Foodie Life

#PinItPinas: Don’t keep calm, keep pinning!



When I first discovered Pinterest during my college years it quickly became my very first very real encounter with addiction. I would on some Saturdays literally just sit and scroll endlessly without realizing that I have spent nearly all day just looking through and pinning all the pretty photos. As if there was an end to the infinite scroll that I could somehow reach.

True story. In fact I’m pretty sure a lot of people can relate.

To those who aren’t aware (really, do these people still exist?) Pinterest is a visual bookmarking tool that helps you discover and save creative ideas. By this I mean anything under the sun: from photography, food, illustrations, DIY’s, interior design ideas, dream closets, fashion, make-up, cars, watches… You get the picture! You can even customize your own boards per subject, and for someone who is borderline OC like me, seeing all my boards neatly sitting side by side just spurs me to pin more.



Needless to say I had to use an enormous amount of willpower just to stop, even though it was nice to lose myself in a visual ocean of things that I love!

But the great thing is that after a round of absorbing all the things I see on Pinterest, I seem extra rejuvenated to work. I have this extra burst of creative energy and inspiration. All the time I spent pinning to my boards get justified because they start to manifest themselves in my “work” (aka my blog). For me personally, thanks to being exposed to all the photos shared on Pinterest, I have a better understanding of food styling.



Here is the board of all the food photos I’ve taken for my blog. Everything in here is the product of experience and the times I’ve spent being exposed to other people’s amazing photos on Pinterest. In fact if you look through from the start to the most recent you’ll see how much change and improvement there has been. A big part of that is thanks to the next Pinterest board I’m about to share.

Follow Cla Panuelos’s board The Tummy Train on Pinterest.

My Food Photography Inspiration board is where I go when I feel stumped as to how to style a particular recipe for the blog. I also use this to “study” food photography. I take note of how other photographers compose their photos as I journey to develop my own food styling skills– light or dark? Focused on the food or full of decoration? In food photos, moving things by just the tiniest bit can change the mood and overall look of a photo. Thanks to the collection of photos in this board I’ve gradually learned what I prefer in my food styling.

Follow Cla Panuelos’s board Food Photography Inspiration Board on Pinterest.

Aside from that I learned a lot from the abundant infographics all over Pinterest, ranging from subjects like how to store certain ingredients, to how to create different pie crusts. (There are a ton of infographics on other subjects too!) I’ve also pinned a lot of pretty recipes on Pinterest, and with their help I am able to think of recipe ideas and tweaks that actually work.



Since The Tummy Train is a food AND travel blog, I also made a board of my favourite photos from all the places I’ve been to! All of them have been geo-tagged because that’s how I roll. I also have a board for all the places I want to visit, which you can view on my Pinterest profile. Fair warning as Pinterest can cause a very bad case of Wanderlust! (And by the way, I have a board of the things I’ve been eating in my travels!)

Follow Cla Panuelos’s board My travels on Pinterest.

A constant favourite board of mine is one where I pin all my favourite spaces and interior designs. I’m planning to use this board to design my future home, with the most important rooms being the kitchen and the library! The kitchen MUST be epic! And if you scroll through this particular board you’ll find a lot of kitchen pins along with kitchen storage ideas for the pantry and all the baking equipment I always have trouble finding space for.

Follow Cla Panuelos’s board Dream Home on Pinterest.

I think the boards I’ve created of the things I love, of the things I would like to do and see, are proof that the world is bursting with ideas. That there are people who are kind and willing enough to share these ideas with others.



At the end of the day, I realized this is why I keep going back to Pinterest: It allows me to see all the possibilities the world holds beyond what I know, beyond where I stand.

And another thing I appreciate is that it’s a community based on respect. For people who share their work on the web, this is such a big deal. Pinterest always links back to the source of the materials. The photos and videos get repinned so many times but you can always trace it back to the original source. I’m guessing that’s why this community is thriving, because it’s sharing ideas under the context of respect.

I’m really glad that Pinterest Philippines reached out to me to give me a chance to share with you my favourite boards. I’m a proud to be a member of the Pinterest community in the Philippines, and I hope you guys will join me. Let’s continue spreading love and inspiration! 🙂

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