Valentine's Inspiration Station

Happy New Year everyone!!! I wish you all the best year ever, filled with extraordinary days, lots of good memories and tons of crafty creations!! You may have heard me talk about what inspires me, where I get ideas from and my inspiration stations. Well, here's my latest Inspiration Station set up. I use this Pottery Barn shelving collection that I got at ridiculously low clearance prices (thanks for the heads up last year from my friend Cami!).

So what's an Inspiration Station, you ask? This is the space that I have created in my craft room that I place all supplies that currently inspire me. This time I chose Valentine themed goodies. I gather up all of my Valentine themed papers, stamps, embellishments, ribbons, etc and place them all in one little spot. It's easily seen so I have a visual reminder of what I want to use. I go through all my drawers and baskets and piles (ick, I hate piles) and pick out things that fit the theme. Then the great part is, I can then go *shopping* in my own craft room. My Inspiration Station looks like a little boutique shelf and I just head over there when I want to create a project. I have told ALL of my friends about this and they just love the idea. It really helps to get out those already purchased and probably much neglected supplies that you've stashed away. Plus it just looks cute!! So my wish for you this year is to get organized, get inspired and get to stampin' and creating!!

Here's a little plate that I keep in my craft room. I piled it up with a few single stamps, Tim Holtz Distress Crackle Paint, Dew Drops from Ellen's store, Stickles, eyelets,etc.

I hung ribbon spools from a piece of pink netting and created a garland across my bulletin board. I also used cute pink and brown thumb tacks(from Target) to hang little single acrylic stamps. I just love stamps with brackets by the way!

Here's some cute K & Company chipboard stickers that I can't wait to tear into. Those will probably go onto Valentine notebooks at some point and time.

So how do you create your own Inspiration Station? It's simple: just find a space in your crafting space and get started! If you don't have a lot of space, you can use a nice basket that you can tote around to where you craft. Shelves work great to display items as well as bulletin boards to tack things up. The idea is to get your supplies out where you can SEE them. Remember......we're visual people here, we need to SEE our stuff!! I hope you try to my idea, I can guarantee you that you'll be INSPIRED and probaby surprised at all the supplies you've been tucking away. You'll probably even save some money because you'll have an entire collection of goodies to use....and you might just realize that you need to use up some of those supplies you've been hoarding! No HOARDING in 2008, use it up!!

Speaking of shopping...stay tuned for my THEMED SHOPPING topic. Another fun way to get inspired!!