Design Inspiration

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Hello everyone!  It’s Beckie here with you today bringing a little inspiration!

Before we get down to business, I just have to mention that I recently returned from a two week whirlwind trip through Asia.  I had the incredible opportunity to visit India, Thailand, Hong Kong, and China!  It was so amazing – and so very different from the Western culture here in the States.  I have a MILLION pictures to go through and scrap – so I will definitely be sharing pictures soon.  But the one thing I wanted to mention here today was something I noticed about the cultures of India and Thailand: and amazing ability to appreciate beauty and incorporate beautiful things into everyday life.  Fresh cut flowers and beautiful carvings and sculptures everywhere.  I just couldn’t do a post about inspiration without reflecting on what I experienced there and thought I would share just a few photos with you – my way of hopefully sharing something beautiful with YOU today :)

Anyhow – on to business!

Two sites I love to explore on a regular basis:  Banana Republic and Pottery Barn.  *sigh*.  So much eye candy!  If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time pining over pretty things on-line, whether through sites like the two I mentioned, or even through Pinterest or design blogs.  Well, did you know that your favorite fashion and design sites are also an incredible source of inspiration for scrapbooking as well?!  The same design aspects that draw you to a room design, a beautiful outfit, or a delicious new handbag can be appied to your scrapbooking!  The trick is knowing how to look :)

Let’s work with this beautiful room from Pottery Barn:

This beautiful room looks similar to my living room – well, minus the gorgeous furniture…and the cool decorative accents…plus my living room is drowning in Legos at the moment (my kids’ most recent obsession! which reminds me, if you have any girl lego lovers…check THESE out! FINALLY some cool girl Legos!).  OK, so it turns out this room looks NOTHING like my current living room, LOL…but it is something I would love to come home to.  To me, it is beautiful and comfortable and completely inviting.  I actually bookmarked it because I want to transform my space into something like this.

Let’s look at the building blocks that make up this room – and see how they can apply to scrapbooking along the way!

• Start with a neutral base.  If I were to describe this room, i wouldn’t say “white” – but notice that the wall color and the sofa – the two biggest elements – are actually white!  This is an excellent way to create a versatile foundation upon which you can add many types and styles of elements (which we’ll get to later).  For my scrap pages, I almost always begin with neutral paper – either white, off white, or kraft.  This lets me get started on my page without having to tackle the more significant design consideration like pattern and color.
• Consider the critical design points. In this room, the windows are very large and somewhat dominant in the space.  Notice how the colors chosen coordinate well with the earthy greens that occupy much of the window space?  The view out the windows doesn’t compete with the design of the room – in fact, the are very complementary.  In scrapbooking, your photos are like these windows.  It’s important to look at your photos and work with the colors and mood set by the images rather than selecting design elements that will compete with them.  Additionally, notice the overall “softness” to this room?  Nothing really has sharp edges (the table and the sofa are more rounded),  the chunky cushions and the delicate greenery are all very “soft” and organic feeling.  If I were creating a scrapbook page with this theme in mind, I’d use rounded edges for my photos and papers so as not to introduce any harsh corners or edges that will take away from the overall feel of comfort from this page.
• Add texture. This is a really important, yet easy to overlook aspect of designing a space as well as a scrapbook page!  Just look at how many types of textures and materials are present in this small space:  wood, fabric, metal, glass, the woven rug under the table, the foliage and greenery from the plant in the vase.  These various textures and tremendous depth and dimension to this space, and they’ll do the same for your scrap pages as well!  Sure, it’s easy and tempting to throw together a page and focus on the basics:  paper, photos, maybe an alpha for a title.  And if we’re feeling really creative, maybe a cluster of flowers.  But how about challenging yourself to add more texture?!  Think about leaves, metal elements (like bookplates, brads, photo turns, etc), ribbons and strings.  And don’t forget that you can add texture right in your title!  Remember that you can re-color things (see this awesome tut from Casharina!)…so really think about the textures you want to incorporate and seek them out for your page. Some of my favorites:
  • Gracie has that amazing canvas alpha (that I LOVE to ink the edges of, for added depth!)
  • Goose Bumps has a fab black acrylic alpha
  • An Affair to Remember has curly ribbons, plastic buttons, and felt hearts
  • Barefoot has cool rustic metal photo corners and star
• Add color. This is often something I do last on my own pages.  And if you look at this room, you can see that the color is really only introduced with the decorative elements!  The pillows are the biggest source of color and pattern, with the palette continued into the smaller decorative items placed around the space.  On my own pages, I like to get the neutral background in place, then I add the photos and even the title, then I’m ready to add in the pop of color.  Shabby Princess creates such beautiful papers in her kits that I frequently use papers to add that pop of both color and pattern.  And don’t forget that a little pattern and/or color goes a long way!  Just look at this room – you really feel the green and the blue, but there just aren’t many colored elements actually there.  A few blocks of patterned papers (think: pillows), plus a few ribbons, buttons, strings in the selected color is really all you need!

You can use this same analysis for taking inspiration from clothing and purses as well!  Pay attention to the stitching, the types of buckles and adornments, the width of straps/belts (are they delicate or chunky?)…you get the idea!  Just take a few moments to look at the parts that make up the whole and eventually seeing these inspirational details becomes second nature!

I also wanted to add that it would be an interesting exercise for you to go and pick out your favorite room (they have many different types of rooms to choose from) just to analyze it and get a better understanding of your own personal style.  For me, the comfort and casual feel to this room are 100% my style.  The same applies to my scrapbooking!  I rarely use block/geometric designs, preferring to kind of throw everything on the page and see where it lands :)  Understanding your style will make it easier for you to stay true to your style – and that means creating more things that you LOVE. :)

Thanks for stopping by today!  I hope you are all having a wonderful week!  SP will drop by tomorrow for a ProjectSCRAP check-in!

BeckieInspiration, Uncategorized 4 Comments