INSPIRE!!!!!!!

Where have I been????? It has been a long time since my last post. I guess I have had a bit of the seasonal affective disorder going on here in the cold and wintry Midwest. Go to work, come home exhausted, watch TV and read a bit. I am about to enter the second half of my on-line paralegal studies so I will have to buckle down with that starting next week.

I have had my senses engaged however. While visiting blogs, reading magazines about stamping and mixed-media, and just generally appreciating the simple beauty around me I have become inspired. Inspired to start a journal about the things that inspire me! I think this idea came about in parts. First, my friend Jane and I were organizing her new craft room (pictures to come!) and we were going through all of her gorgeous 12 x 12 paper. I found a piece in her stash I had never seen. It was blue and had some lovely whimsical illustrations of ballerinas!!! I felt that excitement you feel when something is just so cool and lovely and you want to jump right into the picture of it!! I then thought why not start a journal based on all of the scrapbook paper that I love......You know, that stuff you hardly ever use because it is so pretty?? This way I will always have some in a special place, and then I can use what is left to make cards for others!!!!
So, this sprawling post has lots of pictures of things that are inspiring to me. Stuff that makes my heart race a little.
If you want a quick dose of inspiration I have two suggestions to start you off:

• Check out this new issue of Artful Blogging!!!! So much eye candy you might overdose. So many great ideas. So much inspiration!
• Next, I stumbled upon an artist who is new to me. She makes the most fun and inspirational videos and puts them on YouTube. She also has a website and a blog of her own........SuziBlu......Here is a link to one of her videos that just made me weep with happiness.....so much fun!!!
• Here is a link to her blog.............Click here!!!

SuziBlu has really got me excited about starting a little journal of my own! I think I will simply call it Inspire! Here are parts of the definition of the word inspire that really got me excited........to fill with an animating, quickening, or exalting influence and to give rise to.

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I am inspired by all the photos on this blog.....Above, I am inspired by the beauty of this domestic scene (although, unfortunately, it does not move me right into the kitchen to start cooking/baking, etc.).........
I am inspired by this wall of stamps in my friend Trish's stamp room. I am inspired by my friends.
I am inspired by the beauty of these drawings!
I am inspired by these rolls of vintage wallpaper (photo courtesy of Everyday Beauty)

I am inspired by the beauty of things I have never seen, but hope to someday. On the top is La Sagrada Familia a church designed by Gaudi (I am about to study his architecture because it is so whimsical, amazing and gorgeous!) and one of my all time favorite buildings, The Flatiron Building, in New York City which I have never seen but hope to someday!
I am inspired by so many things around me, my husband, my family, trees, birds, going to court the other day and seeing how much love a father has for his son, the patterns and colors around me, the possibility that although I know that I will probably laze around and blow this weekend in terms of accomplishing something big; that I can be happy in the small accomplishments I do make.....and the dream that someday it will all come together......meanwhile if I do a first page in my inspire journal......that will really be something.