What Inspires You

What inspires you?  It’s been a hot topic on more than a few discussion boards, and everyone has a different answer.  In a recent Layout A Day challenge, Lain Ehman tasked us with finding inspiration from a cereal box, from an Ebay search, and even from our trash.  I’m betting that most of you, like me, get your inspiration from the usual sources:  a page map or sketch, a magazine, a Google search, the photos you’ll be using….  But what Lain was trying to teach us is that inspiration can come from a lot of different places, sometimes when we least expect it.  Her prompt inspired us to stay alert for opportunities to be inspired by unusual things and to pay attention to the world around us for scrapbooking cues.

Thinking outside the box is not always easy for me.  I’m a very “color inside the lines” kind of gal.  When I’m scrapbooking, I tend to pick either the paper or the pictures first, and build the page from there.  But one day, as I was cleaning up after working on a page, I found this leftover bit of embellishment, and I just knew I had to make a scrapbook page around it.  I had a stack of My Minds Eye Bohemia, and was amazed to find that the papers matched the embellishment exactly.  I didn’t even have any pictures in mind for this page…just an idea from the embellishment. 

Some day I will find the perfect set of pictures for this layout, most likely two photos where my son and my husband are doing exactly the same thing at different times.  They might even be pictures I haven’t even taken yet.  Who knows, maybe this embellishment will wind up inspiring the best photos I’ve ever taken….

Don’t forget to check out our first ever Linked In Blog Hop.  We’ve got some great prizes in store for you valued at over $150.  Just follow the links below to see all the great April Showers projects these awesome ladies have designed for you!  You can begin by clicking here:  April Showers Blog Hop.