You know that feeling you encounter sometimes when you sit down at your scrapbooking space to make a layout: you've got plenty of supplies, a stack of photos, a story to tell—but everything feels sort of blah?There's no spark, no creative energy, no inspiration. So instead of making a new layout maybe you wander off and see what's happening on your Facebook page, or do a load of laundry, or even clean the bathroom because scrapbooking seems impossible.
That is what this week is all about: finding the inspiration that will get you back at your scrapbooking space, making layouts. Oddly enough, though, one of the secrets to getting inspired is to leave your scrapbooking space. A change of scenery is often exactly what you need to find your creativity.
I discovered this truth one anxious afternoon when I was working on a scrapbooking class. I had a deadline and I needed to get many things done, but sitting at my desk and looking at my supplies wasn't bringing me any sort of spark. Frustrated, I decided to go outside to see if the mail man had come yet, and then I found myself wandering around my yard, admiring the flowers. I sat in the shade of one of my trees for a bit, and then I sprawled out under the grass and watched the green leaves move against the blue sky.
When my neighbor came outside to get her own mail, I felt a little bit silly, and adult woman just lying there in the grass, so I went back inside. And I discovered, to my surprise, that my brief foray away from my desk had reignited my spark. I was brimming with ideas. And I learned that when I'm creatively frustrated, I just need to get away for a little bit.
So! this week is all about finding inspiration by leaving your scrapbook table to search for it. Each day, the WCS team and I will share inspiration we found on five different inspiration field trips and show you how we translated the spark into a card or a layout. And we're hoping you'll join us! With each field trip, the goal is always the same: wander around looking for inspiration to use in a scrappy way.
Today we're going where the books are: the library or the bookstore.
If you stop to think about it, libraries and bookstores are both spaces where creativity is stored in a tangible format. So much creative energy goes into creating books, from the actual writing of the story to the cover design and the typography and the marketing. They are places brimming with ideas!
But they aren't only about books. You'll also find magazines and newspapers in your local library, and bookstores often have products like book bags, journals, notebooks, and decorative items. Inspiration smorgasbord!
Since I'm a librarian and I'm at the library all the time, I decided to visit my local Barnes & Noble for my inspiration field trip. I totally expected to be inspired by the typography of book titles or perhaps images from book covers, but what really grabbed my attention was the word "GROW":
I liked how all the letters were connected to each other, and the word "grow" reminded me of a conversation I'd had recently with my six-year-old. Here's the layout that came from the inspiration:
The execution of the title isn't exactly the same as the inspiration...but that is OK because the field trip to the book store did exactly what I wanted: gave me a little spark to get a layout started. (I also bought Anna Quindlen's new book Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake because I couldn't stand waiting for it any longer!)
Paula is the queen of finding inspiration from the magazine section of the book store. Every week on her blog, she shares an inspiration challenge based on a magazine ad. This week you can see what this ad inspired:
just visit her blog!
Lisa also shared a layout that was inspired by a trip to the bookstore:
This is something I love about an inspiration field trip: it can help you find new topics to scrap. A layout about a trip to the bookstore inspired by a trip to the bookstore? Pure magic, I think. And I have to agree with Lisa's assessment: There is a pure sort of happiness in a book store.
Erin took her inspiration field trip to her library. Here is her inspiration piece:
(the magazine display at her library)
and here is the layout brought about by the inspiration:
Erin said this about the process:
My first stop at the library is always the magazine express. I'd never really noticed the grid pattern of the magazine display, but when I looked today, I realized it was the perfect design for photos of my daughters' gymnastics show. Also, I'm terrible at thinking outside the box, so I went with the inspiration that was staring me right in the face. Because I wanted to highlight the photo of them together, I made that photo 2x4, using of two grid spaces.
Are you ready to try an inspiration field trip yourself? I hope so! When you go, don't feel like you have to take forever. A leisurely twenty minutes is all it takes to find plenty of inspiration.
Just in case you can't make it to the library or bookstore today, though, here are a couple of other bits of inspiration I found at the bookstore that I plan on using sometime soon. Maybe they'll inspire you, too:
This one made me think: it would be cute to put a cluster of reverse-printed quotes down at the corner of a layout. (Although, I almost didn't bother taking this photo because that misplaced comma in the teacher quote—oh the irony!—made me cringe!)
This is a book bag. I love the presentation of a bunch of great lines from books, and I am planning on making a piece of word art very similar to this one, except I'll use the funny things my kids say.
Imagine this book display as if it were a layout; instead of books there are 2x3 photos and a few journaling spaces. Cute, yes?
I love the cascading effect of all the squares and rectangles (the books in the front, the SHAKESPEARE in the middle, and the smaller signs in the back). I'm going to translate it into a title treatment.
OK! That is it for our first inspiration field trip. Make sure you stop by tomorrow to see where we're going. And as always—happy scrapping!