I was perusing my ‘idea file’ when I saw a picture of a small terracotta pot, planted with grass, used on dining table as a place card. On a metal plant marker in the pot of grass was written the name of the guest. This is a clever and fresh idea for a spring party, Easter dinner, perhaps. I get many of my ideas from catalogs, magazines, online, or decorating books, but I like to tweak them a bit. How about party favors? Or Easter gifts for family and friends? The metal plant marker gave me an idea. I wanted a way to visually display my One Little Word, but hadn’t thought of anything just right. Potential suddenly seemed to radiate from my little pots of grass. The new, green life. I ended up with this:
So, for our Project Heidi: Decorating 101 assignment today, I want each of you to start your own idea file. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. A manila envelope. Whatever. I purchased this little file for 99 cents at Staples the other day:
Whenever you have some time, go through any catalogs or magazines lying (laying? that one always trips me up) about your home. When you see something (it can be an add for baking soda for all I care…) that jumps out at you, cut it out and put it in your idea file. It is okay if you don’t know why you like it, or what you will do with it. I’ll give you specific ways to use your file in future lessons. But they won’t work if you don’t have anything in your file!
Pottery Barn catalogs seem to work really well for me, because the pictures show fully decorated rooms, creative displays, and great color schemes, rather than small pictures of merchandise only. And they are free.
This idea file is also a good place to store a thin spiral notebook for writing down decorating and design tips such as the Rule of Three.
The simple candles that I embellished (here and here) also came from my idea file. See, you need to get yours started!