My Inspiration Folders

I found a blog that I really connected to awhile back but then I forgot all about it until last night when it showed up again.  I seriously could not take my eyes off of the many images and I started to think about creating pretty collaged papers myself. All of the photos that you see in this post are my own work inspired by Record the Day.

a handmade tale

Do you know this blog? It's lovely. I create books with images inside but lately I hadn't felt much like doodling and pasting in my inspiration books. Plus my books are so permanent and I wasn't feeling creative at all last night when I created the collages shown in this post. At least at first. The more I started to play around, the more inspired I became! That is the beauty of sometimes not over thinking something and just doing it! Record the Day encouraged me though her concept is a little different as instead of using words to blog she uses collected images glued to a piece of paper to show her readers what she is feeling or thinking or seeing on that particular day. It's very cool. My idea was to use a similar technique to hopefully inspire me and it absolutely did!

playing house

Looking at the collaged images on Record The Day, I sat down last night with a stack of torn images from magazines, found papers, old wallpaper, some ribbons, a stack of old file folders, and a glue stick and for two hours and I just glued and cut. No music on, no television, my iPod touch and cell phone on 'off' tucked away in my handbag... just me in a quiet living room on the floor cutting and pasting. I thought about what inspires me and tried to include a lot of those things into each collage. I tried to think of feelings and experiences that I recently had. Suddenly my manilla folders came to life. I was only going to do one but completed eight. Perfection or artistic skill is not needed (as you can see), just a desire to have fun and enjoy the process.

how pretty

remembering

lovely nest

country blues sweet dreams

travel time

It felt good to play a little, so today I'm going to encourage you to do the same if you can make the time for it. It was an easy, inexpensive, no frills way to inspire myself and have a little fun in the process. I was also looking for a quick fix, nothing that I needed to work on for days or weeks at a time. Just a quick session and I was finished.

Now I'm thinking of how much fun it would be to ask some of my friends to bring over collected images and things so we can sit around and do something similar as a small group. I guess it's like scrapbooking or knitting circles... but less fuss and cheap (mostly recycled) materials. Maybe I could call my ladies night "Creative Cut + Paste" and serve some fun cocktails and homemade cookies.

What do you think? Could this be a fun hobby for you? Or maybe a fun girly night with your best buds? I'm always looking for easy, no frills but hands-on ways to get inspired...

(images by holly becker for decor8)