How to Instagram Without Instagramming

Did that post title intrigue you?  I'll get down to that in a minute.

But first... here are a few of my purchases from today:

READ letters and some pretty fabric.  The letters were 25% off at JoAnns.  One of the fabrics was on sale, and I got 15% off the other two using my teacher discount.

 How gorgeous is this fabric?  I am going for a calming, beautiful environment this year.  Bye, bye primary colors.  Hello gorgeous, sophisticated patterns!

Next I hit up Staples.  Markers were $2 a box (I got six boxes).  Prismacolor Magic Rub are my FAVORITE erasers (I used them like crazy when we made our chicken book)... they were 50 cents each!  The post-its were a little more expensive at $5 but I love these big lined ones (they are 4 inches square).  Last but not least wite out is 50 cents per two pack so I had to scoop those up too.  They also had tons of 1 cent deals (glue, pencil cases and folders) but I somehow managed to restrain myself.  Why are back to school sales so dangerous?

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Now on to the second part of my post... Sometimes I want to have the awesome effects that Instagram can have, but I don't necessarily want to publish it on my Instagram feed.  Like, for example, if something is personal, or boring, or if I just don't feel like bombarding my Instagram photos with dozens of photos.

Do you know that you can use Instagram to edit your photos WITHOUT publishing them?  I do it all the time and it's super easy, so let's get crackin'.

 1. Open your photo in Instagram.  Crop your photo, as usual.

2.  Edit it, just like you always do!

 3.  Click the little green sideways v arrow thingy in the upper right hand corner.  Instagram will process it.

4.  DO NOT type a caption, add people, or share.  Especially DO NOT click on the green arrow in the upper right hand corner.  All you need to do is close out the app.  Did you catch that?  Don't do anything, just bail out!

5.  Now check out the Instagram gallery in your phone {NOT the gallery in your Instagram app}.  See?  The two photos I faux instagrammed are right here...

But NOT in my Instagram feed.  Now I can post them on my blog without sending them out to everyone who follows my Instagram.  Ta da!

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Update:
This tutorial was done using my phone, a Samsung Galaxy SIII.  I just tried it using my fiance's iPhone and... it works.  Kind of.   

As far as I can tell, the iPhone does not save the photo to a gallery unless you share it.  My crazy solution was to click share, then right away I deleted the post on Instagram.  It still saved it to his photo gallery, but didn't show up on anyone's Instagram feed for more than ten or fifteen seconds.  I would love to know if anyone has a better way to do this on an iPhone!

Here's my proof that it worked: