Inspired by...Marie Osmond?

Yes! I of course had seen her before, interviews, dolls on QVC, and so forth. Well last night, I was watching Entertainment Tonight and she got me inspired. I think the thing that made me inspired the most was the quilt she made, which I learned more this morning about, which has some of her mother's things. Also, she said that her new book which comes out in April came about after her home burned down and she lost 30 of her journals. She asked a friend/assistant? if she would write down while she remembered some of the memories, I'm assuming she had written in the journals that were destroyed. The friend sent these in, and now a book will be published based on Marie's memories she had in her journals.

I just loved her memory keeping style. This morning, I did a search, again, to find the video I had seen on ET, I had meant to try and record it later in the night thinking it would be a repeat of what I had seen. Well this morning, I had success in finding not only the videos from ET, but another one by Inside Edition that showed even MORE of her momentos throughout her room.

I share this, because I am inspired by this for several reasons.

I would LOVE to do something like this. I have wanted to sew for some time now. Not that I would necessarily want to do a quilt, but it would be great if I could learn how to sew and be able to incorporate this into my scrapbooking. As I am typing this, I am thinking about Donna Downey's new like of fabric scrapbooks. This would be a PERFECT way to start, without necessarily having to do it with a big sewing machine, or even knowing how to sew, I think. But here is the BIG IDEA, the A HA moment. She takes things that are important and signficant to her and surrounds herself with it, DISPLAYS it. I think of Peter Walsh on the decluttering show and how he tells people, if this thing means something to you, why is it buried in clutter? That it should be displayed, used, or put in a place that shows you value and care for it. This is how I see Marie displaying the things that mean something to her.

I have all sorts of things that I say mean something to me, but they are somewhere, who knows, some buried in clutter, in boxes, in storage in boxes, bags, who knows where. I want to be able to display some of the things that are meaningful to me. I know this won't happen overnight, or even maybe to have it all displayed in a year. This is not to say it's all about the THINGS. I think that many times, and definitely what I could see in Marie's room, these "things" remind us of the people and memories we shared with them that bring us joy. In the case of her mom's quilt, in was a way to remember or memorial to her. In the case of the soon to be released book, it is a reminder to record bits and pieces of your life-and reminds me to stop stressing about it all being perfect in scrapbooking and just write it down, now. So, really, displaying, making, creating, journaling, is all a way to remember the people and the memories we shared with them. Of the lessons learned, the day to day, etc.

Here is part of an interview quote from Woman's Day July 5, 2007:

I know you do a lot of quilting. Have you worked on any interesting projects recently?

I did a quilt for my mother. You know how people scrapbook? I used things like my first dress and the first necklace my dad gave her. You can’t scrapbook that, so I made it into a memory wall quilt. Her favorite song was “I Wouldn’t Trade the Silver in My Mother’s Hair for All the Gold in the World,” so I hand stitched that, and put it on a staff and music notes with strands of her hair. Just wonderful things that were memories of who my mother was as a person. It’s really a neat quilt—very hip, very young, very different, and it shows people how they can save things without putting them into a book and on a shelf.

Here are the videos, yeah for YouTube!
From Entertainment Tonight





From Insider Edition