A box of inspiration ...

Today is Thought Provoking Thursday with Doris who has asked us what inspires you to create?

Obviously like Doris I can be inspired by lovely scrap products, eye catching layouts in magazines, by the world I live in or the songs I hear. I can be inspired by memories and the need to tell a story. I can be inspired by others and what they say or teach.

All of these things are probably fostered in me by a desire to pass the stories down, to document my children's lives and my own and my husband; to pass to them the memories of my own parents and my grandparents. You see when I cleared out the family home after my father had passed away I was left with a box of old photographs - some in packets, some loose; very few with notes on them - my childhood and their lives in a box. No stories written down for me to tell, no thoughts on what they were thinking when they took each picture; their fears, their joys, what drove them, what made them sad, happy. No memories to share. I guess I am probably luckier than most because I was interested in family stories and I listened when my parents told me things about their past and I have a good memory. I'm getting those stories down onto layouts now; those and documenting my own life and the lives of my children.

So what inspires me to create? A box of photographs and a desire to pass more than this onto my children when my time comes.