Creative Inspiration – Sunday Morning Coffee

Volume 11

I am so excited to share with you Sunday Morning Coffee. This is a place to share, learn, explain, dream, and have fun. Today I am sharing my weekly thoughts about entertaining, decor, crafts, and recipes, and how I find my creative inspiration.

A Little Bit About Me

Where do I find my Creative Inspiration and Ideas?

I get asked almost every day, “Where do you get your creative ideas for projects?”.

To begin with, I work really, really hard to create and share with you relevant, interesting and actionable content. My mind is always thinking about my next project, whether it is a decor idea, craft, or a party concept.

My goal is to inspire you with ideas that you can do in your own home.

Coming up with ideas has always been the easy part. It’s the implementation, photos, design, editing, writing, and finishing that take most of the time.

How do I Come Up With So Many Ideas?

I thought it might be interesting to understand the idea process on my end.

Sometimes, an idea pops into my head and it is easy to create, photograph and write about. Other times, I might see a picture somewhere, maybe a magazine, Pinterest or on TV and it gets me thinking. How can I create something similar, but completely different?

Everywhere I look, I see ideas. I open the newspaper and read an article, and come up with an idea for a party. Sometimes I see a color combination in a room and decide to use the same combo in a DIY or room remodel.

The ideas are everywhere.

My goal is to always be on the lookout for inspiration. If I see a good idea, I ask myself, can I create something similar, but completely different?

Let me give you a few examples.

Free Stitch Embroidery

I am sharing this example because it shows how ideas kind of “morph”. It’s not often that I come up with an idea that is final on the first thought. Usually, I will let the idea sit for a bit, then brainstorm with Mary Liz (my best friend who works on my team), and eventually, the idea gets to a point where I know it will work.

With free stitch embroidery, it took me a bit of time to get it to where I loved it.

I call it trial and error.

I came to learn about free stitch embroidery for the first time in a magazine. All of the photos featured a large piece of fabric topped with smaller pieces of fabric attached using free stitch embroidery.

This is an example of the free stitch embroidery I saw in the magazine.

I decided to try my own so I cut up some scraps and went for it,

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Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Well, it might have worked but I didn’t like it. The fabric pieces just didn’t look right and the white thread didn’t show at all.

So I went back onto my craft room and decided to use paint instead of fabric. I am an artist and I thought I could create shapes with paint and then use the stitching to create the detail.

I ended up with this.

At this point I knew I was on to something! I had never seen it before and I loved how it turned out.

Since then, of course, I have made a lot more free stitch embroidery pillows.

The Cork Wreath

I saw this wreath on Pinterest and thought I could make something different and larger for Valentine’s Day.

I loved the ombre effect. I had made a cork dartboard a few years before so I had a pretty good understanding of how to make it.

This is what I ended up with.

The Engagement Party

A few years ago we held an engagement party for our son Andrew and his wife Charlotte. I really wanted a long table where all 60 of the guests could dine in our backyard.

I saw this photo on Pinterest and loved it.

After lots of thinking and dreaming I came up with this idea. See how the idea is similar but very different?

I had just bought some porch posts at a vintage sale and was really excited to use them with the lights. I ended up creating somewhat of an “outdoor room”. The evening was so perfect and I absolutely loved everything about it.

As it got dark, it became more beautiful.

Let’s Get Creative Together

Creative inspiration and thinking take a bit of practice. I came up with an idea.

Let’s try this entire thought process together.

I want to do something fun for May Day. As a kid, every May 1st, I would fold a piece of construction paper to make a holder, cut some of our neighbor’s flowers (oops!), and leave a May Basket on our front door when I left for school. I can still remember putting the flowers over the door handle, ringing the doorbell, and running away as fast as I could.

Look at this photo. I found it online at Country Living Magazine.

It’s very similar to the May basket I made for my mom when I was a kid.

So, how can we all make something similar but different?

Here is my idea. Let’s all use this photo as our inspiration and make a fun May basket. I will post my idea on my Sunday Morning Coffee blog post on April 18th.

Send me a photo of your idea by April 14th and I will include it in my blog post. You can email it to me at [email protected].

Let’s show everyone how fun it is to be creative thinkers.

And please remember one thing. This is not a contest. It is a chance to learn and have fun and find your creative inspiration.

Be sure to scroll down to the bottom of this post as I am sharing some of my original thoughts about this project!

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Around Our Home

The Carriage House

You may wonder why I call this space the Carriage House instead of the garage.

Our home was built over 100 years ago, before automobiles, and people used a horse and buggy for transportation. It is hard to even imagine but the automotible wasn’t invented until 1920.

Instead of a garage, our home was built with a Carriage House to store the Carriage. There are large sliding doors on both the front and the back of the structure. Back in the days of horse and carriage, both doors would be open, the horses would pull the carriage through the front door and into the structure. The carriage would be untethered from the horses and the horses would be led to their stalls. The structure is virtually untouched, other than paint. The integrity of the windows and doors remain just as it was built. 

