I is for...ideas and inspiration!

Those of you who know me, know that I love to express myself and my emotions through my writing.  These days, it takes the form of the journaling in my scrapbooks.  I always put the journaling first and the design becomes secondary to the story.  This leaves me in a bind sometimes, because I am at a loss for ideas and inspiration for how to arrange my photos into a pleasing design around my journaling, while not detracting from the story itself.  This is where my idea of organizating the inspiration I come across on the internet comes in handy.  I recently started using Pinterest, and that is one fabulous website!  I wholeheartedly encourage you to check it out.  However; long before Pinterest, I saved photos of layouts that I loved onto my computer--using the guidelines of the # of pictures in each layout to divide them up, so that I can make quick work of grabbing an idea and putting it to work for my pictures.

In the scrapbook world, when you base your layout on the work of someone else, that is called scraplifting, which is actually encouraged for the typical scrapper because it takes the guesswork out of design and allows you to focus on story and product choices.  Funny thing is...inspiration is everywhere, so your idea doesn't even have to come from another scrapbook layout.  I was once challenged to find an advertisement in a magazine to "scraplift" and it worked just the same.

Oftentimes, when I choose an inspirational piece to scraplift, the final design is usually nothing at all like the original work.  The original simply acts as a catalyst for my own creativity to kick in--giving me a starting line from which to take off. It helps to release the creative block that sometimes sets in from over-thinking the design process and allows me to go with the flow and do what I love.  How do you organize your ideas?