Where Does a Busy Mom Find Inspiration?

I believe that inspiration is an essential component to creativity, and I believe that creativity is an essential component to creating a happy and fun home for my family.

Here's the problem: in a house like mine, it's easy to get caught up in covering the basics, skimming the surface and just getting through the day. I could spend weeks without seeing or doing anything inspiring if I let myself.

I got any early start yesterday and spent the day on location in St. Helena shooting beautiful spreads in a beautiful house.

Watch this video for a glimpse of the location. That experience should hold me for awhile.

On the weeks I'm not so lucky, I have to work a little harder to find my inspiration. Good sources are:
The Local Farmer's Market

Mine is in Danville, yours can be found at the Local Harvest website.
Experiencing the beautiful colors, happy people and delicious smells are my favorite way to start my weekend. Because of my regular trips to the Farmer's Market, I use a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables in my kitchen decor. The colors look pretty and my children are reminded to eat an apple occasionally.

The Local Flower Market

Mine is in San Francisco, yours can be found on the CitySearch website just by typing "flower market" and your city name.
On the days I'm lucky enough to start my day at the San Francisco Flower Market, creativity reigns! Regular visits to the flower market inspired the garden in the windowsill of my kitchen. Katie is in charge of helping JP take good care of that garden.

Any Museum

In San Francisco, there are hundreds of beautiful museums to choose from. Museums in your city can be found at the Museums in the USA website.

A recent trip to the deYoung to see the Dale Chihuly exhibit inspired me to build a wall like this in Sun Valley for my quilts, blankets and throws, which are in constant use in that house:

I'll be working on that when we're on vacation next week.

A trip to the SFMoMA with Andie to see a Rothko exhibit reminded me that I need to do some curating of the Furber Family Museum of Modern Art. Katie has yet to have her art displayed in the hallway with the other masterpieces.


Today's inspiring project will be a trip to the local craft store for paint, then a session with the artist, then an installation of the artist's works. The true inspiration, though, will come from the happy smile on Katie's cute face when she sees her works hanging with the other artists.

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