Inspired Ideas- and a short Rant!

Hi!

 Beautiful, re-purposed tins. See what I mean?!

So I'll hope you'll forgive me for being a bit late on this one! I've just found this absolutely gorgeous and totally inspiring online magazine, Inspired Ideas. It. is. Amazing! You can buy the current issue, but before you do that, set aside a few hours (or days!) to go through the archives and past issues. Start with the very first one and keep going up. If you don't have the patience, fine, but I'm telling you, you're missing out!

The first issues are all quite short, 5 or 6 pages, but they're amazing! (Have I said that already?!) I don't know what I love most - The GORGEOUS craft projects in each issue (The instructions open in new tabs so you can come back to them all later) or even the "blank" pages - no words or writing, just inspirational pictures of ribbons, trims, buttons and general vintage awesomeness, usually colour-coordinated - totally inspiring! Then there's the cute projects in each issue for a "creativity journal." The idea is that you make them all, and then compile them in your journal, which will soon be filled with craft inspiration, so you'll never be stuck for  ideas again! I loved this so much I'm starting my own creativity journal. I'm going to start with their projects and work from there.

 Gorgeous embellished notebooks!

I think what I love most about it, actually, is the fact that it has literally inspired me to just... create. Not to be afraid of wasting expensive supplies, or messing up, or wasting my time, not worrying about measurements and exact details. To go back to the kind of -for want of a MUCH better word- naive crafts I did years ago, with just some paper, glitter and my hands. Good and all as fancy tutorials and modern crafts are, I think this where I belong. Call me old-fashioned, call me nostalgic, but I love them! Don't get me wrong, I still like modern-day crafts - I sewed an envelope pillowcase for myself just today- but lately I had been feeling kind of creatively depressed. I'd see an idea, think oh, that's cute, but just not have the motivation to actually do it.

And I think that's what this mag has done. Kick-started me back to thinking up my OWN original ideas, instead of following long tutorials all the time. But the projects featured are faaar from dated! Gold leaf pen anyone?! The ideas are original, beautiful, classic, and encourage you to think creatively, to change them and alter them. Remember, the earth without art is just eh. ;)  S xx