Category Archives: guests

Hi there!  I’m Kristi from Life Through the Lens.  I’m grateful to be here.  Thanks so much Eadaoin.

The simple art of creating inspires and motivates me.  I enjoy the planning, gathering, making, completing, sharing, giving…basically the whole process.

One of my favorite quotes about creating says, “The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul.  No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before.  The bounds of creativity extend far beyond the limits of a canvas or a sheet of paper and do not require a brush, a pen, or the keys of a piano. Creation means bringing into existence something that did not exist before – colorful gardens, harmonious homes, family memories, flowing laughter.”  ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

• Make an inspiration file   

You’ll need a place to keep your images that you find inspiring.  It can be a file, notebook or a folder.  Every time you find something that inspires or intrigues you put it in your inspiration file.  You can also save your online inspiration.  Here are a few websites for visual bookmarking or online inspiration files:

• Make an inspiration or mood board

I love looking in magazines for inspiration and they never fail to provide loads of beautiful images. When I get my new issues I start ripping out pages that I want to keep.  They either go straight into my inspiration file or I cut them out and use them for my inspiration board.  You can also add so many other things as well such as:  photos, postcards, tags, flowers, buttons, paintings, fabric, wallpaper, drawings, notes, quotes, etc.  

   Gather your pieces of inspiration and paste them to a poster board, tape them to your wall or pin them to a cork board.

Here are some examples:

 

‘create’ mood board by polkadotandplaid

board, not bored – by sfgirlbybay

BYW Mood Poard Project – by LittleL (Little Letters)

• Flickr

Flickr is an image hosting website and online community.  I have learned a lot by interacting with others on flickr:  photography basics, new techniques, photography terms, and software & processing tips. I’ve found it very helpful to get feedback on the images I’ve taken.  It’s helped me learn what works and what doesn’t.

Here is a helpful blog post on the dos and don’ts of flickr from the Diva’s and Dreams blog.

Some favorite images from flickr…

1. Inspired…, 2. 6.25 I love old things…, 3. There is something magical about a Daisy that just makes me happy., 4. … I found that while the camera does not express the soul, perhaps a photograph can., 5. I Hate Rain, 6. Wishing you blue skies from my argoflex seventy-five!, 7. there is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness. ~ han suyin, 8. “Look and think before opening the shutter. The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera”, 9. Have you ever seen a flower down, Sometimes angels skip around, And in their blissful state of glee, Bump into a daisy or sweet pea….

• Set aside a time and a place to create

Obvious I know.  But, I have to set time aside for creating or life gets in the way and my creativity just doesn’t happen.  So, make an appointment with your creative self.

I believe that it also helps if your space is free from clutter-the mind works better.
Here are some lovely creative spaces…

• Creative challenges

When my friend, Melissa, approached me about doing a photography collaboration with her I was overjoyed.  It was just what I needed to get my creative juices flowing again.  Each week we have a prompt and then we combine our interpretations in a diptych and share with our readers.  We’ve also invited everyone to participate.  I’ve discovered that I work better when I am accountable to someone, I have clear deadline, and a goal to work towards.

Here are some other great creative challenges:
simply hue creative challenge
the shutter divas
shutter sisters one word project

Here is our diptych for the prompt – ‘together’…

• Be yourself

This is the most important part of creativity and one that I still struggle with…

“Eventually I discovered for myself the utterly simple prescription for creativity: be intensely yourself.  Don’t try to be outstanding; don’t try to be a success; don’t try to do pictures for others to look at – just please yourself.” ~Ralph Steiner
 

I hope these tips help and inspire you on your creative journey…

Hello lovely readers of City of Blackbirds!  My name is Sandy and I blog over at Sandy a la Mode.  I am so honored to be guest posting over here for Eadaoin!  I absolutely adore her pictures and her beautifully written posts, don’t you?

Growing up, I never really considered myself a crafty or artsy person nor did I like writing.  I was pretty much always a math and science girl who loved taking pictures of everything, hence why my college friends called me “picture queen”.  It wasn’t until I got engaged two years ago that I was pretty much forced to use my creative thinking skills to plan a wedding.  Sure, I’d always loved planning events, but having to come up with color schemes, ceremony decorations, invitation designs, centerpiece designs…that was all way over my head! But I took on the challenge, and six months later we were wed!

Shortly after, I faced a creative void. I didn’t realized how much I had enjoyed all of that designing, color scheming until it was all over!