Over the years, the Carriage House has served many purposes. As it was originally intended, it housed carriages. It has most of the time served as storage (which is a polite word for junk). When the boys were small, it often served as a base of some sort during a game of chase or tag. When I was a full-time artist, I cleared out all of the storage items, painted it sage green (which was my signature color at the time), and used the space for not only creating art but for holding workshops. I learned very quickly that artists were passionate about art, but wanted to learn more about marketing themselves and sell their art. I leveraged my many years in marketing to help artists understand marketing and sell their art. I also held workshops all over the U.S., including our home and our beach house.

Because I am no longer a full-time artist, the Carriage House has slowly crept back to storage space with lots of art supplies. 

New Plans for the Carriage House

Now that my children are grown and I am no longer a full-time artist, I wanted to use the space more thoughtfully. It is a beautiful structure and is wasted holding junk (aka treasures and spiders). It has incredible beams and the windows and doors are wonderfully special.

Because I entertain so much, I wanted to convert the space to an entertaining space to hold intimate dinners for groups of up to 10 or 12 people. I envision the space painted in a warm white with a beautiful chandelier and sparkly candles everywhere. With both the front and back doors slid open, this will be a spectacular space for summer dinners with friends and family. I am on the hunt next week in Round Top for some armoire-ish pieces that can be used for both storage and display. I have already purchased a table and several chairs that are on their way from Texas now. 

I am also planning a flower arranging area on one side of the Carriage House. There will also be space to store all of my vases, containers, faux flowers, and floral arranging equipment. I have shelving already in place that I can utilize for storing serving pieces and decor items. It will be like Disneyland for entertaining organization!

I also have a deconstructed couch in the Carriage House that I bought years ago and have wanted either reupholster or slipcover. There is a small vintage wooden chest in front of it to use as a table. This will be amazing to have in the space so that we can work out in the Carriage House or for guests to sit during appetizers.

This project is in motion, so stay tuned for the reveal!

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Looking Back Four Years Ago

Today is the four year anniversary of my first blog post! You can find the post Where It All Began which is dated March 28, 2017.

It is a brief post and I really didn’t know what I was doing but I thought you might enjoy reading it.

It is amazing what this journey has been like. I started out posting about once a week with very short posts. My blog has evolved to a place where I share every day and the posts have certainly gotten a lot longer. (I hope that is ok.)

I never imagined that I could have so much fun sharing all my ideas about our home, crafts, entertaining, decor and recipes.

If you look at this photo from my first blog post, you can see not much has changed in the last four years.

OK, maybe that’s not really true! A lot has changed.

Just not my kitchen.

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Reflections on the Week

Wow! What a busy week we had last week.

I made Copper Foil Eggs, a Spring Hydrangea Wreath (it’s reusable by the way), and Homemade Spring Wrapping Paper.

I also shared an Insider Look at How to Shop a Flea Market, how Outdoor Living Starts with a Green Lawn, and almost thirty ways to Celebrate Spring Time.

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My Favorite Things

Here are four guides I put together of My Favorite Things. Click on any photo to find the items.

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Good Things From Martha (and a Healthy Tip)

Martha Stewart shared a great article about the Anti-Inflammatory Benefits of Turmeric. I take this every day!

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What’s Ahead

This week I am sharing a fun pillow, some really easy easter eggs, a pancake party for the family, a fun spring fabric DIY, an amazing online framing option, and lots about our Waco and Round Top trip!

I promise there is always something new to learn at My 100 Year Old Home.

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One More Thought …

Here’s how I would brainstorm on the May Day basket idea.

• What else could I use to make the basket? Fabric, metal, printed paper, burlap, or ?
• Can I use an entirely different item for the basket?
• Should I use fresh flowers, paper flowers, flowers made out of something very different?

I already have more ideas (in fact, I might even know what I am going to create!).

I hope you will join me!

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Catch up on Sunday Morning Coffee

• Sunday Morning Coffee Volume 11 – Inside the Life of a Blogger
• Sunday Morning Coffee Volume 9 – Live Your Best Life
• Sunday Morning Coffee Volume 8 – Living Green
• Sunday Morning Coffee Volume 7 – Why I Love to Entertain
• Sunday Morning Coffee Volume 6 – February is All About Living Beautifully
• Sunday Morning Coffee Volume 5 – Our Beach House in Ventura, CA
• Sunday Morning Coffee Volume 4 – The Story of My 100 Year Old Home
• Sunday Morning Coffee Volume 3 – I Think I Might Be Martha’s Biggest Fan
• Sunday Morning Coffee Volume 2 – A Tribute to My Mom
• Sunday Morning Coffee Volume 1 – How Chip and Joanna Influenced My Life

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