7.
the act of inspiring; quality or state of being inspired.
Inspiration, for me, is something that makes me take an action. That action can come in many forms. A beautiful scene might make me smile or give a little gasp, both actions showing pleasure. A magazine page of the perfect room will probably make me giggle with glee & say "YES, I can create this!" I'm also very inspired by many of the "Self-Help" books & tapes. I'm not saying that I'm so gullible that I BITE on any & everything. I have a good filtering system! All that being said, I am most inspired by images or pictures. I can take those visual images, whether it's a scene, a magazine page, or on a blog, & expound on that vision in my head; and MOST of the time, I can translate that to a drawing or written description.
Several years ago, I decided I needed a place to keep those things that inspire me. I remember the day very clearly, because I had been listening to one of those "self-help" tapes & the person was talking about the importance of an inspiration board. He was talking about using it more for goals & visualizing those goals, like the kind of house you want, travel you wanted to do, that kind of thing. Well, I do believe in the "power of positive thinking," but not to the extent he was talking about. I did, however, really like the idea of a place to keep all those pictures & pages that get ripped from magazines. I didn't want it on my wall -- I could have wallpapered the room with all the pages I'd accumulated. Well, it just so happened that Michael's was having a sale that day on sketch books, & I thought that would be a great thing to use. That's the day my "Inspiration" journal was born.
Before I started gluing in my stack of lovely ideas, I had to first decide if I wanted it to be orderly, like with labels & such. Normally, that would be the way I'd go -- you know with my OCD! But, I decided on random; and that has worked so well for me. I also "weeded" my stack before I even began the gluing process. I had been saving things in a designated folder in my "Go To" file drawer, but now I can thumb through my book & see all the loveliness.
Some interesting things have happened since I started my Inspiration journal. As I go back and look at older pages, I'm seeing similarities in things that I or we have actually purchased. The magazine photo of the fountain, above, was toward the front of my journal & I hadn't even looked at that page for a long time, until I was thumbing through to see what pages I wanted to share with all of you. The fountain below is in our backyard. Yeah, I know, I was pretty surprised, too!
I love planters like this with all kinds of different plants grouped together. This one inspired me to do......
this one, plus several others around our yard.
On most pages, I will write notes about what I like best or how I would like to tweak the look to fit our home.
This was another one of those weird coincidences. I refer to a few pages in this part of the book as my "Pastel Period!" I was totally enamored with pale peach, pink, etc. I knew I liked Fiesta Ware, but had no idea that the company was actually making new pieces or that I might be the proud owner of.......
my very own growing collection someday.
I love putting clothing outfits together, so when I see some ideas that I think might work for me (sometimes only in my dreams would it work!), then it gets ripped out & placed in my journal.
I had plans to replace a couple of light fixtures in our current house, but now I may be doing that in the new house.
I'm very inspired by all the new paint colors & how they can be combined for such loveliness.
Organization always inspires me. This well-organized drawer inspired me to create.......
my "much less expensive" version, using poster board.
As with all things, our tastes certainly change. Some of my pages make me stop & wonder "What was I thinking?" LOL!!! But, if it's glued in, it's staying & will be part of the story of how this journal has evolved. I'm also finding, as I "age" (ouch!), I rip fewer things from those magazines. I hope that's because of my efforts to be much more satisfied with where I am right now -- living in the present rather than always having the need to project myself into a future, better scenario. That's something I work on every day.
I hope you have some kind of "Inspiration" keeper. Whether it's a board, a book, or a folder, I really believe it tells so much about us. If you do something along these lines, please let me know or even consider doing a posting about it. You just never know who you might inspire!
Thanks for stopping by and please come again soon.
CAS
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