Around that same time, my friend and I went to go see the movie Julie and Julia, a movie about a girl who blogged her way through a cookbook.  And then the light bulb flicked on.  Maybe I should start a blog and document my new creative ventures?  Genius!  And what would those creative ventures be? 

Well, since I’ve always had a love for photography, why not actually get better at it and learn the ins and outs of ISO, exposure, white balance, and aperture with a DSLR?  To add on to that, I wanted my camera to feel special, to stand out from the others, so I asked my mother-in-law to teach me how to sew so I could make a personalized camera strap cover.  And lastly, I needed something to take pictures of, so in the spirit of Julie and Julia, I decided to add delicious recipes tested and photographed by me to the blog!

In the past 10 months, I’ve blogged an average of five days a week and with so many posts, it’s not always easy to come up with content.  I’ve blogged about everything from Brazilian Cheese Bread, my attempts at making macaroons, the flowers in our backyard, our basement renovation project, and my favorite sweater dresses.

I know it may sound cliché, but I find inspiration from everywhere!  But if I had to narrow it down and name a few for you, here are some things I find that help inspire me:

Love – My family and friends have been some of the biggest supporters of my blog since the beginning.  My brother-in-law is my webmaster and designer, without him, I wouldn’t even have known where to begin!  Without my husband’s copy editing skills, many of my blog posts may be unreadable due to poor grammar, kidding. 

My sister-in-law and close friends always leave the sweetest comments on my posts and are a huge source of encouragement.  I love how my mom reads every post and gives me verbal comments over the phone (but never leaves comments on the blog).  It makes me wonder who else is out there reading too that I don’t know about! ;)  And my nephew, the best thing about him is seeing him grow up (and documenting it in pictures), he just brings so much joy to my life!

Traveling – Between business trips and attending weddings, I’ve been fortunate enough to travel what seems like the world. Seeing different cultures, eating local foods (like pigeon in Egypt), and meeting all types of people can really open your eyes to a lot of things.

Blogs – I love reading all types of blogs!  I turn to wedding inspiration blogs to learn how to be more creative with my photos.  I read food blogs so I can learn new recipes.  I read craft blogs and have high hopes for attempting the millions of tutorials I have bookmarked (I’ve only had time to try a few). 

I read design blogs so I can learn about the colors and patterns that would work well in our house.  And I read fashion blogs so I can break out of my solid color, no-print wardrobe and feel confident about it.  There are just so many blogs out there and I am always on the hunt for new ones to change up the way I am inspired.

All of these things have truly shaped my blog and ultimately the person that I have become.  So if you ever find yourself in a blogging slump, I challenge you to go out and try something different: take the scenic route to work or spend a day clicking through a fellow bloggers’ blog roll or make small talk with a random person. 

Who knows…you may find something new that inspires you! :)

xo,

Hello City of Blackbird readers, it’s Rhianne here from For the easily distracted… !

First I am absolutely delighted to be kicking off this series for Eadaoin. I remember when I first saw this blog and I completely fell in love with the photos and as time has gone along, I have come to think of Eadaoin as a wonderful friend.

When it comes to inspiration, I’ve always been an arty person – when I was little I remember my Grandad taught me how to draw a train and another friend taught me how to colour between the lines and after that, there was no stopping me. This continued until College where I fell in love with oil painting and then progressed to University where I studied design and completely loved it.

At College and University it was easy to be inspired, I had tutors, friends and constant resources including libraries and galleries of work. Too many ideas would be dancing around in my head. However once I had finished University and entered the world of work, my inspiration completely dried up… alot of my friends moved away, my job was repetitive and dare I say it, dull.

…and that is when I stumbled onto blogging… and really that is completely where my inspiration stems from now.

After starting my blog last year, my life has completely changed

I now have a massive camera collection,

I’ve travelled to new places and recorded everything about them on my blog.

I’ve made friends all over the world.

I am obsessed with different types of film photos and light…

I spend so much of my time on Etsy and Flickr.

I am constantly thinking of how to better my blog and in turn myself.

My favourite thing about inspiration is that it really is everywhere around you – from the grass under your feet – to the constantly changing clouds in the sky – all you have to do is look for it – or look at something differently…

Sometimes inspiration will hit you when you least expect it – when you are walking to work or having a shower… and sometimes it can take a while to see things in the way that you need to, however, inspiration is there – you just need to find it and know how to apply it to your goals…

Starting a blog and reading other blogs has given me goals that I never imagined I would have before and all of a sudden I am exposed to all kinds of inspirations I never could have imagined were there and now I can’t imagine my life without them!

Rhianne x