Me too Kathy. I so want to have "original" ideas, but can't! However, if I see something, I have sort of learned to go with the idea and come up with other ways to use the idea. An example would be a pattern for a painting project in a magazine--I will often use the pattern on a different surface and leave some of it off, or add parts from another pattern to it until it fits my project just the way I want it to. (There's nothing wrong with using the pattern "as is", but sometimes I don't like the whole project--only part of it.)

And there's no worry about me seeing something at a craft fair and copying it--I couldn't possibly even if I wanted to because there is just no way I'd remember all the details, and that's what makes a piece special. That and the skill and quality of the work that went into making it.

I've even attended some of those motivational seminars that are supposed to help you "think outside the box"--but I guess it just didn't take. LOL

Luvs

Yes, I can think "outside the box".

I can look at something and picture almost instantly what I can do with it. I don't use items for what they were intended around my home, like I have a bow rake on the wall to hold my pot holders, a feed scoop holds the hand towel in the half bath and an old toolbox holds my canisters (blue Mason jars) in the kitchen. I can look at several different ideas and put them together to create my own. I make up my own patterns for sewing, stitching and painting and didn't understand why everyone else couldn't do the same. I have NEVER used a stencil to do a sign, it's all hand painted. I can picture the perfect paint color and mix up paints to get that colo, no need to have every color of paint they make in that line. Oh, and I can even walk into the store, look at paint chips and pick the perfect color that I've had in mind for a room at home. I thought that was all something every crafter could do and if they couldn't, they just weren't trying. I just thought it was part of being creative. I have really only really begun to learn that not everyone can do that....

That's the nice thing about crafts as opposed to fine arts, is that everybody on every level of creativity can satisfy their creative urges. My mother does plastic canvas cross stitch - which would drive me crazy because I feel it is repetitious and the colors and patterns are all laid out by somebody else. Yet she feels the same happy tingle as an artist who created something from his own mind on a blank canvas, so I think the joy is in the process and not the product.

Yes, I think I do. But, sometimes it can be more of a hinderance than a help. Joy is definitely in the process!!! My favorite project is always what I am going to do next. Enjoy and feel the tingle!!

Sheri