Creativity Crash: Round 1

For those of you who know me well, know that I love marketing. I graduated with a degree in business marketing and landed my first job as an assistant to a Vice President of Marketing. My boss, Claudia, taught me that I need to keep immersing myself into the world to keep the creative spark alive.

In order to make sure we stayed keen with our surroundings, Claudia held a monthly "Creativity Crash" and each person on the team was asked to bring in items that made us stop and think, "Wow, now that's _____ ..." (we could fill in the adjective with whatever emotion the item evoked). More often than not, the items we brought in had nothing to do with work, but somehow by the end of the discussion we came up with several ideas for our projects. The items varied from the expected things, such as pictures, ads and stories to more far-fetched finds like toys and food wrappers.

As I started decorating my house, I noticed that the creative process behind decorating is very similar to the marketing process I experienced at work. I love getting to personalize each space to fit our needs and wants, while fueling my creative side with the décor. That being said, shopping for something like a coffee table for weeks and weeks can be exhausting and, dare I say, mind-numbing. I've noticed that in the middle of my online shopping marathons, I get sidetracked and start reading my favorite home decorating blogs or looking at the obscure items for sale on Craigslist. While some might call it procrastination, I see it as my personal version of a Creativity Crash. I can step out of the world I'm in and get a glimpse of other people's lives. And afterwards, I usually come back to shopping with new ideas and a fresh outlook.

Since I don't have a monthly Creativity Crash at work anymore, I thought it would fun to start my own on here by sharing some of my finds as I venture through the Internet. So with that, here is the first thing I found for Creativity Crash ... enjoy! :)

I recently discovered Catalog Living through the chain of blogs I read. While most of us look through catalogs and dream of the life where we can afford to purchase an $800 coffee table or 20 silver frames for a wall collage, the writer of this blog points out the exaggerations in these pictures and lays out the most hilarious scenarios. Here's a sampling of what she does (the first one is my favorite!).

Fun Fact: Actor and comedian, Molly Erdman, is the author of the blog. While the name might not ring a bell, the Sonic commercials she stars in probably do!