Inspire Me Monday: Finding Inspiration!

Hi all and welcome to a brand new week with brand new ideas bubbling to the surface to help spark a little creative flair! For this week's Inspire Me Monday, I thought I would share a few tips and tricks that I have up my sleeve for those weeks when the mojo is just not flowing. None of these ideas, mind you, are earth shattering but they have definitely helped pull me out of a creative slump and they are fun to do. Call these techniques creatively saving for a "rainy day!" 

Since this is my view today, it's fitting. ;-) 

And here's a peek at some of the ways I try to counter those creative rainy days. 

1. Keep inspiring and colorful catalogs for just this time! I am a catalog saver. I have nearly every Stampin' Up catalog from the past ten years and I purchase books too that might spark some inspiration. This book put out years ago from Paper Crafts magazine has 365 card samples inside. Sure, some of the stamps might look dated but I think if the "bones" are good in a layout, you can freshen it up with new trending colors and images. 

2. Scribble down your own ideas whenever they come to you! I love having a blank notebook handy for when I am looking at catalogs, other people's blogs, or even at stamp sets that I want to put to good use. If I see a card layout in my head, I NEED to write it down. I have probably 50 pages with my chicken scratch all over it just like these pages above that I pull out when I am in a creative slump.

3. Pin or print off sketches from sketch websites. There are so many out there and I know so many of you are familiar with the hot spots! Years ago, I took an afternoon and copied and pasted sketches from one of my favorite sketch blogs. Mojo Monday was one of my absolute favorites and I was so sad when Julee Tilman stopped the blog back in 2018. BUT ALAS, in doing research for this Inspire Me Monday, I discovered that Mojo Monday is back, only on Julee's personal blog - Poetic Artistry.  And, if you want to find all of her recent sketches, she has a Pinterest Page with links to all of them! You can find it HERE! 

What are some of my other faves?

• Power Poppy's Pinterest Page, lots of cards on our boards plus, sketches HERE!
• PageMaps Card Maps 
• Paper Play Sketches: this blog is no longer active but has inspiration sheets you can print
• The Best Things In Life are Pink: Kristie Marcotte is a sketch wizard and not only does she share gazillion layouts, but many times she will share the dimensions needed to create that sketch. So, you can go to town cutting papers and looking for the right die cuts instead of trying to copy a sketch only to have the dimensions wrong in the end. 
• The Deconstructed Sketch: Jen Shultz did this series for years and while it is over, you can find 200 of her sketches archived HERE! 
• I've pinned a ton of sketches on my own Pinterest Board called Get Sketchy. You can find it HERE if you want instant and easy access to some of my favorite sketches! 

I know there are SO many more! So, if you have a favorite, would you mind sharing your favorite sketch hot spot in the comment section of this post? I'd love it if you did and I am sure others would too! 

4. Take a sketch next level. Now, I don't practice this all the time but I have to say, there was a time when I had about twenty of these little sketch packs stored in an old photo storage box. I cannot tell you how fun that was. I would spend an afternoon being inspired by sketches, pulling out coordinating card stock and doo-dads and then, create just like I have done above!

Want to see the process? 

So, you know those papers full of sketched out designs that I showed you at the top of this post? Well, I dug through them to find one that I thought might be a good one to replicate in a jiffy!

From there, I chose a paper pack that still needed some love. I have had this one for YEARS and there are still so many papers tucked inside. I know you share my "paper-holic" ways, so, you get it, right? ;-)

And here are the three pieces I picked! From there, I just started to figure out which one I wanted to be my dominant piece and which pieces might have a "supporting role!"

And these are the pieces that I ended up stuffing in a sandwich bag to use for another day! So, when creativity is lacking, all I have to do is reach for this, pick a stamp set, and stamp and color! Taking what I think is the tricky part of card making out of the equation helps me to get that mojo flowing again and doing what I love - coloring so that I can then share some joy with a handmade card!

I hope you had fun joining me for a bit of my creative process and like I said, if you have some tips and tricks to get through those days when you don't have a lot of mojo, please make sure you leave your suggestions in the comments section!

Until next time! 
~Julie