Thursday, February 18, 2010

Where do you store your inspiration?

When I was deciding on names for this blog, one that instantly came to mind was "The Inspiration Binders."  It didn't exactly roll off the tongue and it was surprisingly already taken, but the reason the name even came to mind was because binders are where I store all my inspiration.


That's right I said binders...I have several!  One stores interior design inspiration (my "style bible" - hey, that would have been a good name for this blog - I digress...), two are dedicated to recipes and cooking, one to entertaining, another to health and beauty...the list goes on and on.  It's the best way I could find to keep track of all the sheets I was tearing out of magazines.  Initially I attempted to keep the magazines, but if you've been reading for a while you know that my magazine addiction includes over 16 subscriptions a month which would quickly take over entire rooms of my house and it was very difficult to go back and reference something because you had to remember what magazine it had been in, what issue, etc.  so the binders came into play and since using them, I've never looked back!


Recently, since we moved into our new house, I have started to organize a folder (I ran out of binders) specifically for house-reno inspiration.  If I see something I like for this house, it goes into the folder for me to reference later.  It's made life much easier when I want to show Mike some idea I had for the kitchen, I go right to the folder and pull it out, voila, he knows exactly what I want.


I am a very tactile person, I need things to be real and concrete.  For me the binders serve that purpose.  I can easily reference them when I need them and it's a nice change from staring at a computer screen searching the internet for inspiration.  In fact, when I am needing a little design boost, I sometimes flip through my "style bible" for a pick me up, almost like re-visiting a favorite design book.   Where do you store your inspiration?  Do you have a hard file on your computer?  Do you keep style files or binders?  I'd love to know how other people catalog their inspirations...

6 comments:

nicole said...

i have a binder, numerous file folders and bookmarked favorites...kinda out of control but not so much.

The Design Boards said...

Haha, sounds like me!

Jessi said...

I, too, have an addiction to magazines. It's a real problem. My biggest is the file folder of recipe clippings. In addition to the 50+ cookbooks I have, I have piles of recipes torn from magazines, printed from online, etc. I feel your pain!

The Design Boards said...

Me too!! I have two binders full of recipes I've clipped in addition to all my cookbooks. It would take me years to try all of the recipes I have clipped!

LRH said...

I'm so glad I'm not the only one...I have binders labeled by categories: recipes, holiday, scrapping, health, inspiration,etc. I've also most recently started using tumblr to keep track of online photos that I really like but don't want to print off right now, plus it keeps the source in tact.

The Design Boards said...

Tumblr is a great idea, I will have to look into that.