It was a great start to a good thing and helped me so much over the years. I started Chloe and Lucy on theirs. By then I could see it is good to collect ideas and pictures of your hopes and dreams and have it to look at in times when you need a little inspiration.
All these years later I am still scrap booking and still using the old business diaries. I just stick right over the writing, calendars and numbers! Also I still have them all from the first day. It is a bit of a treat looking at what my dreams were when I was fourteen!
Anyway aside of inspiration and loveliness they have saved me so much clutter in my home! If I had kept magazines and craft books things would be grim around here. These days I don't buy magazines, but before the internet, blogs and pinterest they were my life blood! Now, it's all free and more than you can keep up with which is so wonderful.
When I need an idea or inspiration I browse my books. They are concentrated joy! Usually once a year or so, on a dreary rainy day, I will stick in any new pictures I have collected.
When we go away on holidays I do buy magazines in op shops as they are 20 and 50 cents, this usually gives me a heap of new pictures!
Cookbooks are the same. If I had kept every recipe magazine and cook book I would have no kitchen space. Also I don't like keeping things I don't use or like. Many times there is one recipe in a book I really want and that's about it! I don't like clutter and despite efforts still have some! But this is one thing that has saved me so many piles and cupboards of magazines etc.
So my cook books have become so wonderful. All my favourite tested and loved recipes in a few books. I love looking through them too. As the seasons change I have a look at what I can be starting to cook again and planning a bit of a list, otherwise I would forget and eat the same things all year.
Scrap booking is a little like having an inspiration board. Your ideas, dreams just seem to have more life and more hope if you have visual reminders, they are like a plan.
By collecting things you love, that make your heart leap, you soon discover your own taste. I come across ladies who say they don't know what they like, they have just pleased others in their decorating and style. When your heart bursts over the beauty of something there are your clues! Collecting them sort of refines it for you and makes it clear. Not to mention the sheer joy of having all these images in one place. My books are so treasured and really have cost nothing.
The fun I have had over the years with these is amazing. Now that I have them out I will have a browse for some ideas I have loved but havn't used yet. There are always plenty of them!
My husband's aunt also kept scrapbooks of her ideas from a young age. She died a few years back aged 99 and we have a couple of her early scrapbooks. She designed an english style cottage which she still lived in until she passed. You could see her decorating style and ideas for the cottage forming in her earlier books. I have a large diary from last year here I was going to throw out - you know what it is destined for now! :)
ReplyDeleteI am not overly familiar with pinterest, but people tell me that is the ideas scrapbook for today. I am a bit old fashioned though, and like a book to hold in my hands!
Thanks for the ideas Annabel.
Have a lovely Valentine's Day today celebrating the gift of love with those you love.xo