Inspiration!

Where do you find inspiration? In all my forms of creativity I must say that my inspiration comes from His Creation. All nature around me inspires me through texture, color, feeling and beauty. When I am at the ocean or in the mountains or hiking through the woods, I find my mind filled with cascading thoughts, plans and ideas. How do I capture that? One way is to photograph what I see. Often I feel very passionately about things I photograph. Sometimes it borders on obsession! You can't see that in my blog photos really, but more in the photos I use to create cards or enlargements and the ones that are for my personal enjoyment.

For a long time I have wanted to corral these ideas in a useful format. I had thought about scrapbooking them in some way, but that can be time consuming and expensive and I'm already 100 years behind in scrapbooking photos, literally! Then in June, I saw this post at Eyes of Wonder. Jewels' blog is really beautiful both visually and in thought and word. I really enjoy her photography because I can see that she feels the same type of passion in her photos and it really comes through. And there is peacefulness in reading about her simple, yet abundant life.

Seeing the abovementioned post, I was reminded of the scrapbooks my Grandmother Hopkins made in her teaching where she pasted in lovely photos from cards, magazines and greeting cards. And then I was inspired.

I went to Borders Books and Music and purchased a blank book. Filling it would be no problem. As a matter of fact, I have started this book for "outdoor ideas" and have another book for "indoor ideas". I have to admit that I am a "magazine junkie". I have a huge stack of ideas that I have torn and cut out of magazines. I can still hear Grandma Hopkins' voice in my head, "You know dear, these ad executives pay a lot of money to their designers. You should clip out their ideas and use them." At the time she would be clipping out things from the Safeway ad and I would think she was nuts! LOL Okay, so that is a little odd, but in her defense, she became teacher in 1926. There were no clip art CDs, no graphic arts programs, no scrapbooking die cuts. For 70+ years of her life she cut out and made everything she needed for school bulletin boards, Sabbath school classes and other forms of teaching like flannelgraphs. Like so many things she taught me, I did not realize the value until she was gone and I could not thank her! Right now I would love to show her this book!

Sure it would be nice if everything could be neatly indexed but there is a kind of joyous serendipity one finds in sitting down and thumbing through, waiting to be struck with some spontaneous glimmer of inspiration! So, I have begun pasting in the book, pictures that I have saved for ideas that I would want to do in my yard and for gardening.

Then, after the pictures are pasted in, I doodle, put in titles and jot down notes. Sometimes they are just words that come to mind in a "stream of consciousness" style of writing. Sometimes it is not so much the picture itself, but the ideas that pop into my mind when I see the picture. All the pictures I posted here came from Better Homes and Gardens magazine, which I get at a ridiculously low rate, something like $5 a year. I use other magazines as well but this is just a start.

And from this idea I realize that I also need to make a book that gives me a source of inspiration in my knitting/sewing/quilting/spinning. One of my favorite knitting books is AS's Book of Fair Isle Knitting. Admittedly I have never knit a thing from this book, even though I have owned it nearly 18 years. But, it is well drooled over! :o) It was the first time that I saw someone write about what I felt in my heart and soul when I photograph! She took pictures of things in natural...the rocks at the seashore, the flowers in the meadow, the sky and water etc...then showed a Fair Isle knitted design in all the lovely colors, an abstracted representation of the photography. That was the beginning of my love for her designs.

Now, if I only had a bit more time...I know we are supposed to have enough hours in the day to accomplish everything He wants us to, but somehow I always feel like I need a little more!

Some of my friends on the Christian Artisans list have been talking lately about designing and designing in lace in particular. It has me thinking...what inspires you to create? I would love to hear what inspires you!

Spring!

Last Saturday before I got really sick, I had to run to the store and I brought my camera with me. Previously I had seen these beautiful blooming fruit trees in an industrial park near us. So, I had to go back with my camera to get some pictures.
While I was there a security guard came out to ask what I was doing. I just explained that I loved the flowers and wanted to photograph them, then they were okay but still watched me.
The trees seem to have an overabundance of blooms this year.
Wouldn't it be nice to take your lunch break from work and walk through here?
It reminded me a little of Anne of Green Gables when she says that the name of the road is too ordinary and should be called something like the Great Way of White Delight because of all the beautiful blossoms.
So I went to Home Depot because I had a coupon for paint sale (bedroom redecorating during spring break) and I bought a half flat of pansies.
I always love pansies because of the colors. Each one is like a mini masterpiece from God and to me their coloring is just as lovely as an orchid!
Here is one of the completed planters. I also planted my bulbs which were growing without being in soil. I figured there would be nothing lost by trying to see if they would still come up. So far they look pretty good and many are already poking out of the soil. They are mostly tulips but some daffodils. They were all mixed up when I took them out last year so I don't know what is what. That is a little disappointing because I did love having one or two with all deep purple or all pink. But a little surprise is fun too!
Here is D taking a picture of me taking a picture of him. We have lots of pictures like this in our family but this is the first one from this generation!
These are my helpers, J, A and D. They had been playing out in their sandbox in the back but it was more fun to "help" Mom and they were of course very cute about it!

The final product! Doesn't look like too much but we don't have a real yard so we "bloom where we are planted"! :o) I always like to take a picture at the beginning of the season because it amazes me every year how much it changes. This is the front walk and patio.