Five ways to Find Inspiration for your Scrapbook Layouts

For the past five weeks, I've been sharing layouts that have been inspired by various, somewhat atypical sources in a series I called Inspiration is Everywhere. Today, I thought I would do a bit of a round-up for you. So here is my list of five different ways to inspire your next scrapbook layout.

1. Mood Boards
Mood boards are everywhere on the internet - just search for them on Pinterest and you will find a wealth of information. Mood boards usually combine several images to evoke a certain mood or feeling. I love using them as inspiration for a layout. This is the page (and a half) that I created using a mood board.

You can see the whole blog post here and watch the process video here.

2. Magazines & Newspapers
The pages of a magazine or newspaper are always laid out in a visually pleasing way. They are very structured and make great "sketches" for page design. Magazines are typically a little bit more loose in terms of structure and I really enjoyed using a magazine layout as inspiration for this page.

I've added layers and "scrapbook-y" stuff to the main design, but I had a great jumping off point. If you want to see the blog post for this layout go here. The process video is here.

3. Story Walk
This may have been my favorite method of finding inspiration. The idea is to take a walk - it could be in your neighborhood, a hike, a museum, or even around your house. Pay attention to the things you see and the emotions it evokes and maybe the story that unfolds. This layout was inspired by a walk that my daughter and I take every week around our neighborhood and the city cemetery (which is near our house).

You can see video of my walk as well as the process video for the layout here and check out the coordinating blog post here.

4. Fine Art
Scrapbooking, to me, is definitely an art form. So it makes sense that you could be inspired by a piece of fine art. My inspiration came from Pinterest, but you could go to your local art museum as well. I was really interested in the texture of paint and the heavy gold, gilded frames you find housing lots of paintings for this layout.

You can see the blog post here and the process video here.

5. Fashion
Fashion fuels a lot of trends that eventually filter down to home decor and paper goods. It takes a little bit of an open mind and some out-of-the-box thinking, but it's a really fun way to start a scrapbook layout. I searched for Spring fashion trends on Pinterest and created this layout based on the inspiration I gleaned.

You can see the blog post for this layout here and the process video here. Most of the inspiration for all of these layouts is pinned on my Inspiration board on Pinterest, if you're interested in checking that out.

On this last layout/video I also had a giveaway for a $20 gift certificate to Scrapbook.com. You can find out if you are the lucky winner in the video below!

Thanks so much for stopping by!