Living Creatively

As I sit here with my morning cup of coffee, I feel very refreshed. My baby boy slept in a little longer today which allowed me to do the same. We had a great night last night...we went to the Aggie baseball game and our Ags pulled through and put a WHOOPin on the Houston Cougars to win the region and move on to super regionals. So we all went to bed happy and slept great. The Brodster only woke up once to eat!! So I woke up this morning feeling very refreshed and motivated.

I cleaned the house yesterday, so today I get to design! As I came to my computer to check emails and start pondering over my next project, it got me thinking about what really inspires us to be creative. I read a post on Shauna Maness' express creativity blog about how we are all creative and sometimes just need to be shown what area we are creative in. I feel this is so true. I used to tell people I wasn't creative because I'm not all that creative with my hands. I absolutely HATE scrapbooking. For some reason I just can't put the pages together. Something will come out crooked or not in proportion or just absolutely ugly. I just can't do it. (But I LOVE scrapbook paper..I use it for design ideas!)

But then I realized I have a whole different area of creativity. Put me behind a camera or on a computer and I can whip you up some creativeness. I can design the same scrapbook page in Photoshop that I would have done by hand, just with no cutting, sticking and hand writing (which is a good thing because my handwriting stinks!)

I love using the world around me to inspire my design ideas. Of course having a 4 1/2 month old, I have great inspiration for birth announcements or baby shower thank you notes. But I've learned to look even more into my home and surroundings to find ideas. I have a cute gift bag that gave me an idea for a notecard and my tea kettle inspired a housewarming invitation.

In my photography, I'm inspired by my client. I like to get to know them before the shoot either through email or just by talking to them before the shoot starts. What is their personality like, what are their interests, etc. When I'm shooting a couple, their love for each other always spurs me on and I'm able to come up with new ideas for their shoot on the spot.

So what areas are you creative in? And what inspires you in your creativity? What makes you go "AH HA!" I would love to hear it!