Like most people who do creative things (is there anyway to not make that opening sound pretentious…?) Pinterest has become my go-to destination to look for a little inspiration. I mean, hello, isn’t that what the site is for? Actually, I have no idea what the site’s real primary function is – that’s just what I use it for.
While I have 48 boards that I go to for different sorts of ideas and inspiration for all sorts of things, when it comes to my scrapbooking I usually draw from just these two:
My Inspire Me board is full of just all sorts of different things – doodles, items stacked in interesting ways, prompts, color sets, design ideas for rooms and magazines, paintings, cute things – just anything that I see that makes me stop and go “Hey! I bet I can find a way to incorporate part of this into a scrapbook page!”
My Scrapbook Ideas board is actually full of paper scrapbook pages. (I have a separate board for digital pages, however I don’t ever pull from it.) A lot of what I like to look at paper pages for is to see the current trends going through the scrapbooking community, and, most importantly, to see how things lay on a real paper page. I like to see the way that things stack in relation to each other, and how it changes the shadows, journaling, stamps, and paint of the page.
When I first started using Pinterest for getting inspiration for my scrapbook pages I put one strict rule on myself – NO SCRAPLIFTS. (Not sure what a scraplift is? That’s where you basically make your page entirely on what another page looks like. It’s actually a great learning tool if you are new to scrapbooking or trying a new style of it.) Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with scraplifts, I just like and need my pages to be a reflection of me and my own style. I just didn’t want to lose myself or become to dependent on needing something other than my own ideas to create pages that I love.
So how do I use those boards then?
Well, once every so often I will go to my boards and pull 2 – 4 pins that have aspects that I like. I’ll then open those up in Photoshop together and use them as a type of mood board to get a feel for my page. For example, last night I shared the following pins as inspiration on Facebook. Let me tell you what I used them for.
I pulled out this pin to use as background inspiration for my page. I wasn’t planning to do a watercolor background, however, I did like the contrast of the doodled outlined circles filled with a different look than the rest of the background. I used that by taking two visually different papers, overlaying some circle doodled frames, and then removing the top paper from the inside of the frames.
(Baby Announcements and Stationary Set from inhauspress via Etsy)
I have a LOT of pins like this. I mean a lot. I love seeing the way that different papers sit on top of each other and the way their shadows fall. I knew that I wasn’t planning on doing a lot of paper layering on my page, BUT I always have some, so I tend to look for whatever pin calls out to me at the time. Last night this one did. I ended up using it more for the basis of my paper shadows than for my actual page design though.
(Simple Moments paper scrapbook page by ChantalPhilippe via Studio Calico)
I am not usually one for overly large elements on my scrapbook pages. My first instinct when I move them to my page is to shrink, shrink, shrink them! But I just loved the whimsical feel that the large elements gave this page paired with a photo of about the same size. And that is exactly what I pulled from this page. The minimal amount of large elements pulled together with a photo of about the same size.
(Magazine Layout from erinlancaster.com)
This one is pretty straight forward. I liked how a large corner of the design was cut off by an overlapping triangle of white. So I added a large overlapping triangle to one corner of my page and a small one to another. I went with a striped vellum to get a similar feel to the white on white of this.
Want to see the finished page? Well, you’ll just have to wait until tomorrow for that.
Do you find any of those images inspiring? Well, I highly encourage you to follow the links to their original sources and pinning them from there – NOT from here. Give their creators the credit they deserve.
How do you use Pinterest in finding inspiration? Do you only use it for DIY things, or home things, or do you draw from it for all sorts of creative outlets? And hey, if you have scrapbooking boards I’d love to see them if you want to leave a link to them!
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