smash book

A few years ago I used to keep little black sketchbooks where I pasted in inspiration from home decorating magazines, craft sources, quotes, sketches, journaling, etc. I kind of got a way from the habit but found I kind of missed it. It was sort of a catch-all for inspiration and thoughts. I saw the Smash Books in Michaels just after Christmas and thought I'd use one of those. I loved the different pages and backgrounds. I chose the Nature version as it sort of fit me the best.

Here's how I've been using mine...

On my first page I had pasted in a list of goals for each month based off of the book The Happiness Project. This has been an inspirational read for me. I felt like I really related to the author and her honesty about successes and challenges. So for January I was focused on Boost Energy. I've won some and lost some. It was a very tough month. But I've boosted my energy in ways I didn't expect.

Here's a basic page I used to brainstorm my January Happiness goals...

There are many pages where I paste in home decorating magazine inspiration...

And there is one page where I am working on a collage of my 2013 Intentions. This is a project I worked on every year with my clients in our Art Therapy group. I worked with adults that have major mental illness as an art therapist/clinican. Our task was to spend several weeks, using magazine collage, to create a collage filled with big and little intentions (goals) for our new year. I used mine as visual inspiration each year by hanging it next to my desk at work where I could see it regularly. It was a visual reminder of what I wanted to add to my year (rather than take away as is the case with resolutions). It is still a work in progress...

And I'll leave you with one of the pages in the book that has a quote I am finding inspirational right now...