One night last summer I was playing my usual Hansel and Gretel game online,you know the one, where you start clicking on an interesting link only to find five more interesting links, plus an amazing portfolio of photography followed by a whole slew of craft tutorials you've always wanted to try. And suddenly you're so far into the internet forest you can't figure out how you arrived at Point Z from Point A. To make matters worse, I had forgotten my bread crumbs. Of course, this is easily solved on the spot by carefully preserving one's browser history, if easy and efficient solutions are your thing, that is. I lean toward the sloppy habit of realizing much later that I can't for the life of me remember where it was that I saw the Most Amazing Idea of All Time.

One way to solve this problem, of course, is to bookmark all the Most Amazing Ideas of All Time in your web browser. Eventually your bookmark list is going to take so long to scroll through, though, that you won't even notice that you can't identify half (90%?) of what you saved in the first place.



Yikes. I'm going to go ahead and admit right here that this is but one of many long, disorganized bookmarks list on my computer. You would be correct in your assumption that my system of bookmarking ideas, sites, recipes, tutorials, pages, etc. was broken.

This particular summer night took a different turn, however, and I somehow ended up on the blog of a complete stranger named Rachel Cox (how I arrived there I'll never know) and read a post that began with four life-changing words: "Have you guys Tumbled?" Well, I'd definitely tumbled both down and up stairs (once in middle school, most recently in 2008 in my house in Virginia) but I didn't know another usage for the word. Interest piqued, I read on to find that it (Tumblr) was a place to store images you fall in love with online, and it's great for making sure you cite your sources because it saves URLs as part of the post.

The angels sang for me at that moment.

Let me be clear: I have never lacked for a place to store images and ideas I fall in love with. I have binders filled to the brim with page-protected tear sheets from magazines, sketchbooks, post-it-notes, scribbled lists, mysterious websites and business cards from stores I don't remember visiting... all with the intention of doing something with them eventually. And, sometimes I do. But my ratio of action vs. inaction is rather embarrassing if you count the sheer volume of things I save (evidenced by my bookmarks lists). So discovering a service that provides a visual archive of good ideas and images from the internet? Intriguing.

It's March now, and I actively contribute to three Tumblrs,and feel like I've been more productive and more creative tin the last seven months than I've been in a long, long time. I maintain my own Tumblr where I virtually stash all sorts of random things, a Tumblr with my sisters who live far away (but feel much closer when we share our exciting finds with each other), and a Tumblr through Write. Click. Scrapbook. filled with all sorts of things of interest to scrapbookers. There is something about the format that just clicks for me; it's the same mysterious phenomena that allows me to write regularly on my blog  even though I could never seem to get motivated to put pen to paper in any number of beautiful blank journals in my possession.



Though there are many ways to utilize this free service, I always try to post a photo of the idea I want to save so I can easily find it when I look at the archive screen. It's easy to tag entries, too, so if you're looking for a particular item or craft (i.e. I save lots of images and information about mobiles then tag them for easy reference later) you can do that quickly and effortlessly. Clicking on an image returns you to the original source, whether it's on a blog or some other website.

Three Ways Tumblr Has Made Me More Creative and More Productive

1. Because I am saving items that appealed to me on some level,color, design, content, or whatever,I am far more likely to want to use those items as inspiration, and can do so far more quickly since I don't have to go digging through binder after binder, or worse, through stacks of folded up paper stuffed inside my address book, to find what I was looking for.



Angie and Wendy came to Wyoming for a visit last fall, and we had a great time scrapbooking together. We challenged each other to make layouts on a budget, with a time limit, and based on a theme; a quick scan through my Tumblr archives reminded me of a layout idea I really wanted to try. I love the challenge of turning one good idea into something entirely different and personal to me, and even more so when it takes a half an hour from beginning to end as this page did.

2. I feel like I'm much better at seeing patterns and interpreting them for myself. Though I don't exactly consider myself to be an up-to-the-minute trend-watcher, I do enjoy seeing how a trend I especially love bursts onto the stage and manifests itself among diverse groups of creative people. Take banners, for instance:



Using pennant banners isn't really a new trend,car salesmen have been utilizing this decoration on their car lots for decades,but somehow, it exploded onto the scrapbooking and craft world scene. Suddenly, pennant banners are everywhere. I might look back one day and shake my head at my overuse of this trend, but for now? I'm simply excited to have my finger on the pulse of a trend I absolutely love.




3. I've rediscovered my love of creative efficiency, and have become increasingly better at it because I've been practicing more. Years ago, I faithfully scrapbooked pages inspired by the sketches Becky Higgins created in Creating Keepsakes magazine each month; these remain some of my favorite pages that I've ever made. Somewhere along the line, I stopped saving sketches, though,both hers and, later, my own. I've been paying far more attention to design principles in the last year, however, and Tumblr has motivated me to pick up this old habit once again.







Both the page and the card were inspired by this work I saw at L Palese; I already have two more ideas of how to utilize this basic design into something else entirely. Because I've made it a point to frequently look at my Tumblr images, they stick around in my head longer; this makes it more likely that I'll think up multiple ways to adapt them.

A word of caution, however: inspiration gathering, like eating chocolate, is exhilarating but can ultimately be overdone. An internet friend of mine, Missy Kemp, posted a poignant essay on her blog earlier this year about her quest for the perfect roast chicken recipe despite the fact that she already had a favorite, much beloved at her family's dinner table. The excitement of the search for something better, something more creative, or something else was actually paralyzing her productivity. The goal isn't to collect as many ideas as possible, but to collect ideas that can be internalized and acted upon in a completely unique manner; ideas that help us tell our stories and express our creativity, not ideas that simply collect dust or waste our time.

So with this gentle warning in mind,that idea-collecting isn't all about the quest for more and better, but rather inspiration and action,I've developed a system that is working for me. Will I act on every single thing I save to my visual bulletin board at Tumblr? Of course not. But I am tapping into the very best features for me, and I can honestly say I haven't been so excited to make things in a long time. Why not give it a try and see how it works for you, too?

You can set up your own Tumblr by visiting www.tumblr.com and signing up for a free account in just minutes. Customize your Tumblr homepage or use the default settings,either way you'll be up and running in no time at all. Be sure to check out the 'goodies' section, including the bookmarklet that allows for faster posting from within a website without shuffling back to the main Tumblr dashboard.