Where Do You Get Inspiration?

Well, I was just lucky enough to have a weekend full of inspiration! Grab your backstage pass and join me!

I went to California to spend the weekend with my Best Friend, for her Birthday. The weather was fantastic! While we were there, we spent Saturday at a Scrapbooking Bus Tour. I have never done one of these before. If you have ever contemplated doing one of these, do it! Our theme was Rock Star. To explain it in a nut shell, you go on a touring bus from scrapbook store to scrapbook store, doing make and takes along the way. Breakfast, lunch, snacks and drinks were also provided, plus a stop at a Starbucks! There were also contests and prizes the whole day and a big raffle at the end.
At your "home" store you received a goody bag full of fun craft supplies. I loved our bag (green is my favorite color, and I'm a bit of a nature lover)! I have also been needing a new apron, and was so surprised to find a cute one in our goody bag! This picture is just the bag and the make and takes.
I loved how well organized everything was for us. One of the best things about this was having everything ready to go, so that it was super fast and easy to walk away with 3 finished crafts! Sometimes just in accomplishing things, I become more inspired.
I really liked making this tiny book. It was just 4 pieces of square wood, modgepodged together with paper. Each store was quite smart to have you trying out fun techniques using new products. I enjoyed airbrushing my flowers here.
I also loved having all the accessories already put together. Sometimes I spend so much time in coming up with my products, that I'm already tired of the project.
I thought the coordinating papers in this project were just beautiful!
This was by far my favorite make and take (and store! The employees were so much fun and the energy level was perfect. Their store was also the cutest one, and don't even get me started on their examples. Walking through that store was inspiration enough. I have a project coming up that I got the inspiration (and supplies) from them. I am so excited to implement this with my own twist!)
Are these papers totally fantastic or what!? The funny thing about this make and take is that I was literally going to make one for my oldest child next week! It was such perfect timing for me.
I loved how this store gave you all the supplies to do the front, inside front, backside, and even the inside of the back! They gave you the whole sticker sheet to go home with all of the extras, too!
Once I finished this I realized that the child I wanted to make this for is more of an orange kind of gal and my other child is totally more of the pink and blue kind of gal. Which makes this even better. This weekend my daughter and I will now be going to the scrapbook store together to help her pick out her papers and embellishments for us to make her own book...together! This will be fun. My younger daughter will be able to use all of those extra embellishments to decorate the pages of this book, while my older daughter and I make her book.

The Tour was so inspirational in so many ways. It always gets my juices going to go to scrapbook or craft stores, and to visit all new ones is even better. To walk away with 3 finished projects really has ignited a fire in me to do more. And getting to hang out with a bunch of other crafty people (there were a few men there, too!) is totally fun and exciting.

But the best inspiration was doing that whole weekend with my Best Friend! We spent the entire weekend with no kids or responsibilities. A whole nights rest doesn't hurt either! Getting to walk through the stores with her and come up with lots and lots of ideas was so great! She is so totally crafty! I always come up with better ideas if I have someone to bounce them off of first. My friend is also very like me in so many ways. Our children are close in age, the same # of kids, and we even had the same number of boys and girls and in the same gender order! Her parenting style and thoughts on life in general are so in line with mine. I come up with so many ideas for my family, from her. Even today I had to call her up for thoughts on raising my kids. I know that she will be honest with me, have my best intentions at heart, and really understands my vision for my family (because hers is the same as mine).

I am not at a point where I was out of ideas, or even a down time in my life. However, sometimes life does just overtake you. Weekends like the one I just had help me to keep my priorities straight. I feel less like me if I don't make time to be creative. Let's face it, that time doesn't just find us. We have to carve it out. When I am at my best, I am better for my family. There are an endless number of things we can do for and with our families. I am so thankful for this time to have thought of some new traditions to start with my kids, and some awesome supplies to help me keep things interesting around here!

I would love to hear everyone elses ideas on this. What inspires you? What do you do to recharge? Where do you go for inspiration? Some day, I am going to take one of those classes at a lush retreat. Something totally new to me, and in a surrounding full of gorgeous views of nature. Actually, some day I hope to do that often, not just once! ;)

Feeling really really great,
Rebecca