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!

Daydream Believer

When was the last time you allowed yourself to make a great big, fat list of all the things you want? I'm willing to bet it was probably addressed to Mr Santa Claus and was at least a decade ago if not two. It seems that somewhere along the journey of growing up we forget how to ask for all the things we want and how to fixate ourselves on those desires coming true with every fibre of our being. In short, we lose the power of daydreaming.

Now, obviously, there are reasons for this - after all, the real world can be a tough place to negotiate and we have all the daily pressures of life to deal with. Real, hard, scary and difficult things that our survival depends upon. But most of us find this becomes all we have room to think about and so we forget about our dreams or we feel wrong for spending time thinking about them when there is all this serious stuff to contend with.

As a society we are quick to condemn those who dare to express their desires; who do they think they are, wanting all those unrealistic things? As kids we learnt early on that it's rude to say "I want.." and are told "I want doesn't get" or that you only have the right to such desires at Christmas time or birthdays. And so as adults we are incredibly disconnected with tapping into or regularly daydreaming about our wants and desires. It's not what grown-ups do.

Having decided a few years back to change what I was very unhappy with in my grown up life, I began to ask myself what it was that I wanted? It felt like a very un-natural and almost uncomfortable question. I wasn't at all used to thinking about what I really wanted deep down and with all my heart - surely such thoughts would only lead to disappointment, right?

Wrong. Sitting down with a pad of paper and allowing myself to freely go ahead and list all the things I really, really want - no matter how far fetched they seemed at the time - was liberating. It felt weird & forced to begin with, but as I relaxed into it and realised that this list was only for me to read, I let rip and those desires flowed out of me! It felt fantastic to air dreams I didn't even know I'd been repressing.

I still have that list and re-reading it makes me smile. It is essentially my life's daydream - what I want for myself; where I'm heading. I believe that having a daydream and vision of what you want for yourself is healthy, it keeps positivity alive and its very existence is more likely to make it happen.

How will you get anywhere if you don't have a destination in mind?

How will you have a dream come true, if you don't have a dream?

Try it, make that list. Dig deep and let your imagination run free. Don't hinder yourself with guilt and practicalities - they have no place in daydreams.

Dream big

Lisa x

{Daydream List artwork by Katie Daisy for The Wheatfield}