That's Pinteresting!

You may have been hiding under a mossy rock if you haven't heard somebody mention Pinterest recently; it seems to have suddenly gone mahoosive! Being a very visually inspired person myself, I have found it to be invaluable in my site-hopping-inspiration-gathering adventures online. Previously I would bookmark a page within my Inspirations bookmark folder or save images with source referenced titles into my Inspirations folder on my desktop; all quite long-winded, especially when you come to access said inspirations during a lightbulb moment of creativity. So for me, Pinterest has been a real gem. I love having the little Pin It button on my browser menu bar so that whenever I spot an image that sparks an idea or simply that I just love, I can have it logged onto a Pinterest pin board in a couple of clicks

My current list of pin boards includes: Crochet, Quotes and Words of Wisdom, Floral Inspirations, Liberty Love, Vintage Fabrics, Sewing Notions and Natural Beauty

I have been fairly restrained on time spent browsing Pinterest itself as I could rather easily loose swathes of time - I'm talking weeks here! For me it's more about storing images that I wish to return to quickly and easily and I love how the boards are laid out too. It really is a visual smorgasboard of inspiration!

I still tear out inspirational images from magazines from time to time - there is something very satisfying about a mood board or ideas journal or sketchbook. I like tactile!

I have been doing a lot of work recently around what I want my life and future to be; it feels like exciting times are just around the corner. Part of this work is to envision certain aspects in great detail - what does it look and feel like? How does it make me feel to have or be that? What is my ideal scenario? I will use Pinterest to help with this - an online version of a vision board, as the internet is chock full of images, quotes and ideas that can help beef out these daydreams

I am going to start with a board for my business, Get Smitten and my dream studio to run it from!

Do you use Pinterest? Let's connect; my username is Lisa Pocklington - pop your email address in a comment below if you'd like an invitation to join the Pinterest party. Or do you prefer the traditional methods of gathering inspiration? How do you gather your inspiration and creative ideas? I'm curious

Lisa x

p.s. if you're still confused - check out the Pinterest About page for a detailed description of what all the fuss is about!

Vision Boards - a window into your future

 I'm no stranger to the practice of tear-sheets, mood boards, sketchbooks and vision boards. After all, as a creative person it comes with the territory. At Art School you document ideas, inspirations & techniques constantly in sketchbooks. As an Interior Designer I would create mood boards & room settings to get my ideas across to clients. As a Stylist I reference style ideas with tear-sheets, & all of the lifestyle magazines I have worked for have walls full of vision boards for their current issue. I guess they could be considered the  

visual version of list making 

- they serve as a memory jogger, a goal setter, a 'this is what I'm aiming for'

Without realising it you are probably familiar with them yourself, especially if you follow design led blogs such as Design*Sponge or The City Sage. These blogs regularly visually round up a collection of images based on a theme (my all time fave is the Living In posts on D*S. Pride and Prej inspired board pictured above). You may even have a pile of tear-sheets yourself; things that have sparked an interest, an idea that you'd like to refer back to at some point. Perhaps you are more reserved & simply fold over the corner of a page in a magazine. Either way, the principal is the same & it also translates into the digital world too. Do you bookmark sites that you like? If you are anything like me you have about a gazillion pages bookmarked for later reference - not always an efficient filling system, but hey!

It is no surprise then, that you can now produce an all digital, fabulously professional looking, vision board online. Hurrah for technology! Olioboard comes recommended but I have yet had the chance to play around with it. Don't you worry though, I have ideas brewing for its uses!

So back to my earlier point of being familiar with this exercise when it comes to my creative process. It HAS proven success. It helps reach the intended goal. It documents the idea. All good then. But until recently, I had never thought to  

apply this tried & tested approach to ME!

I have, of late, been struggling to get to where I think I ought to be in terms of achievement. I've been feeling unfocused and a little (ok, a lot) stuck in a rut. Less so in creative terms, but hugely in Life terms. This has led to some soul searching; some questioning, and plenty of research. (yay for the internet!)

I have been subscribing to the wise words of Christine Kane (amongst others) via her Be Creative Be Conscious Be Courageous blog as well as her Live Creative e-zine, and she actively advocates the exercise of producing a vision board to help you get to where you want to be. She is so encouraging in this field that she has complied articles & a free download to guide you through the process. I feel like I have taken a step in the right direction - I feel that by dedicating a few hours to ME and what I would like MY FUTURE to be that I have begun the long journey in getting there. Perhaps I'll share my vision with you in a later post. If I'm feeling brave enough!

Do you sometimes feel you have lost your way? How do you get back on track?

{image 1 by Emily Burlingame on Olioboard, image 2 by Amy Merrick for Design*Sponge, image 3 by Polly Rowan on Olioboard, image 4 from Christine Kane's Blog}