Inspiration Station: Being the inspiration!

Good Monday to you all! And Happy St. Patrick's Day to all of you lucky folks out there!! Aurelie here to talk to you about a source of scrappy inspiration we all have: OURSELVES! Yes, that's right! Have you ever created a layout you loved so much that you wish you could scrap another page like that? Fallen in love with a sketch to the point that you use it over and over again? Or even redesigned a layout you wanted to re-do for some reason? Mm-mm, that's right - we can all be our very own source of inspiration. Freaky to some, I know, but don't knock it 'til you try it! ;)

A month or so ago, I attended a Let's Capture Our Memories crop where Isabelle (the owner) challenged us to do a layout in one hour (yes, you read correctly!) using a Becky Fleck/PageMaps sketch. Needless to say, these 1-hour challenges nearly always give me heart palpitations, but I am often so trilled with the outcome - I don't lose time overthinking things. I see a paper I like and I cut - no time to fuss over how I might be able to cut the piece of patterned paper so that I can save more of it (I know a lot of you know exactly what I mean... Hee!Hee!). This time, wasn't I surprised and excited to see a sketch I had already used for another layout?!?

I L-O-V-E this sketch! So much so that it was actually the first sketch I used after I survived my post-partum days last Fall. I actually blogged about it right here. And here is it! My initial design:

And here is what I created for the challenge in one hour (minus, the hand-stitching around the page, of course!):

Used lots and lots of Basic Grey's Hispter collection - more specifically, some of its patterned papers, wood veneers, alpha stickers, designer chipboard stickers, and die-cut shapes. Also used a Tim Holtz stencil with some Stampin' Up ink, splashed on some Tattered Angels Glimmer Glaze, and added a button, some brads and a paper clip. Yes, I stitched that yellow line in that hour using a Bazzill Basics stitching template and some DMC floss, and finished it for real the next day using a Crafter's Workshop stitching template and another shade of DMC floss. Photo by Philippe Dumas. And I can't talk about this particular 1-hour challenge without mentioning that one participant actually finished TWO designs in that same hour. Holy camoly! And for those of you who have cropped with us before, you know that that's LCOM's very own Jocelyne Roy! Scrappy-dappy-doo!

So you see? Sometimes, it's just about looking at what you've created before to get your mojo going. I dare you to do it! It's so much fun. Really! ;)

Happy scrapping!