Have you been simply raging with jealousy that all of your friends are going nuts pinning cool handmade jewelry, tricks to baking your own tortilla chips (upside down muffin tins!) or how to make a cake that looks like a pair of shoes? Good news for you then, because Pinterest says it’s doing away with the invite-only process and has started open registration.

Pinterest’s popularity has been growing like crazy since it launched in early 2010, but until now had offered sign-ups only through invites from friends already on the site, to control capacity. And what a capacity it has: A recent report said the site has grown by more than 4,000%.

The company said in a blog post today:

Today we’re thrilled to announce open registration!

For those of you who haven’t joined Pinterest yet, this means you can sign up without waiting for an invite: all you have to do is go to Pinterest.com to get started. In addition to using your Facebook or Twitter login, we’re also opening registration so you can sign up with just your email address.

We’re really excited to have the capacity to offer Pinterest to more people and if you’re a Pinner with friends who’ve been waiting on the sidelines, we hope you’ll let them know. Happy pinning to everyone!

In an added incentive to join, users can sign up using just an email address, and won’t have to sign in using social networking accounts if they don’t want to link their Pinterest up with those sites.

It remains to be seen whether the floodgates have truly been opened, or whether whoever wants to be on Pinterest has already managed to score an invite. There could be some holdouts who have avoided joining the site just because they’re afraid of adding yet another timesucker to their  already overshare-y social networking lives. Ahem.

Open Registration! [Pinterest]

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