Inside My Inspiration File

In an effort to keep magazines and newspapers from taking over my house, yard and garage, I started clipping my favorite articles and pictures for an inspiration file about five years ago. Now, the file has grown to (at least) several boxes. I wanted to give you a little look inside.

Here are some of the things I pulled out randomly today: A story from the New York Times magazine on lipstick queen Poppy King; A photograph of colored shirts (Great Gatsby, anyone?) in Real Simple; My dream desk, flanked by books and Hermes boxes; There's an Elle magazine book page, which is always excellent. The Prince of Frogtown by Rick Bragg is featured. (Bragg once asked me out on a date, many moons ago); There's a picture of Hayden Panettiere in the ultimate Burberry coat and an inspiration board featured in the April 2008 issue of Domino magazine (don't get me started on how much I already miss Domino); From Bazaar, there's a Fashionable Life profile of Isabel Toledo. And my favorite: A watercolor of a pink coat (from a review of "Drawing Fashion: The Art Kenneth Paul Block.") As usual my eye is drawn to anything pink.

What's In Your Filofax?

I realize this is probably complete decadence, but I've managed to collect seven Filofaxes over the years. I've tried -- lots of times -- to give them up for Palm Pilots and other electronic devices, but I can't.  I use my pink Filofax as an address book, my red one for recipes, and so on. 

My green one is my portable inspiration file.  The contents:  

An old NYT magazine Domains profile of the late John Mortimer (He drank Champagne every morning for breakfast, which I applaud); Lists of interesting words; Various magazine photos; A picture of my husband (featured in an LA Times ad long ago); An Equinox schedule; Megan Stack's fantastic LA Times profile of Vivian Edde; A gorgeous snippet from Michael Cunningham's book, "The Hours;" Harry Eyres' "Autumn and Essences" column from the FT; And finally, a picture of JLo (and butt) to inspire me to go to the gym. (I hate the gym.)

What's in your Filofax?

What's Your Inspiration?

When I was little, I would build inspiration boards on whatever piece of cork I could find.  They became the mediums of self expression and cheer, packed with cards, scraps of wrapping paper, fabric, dried flowers, love notes.  I still have an inspiration board (It's almost as big as the kitchen table now). I will try to get good photos of it for an upcoming post. In the meantime, I wanted to share with you some other boards I spotted around the Internet this week. Which image do you like the best? (The full moon on d.Sharp's board especially caught my eye.) xoxo

1. Bandelle Blog

2. Coach (via Bandelle)

3. d.Sharp Journal