Inspiration

Where does inspiration come from? For me, it comes from looking at common objects and daily activities of living. I can find inspiration for my scrapbook pages just by looking at bath salt bottles, chipped enamel coffee pots, vintage buttons, vintage lace, vintage jewelry, postcards and clothing. When working in the garden, I get the flashes of the perfect scrapbook page or title, the layouts just fall into place. The major problem I have when I get these moments of inspiration is that I don't stop what I'm doing and write the fleeting thoughts down. Then much later, when I'm seated at my desk, I try to think back on those moments only to find that they are lost. Lost in the shuffle of chaos that envelopes my daily life. So, my goal for this summer is to try and write down these spurts of inspiration as they flutter through my thoughts.

The project below was born of such a moment. I was in a flea market in North Carolina when I ran across a bag of odd earrings. There was not a matching set in the bunch. The pieces that were in that bag were fabulous, and several just screamed to be used on a page about my grandmother.

The flower center is an old clip-on earring that just reminded me of my grandmother. The hat pin is another reminder. After my Grandmother passed away and my grandfather went to live with my father, my father and his siblings had the daunting task of cleaning out their home. One of my sons, who was helping with the clean up, found my grandmother's hats. Attached to several of the hats were hat pins. After finding the hat pins, I started searching flea markets for these little jewels. The one I used on this layout is a reproduction that was given to me by a friend. Our local scrapbook Store, Treasured Memories, has a wide assortment of pins and will even make them to match your layouts.

The other two layouts also use vintage jewelry pieces.

The beautiful "buckle" on the ribbon is actually a pin that I picked up at a flea market for a dollar, the small metal disc at the top of the right hand page is actually another earring.

This layout has a clock face in the cluster of buttons and gears at the top of the right hand page, which was salvaged from a broken watch I purchased in another grab bag of old jewelry, and what a better way to reinforce the topic of "Les Le Bon Temp Rouler".

Inspiration, where does yours come from?