Art and Inspiration

This picture has nothing at all to do with this post... except that it is me. And I'm the one typing. ;)

This post is about inspiration.

Inspiration is a funny thing. Rarely, as a homeschooling mom of three kiddos, do I have the time to really craft. And for some reason, when I DO have the time right now, inspiration runs screaming from my head the second I get a moment in the studio. I find myself hiding in the computer... hoping that all the inspiration I get from all of your genius posts will somehow stick. As if the only way I can have good, productive thoughts right now is via osmosis.

I feel that in today's world people rarely grasp how overwhelmed they are by the things they have. I recognised just how overwhelmed I was when I found myself with an entire evening to spare. The kids were in bed, Don was working, the dishes were done and I had vacuumed the bedrooms and changed the sheets. There was nothing to do but craft. Whoohoo! But when I looked at the boxes upon boxes of fabric, paper, old calendars, scraps, pens, pencils, scissors, zippers, ribbon, lace, etc that I have everywhere in this room (and elsewhere) I thought "I can't do anything with this crap" and I went on to watch a video online... when I could have been creating something.

Recently I went through and really looked at the things I had in my art space. I spent an hour going through all the pieces of paper with the recycle bin in hand, waiting for my heart to say "I LOVE this". The things I loved went into a small box, the rest... well, didn't. I did the same with the ribbon, the zippers (really, who is going to use a huge plastic hot pink zipper?), and the other art supplies we had. I got rid of all of the crayons. We don't use them. Why are they taking up space? I sharpened all the pencils and got rid of more than 3 of one color. I got the coloring books that the kids haven't used in forever. I took out some pictures from each, put them in a three ring binder (once again, my undying love of binders shows through!) and put them on our 'rainy day' shelf in the closet. I got rid of UFO's (UnFinished Objects) and anything else that seemed to be yelling, rather loudly, that all I did was waste my time.

It felt so good I can not tell you. Now when I look at my space, I am surrounded by things that inspire me. There is no clutter although I still have plenty for whatever project that catches my fancy. Now granted, this doesn't mean I have any new amazing projects to post right this second. In fact, I am off to catch my weekly dose of Desperate Housewives online... but it does mean that the next time I find a evening where I feel wonderfully free of my 'to do' list, that I may just come up with something brilliant.

What inspires your crafty side?