cannot find what I'm looking for using their search button without going through endless pages. Who has time for that.....

carolinecakes Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
carolinecakes Posted 28 May 2015 , 4:56pm
post #12 of 17

Forgot to add, when my 4 yr old Granddaughter asked for a Veggie Tales cake, I went to Pinterest and she picked out the one she liked and I did my version of it. I also use it for homeschool ideas/ decorating/ storage solutions..... just about anything really. I'm no spring chicken and there are down sides to technology, you just have to figure out how to use it to your advantage. IMHO

GoWildCakes Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
GoWildCakes Posted 29 May 2015 , 1:05am
post #13 of 17

I like it. I often tell people to look on the internet and Pinterest for ideas.  However, I tell them that I will not do an exact copy of someone else's work.  I tell them to pick out 2-4 designs and I will use elements of each.  I usually am given the opportunity to put my own spin on it.  

 

Sometimes, I am given the theme they want, and am told to  just design what I want!  Those are the times I use Pinterest and get lot's of ideas, they are the most fun too.  Never an exact replica though.

Bogginboy Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
Bogginboy Posted 29 May 2015 , 1:26am
post #14 of 17

Both love and hate I've gotten a lot of cool ideas on it but other people are like hey I found this cake on Pinterest you could do this right? And it's just like no I'm not a sorcerer like they obviously are

cakesbycathy Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
cakesbycathy Posted 29 May 2015 , 1:34am
post #15 of 17

I have a love hate relationship with Pintrest.

On a professional level I love it for ideas.  It is the first place I go for cake ideas and tutorials.  On the hate side I have had clients that think they can get a 3 tiered Pintrest cake for $25.  The reality check for them is never fun.


On a personal level I love it for ideas for things I want to do around my house, recipes, holiday ideas, etc.  On the hate side there is no way I will ever do even a fraction of the things I pinned and I just feel bad about myself lol.


SweetShop5 Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
SweetShop5 Posted 29 May 2015 , 2:07am
post #16 of 17

I LOVE pinterest! I have so many boards, its so fun to pin the beautiful cakes and all. Most of my customers find their cakes on there as well. It is always the first place I search when I'm looking for inspiration, there's always amazing cakes!

rwarren Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
rwarren Posted 29 Jun 2015 , 2:18am
post #17 of 17

I reluctantly became a Pin person, mainly out of curiosity.  I can't stand it.  I find it poorly organized and bugger slow (I use dialup) so I avoid visiting more than once in a while.


Like other commenters before me, I prefer Google for general searching.  I'm a Facebook gal too!  Happy surfing!

Quote by @%username% on %date%

%body%