Nostalgia Inspiration Continues

Still feeling nostalgic? You can always come here, directly, or via the INSPIRATION page on our website to check out the multimedia support we offer each month to help you dig deep and Explore Your Inner World through scrapbooking.

Here are the Design Team's layouts for the NOSTALGIA kit in our gallery. You'll need to create a login to see them, but trust me, it's worth it! Our designers are so talented...they motivate, inspire and amaze me every day.

Journaling Prompts

Little Girl: What are your memories of being a little girl? Were you cared for and cherished, or were you more of an adult in a child's body? were you shy or outgoing? If you had sisters and/or brothers, were you treated the same way as they were by your parents, or were there differences? Were you a girly girl or a tomboy? Were there strong messages, from parents, grandparents or other adults about what your role was a a child, and about what you believed you could accomplish as a grown woman? If you have a daughter, do you find yourself treating her in very specific ways that are about her being a girl - are there different rules for girls and boys, and are they justified? What would you tell yourself as a little girl if you could go back and talk to her?



The Good Old Days: Nostalgia is a big business - faded jeans, 'retro' style furnishings and TV like 'Mad Men' are a big deal. Why do you think people like to think about the past? Do you think longingly about a time before you were born, about which you've only heard stories? Did you parents and grandparents talk about the good old days, and when you were young, did you get anything of value from these stories, or were they annoying? Can you appreciate them now, even if you didn't then? What would you change about the present to make it more like the past if you could bring back 'the good old days'?



Missing You: When we look back with longing,it's often because we miss a certain person, or how we experienced ourselves with that person, Is there someone you miss from your past? What do you miss in particular - if you had to break it down, is it really that person, who you were at the time, or what they represent?



Looking Back: Are you a person who looks at the past to determine what your future might be like, or do you think the two time periods are unconnected? Is your past, or the past in general, a good indicator of the future? Do you look back and regret, or wish you could change what has already occurred? If you could go back in a time machine, would you, and when in time would your destination be?



Homesickness: Have you lived in another place and now miss it? What about that physical place brings you comfort? Was it the people who were with you when you were there, or the actual geographt that you long for? Is the pace you wish to be the one you grew up in, or somewhere you lived down your path? If you still live where you grew up, why have you stayed? If you don't, why did you leave? What do you think would have happened if you had chosen the other path?



Flashbacks: Does the past ever come back to haunt you? If so, is it in the form of quick flashbacks, surprising moments, or less vivid, softer memories? Are there things from your past you'd like to erase from your memory? Does recalling even difficult events bring you closure or peace now that you can see how far you've come and where you are? How have the more difficult memories of your past impacted who you are today?



Learn History or Be Doomed to Repeat It: All of us can be prone to patterns of behavior, even repeating ones that do not serve us. Are there patterns from the past, either from childhood or later, in adult relationships, that you repeat? How aware are you in those moments that you are replaying the past? Does it take someone else close to you to let you know what you're doing, or do you know, but just can't stop yourself in time? Is there something you learned, positive or negative, from the relationships you saw as a child, between your parents, grandparents or other important adults that has created a pattern, positive or negative, that you follow to this day?

Music

Quotes

Sharp nostalgia, infinite and terrible, for what I already possess. Juan Ramon Jimenez True nostalgia is an ephemeral composition of disjointed memories. Florence King Once Around the Sun - Nostalgia is a seductive liar. George Wildman Ball Imagination equals nostalgia for the past, the absent; it is the liquid solution in which art develops the snapshot of reality. Cyril Connolly Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days. Doug Larson Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. Peter De Vries It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn't wait to leave. Anatole Broyard A society that has made ''nostalgia'' a marketable commodity on the cultural exchange quickly repudiates the suggestion that life in the past was in any important way better than life today. Christopher Lasch It is a curious emotion, this certain homesickness I have in mind. With Americans, it is a national trait, as native to us as the roller-coaster or the jukebox. It is no simple longing for the home town or country of our birth. The emotion is Janus-faced: we are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known. Carson McCullers We seem to be going through a period of nostalgia, and everyone seems to think yesterday was better than today. I don't think it was, and I would advise you not to wait ten years before admitting today was great. If you're hung up on nostalgia, pretend today is yesterday and just go out and have one hell of a time. Art Buchwald Who wants to live with one foot in hell just for the sake of nostalgia? Our time is forever now! Alice Childress I know what it's like to be in one place and dream of another. I also know what it's like to feel that nostalgia is a fairly useless thing because it is stasis. Mira Nair I feel like I've never had a home, you know? I feel related to the country, to this country, and yet I don't know exactly where I fit in... There's always this kind of nostalgia for a place, a place where you can reckon with yourself. Sam Shepard Nostalgia is not what it used to be (La nostalgie n'est plus ce qu'elle etait) Simone Signoret Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity. Robert Morgan Everything can be killed except nostalgia for the kingdom, we carry it in the color of our eyes, in every love affair, in everything that deeply torments and unties and tricks. Julio Cortazar I don't have a great nostalgia for the past. Andy Summers I don't like nostalgia unless it's mine. Lou Reed I prefer the mystic clouds of nostalgia to the real thing, to be honest. Robert Wyatt It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia. Frank Zappa My life is very exciting now. Nostalgia for what? It's like climbing a staircase. I'm on the top of the staircase, I look behind and see the steps. That's where I was. We're here right now. Tomorrow, we'll be someplace else. So why nostalgia? Jeanne Moreau Why have we had to invent Eden, to live submerged in the nostalgia of a lost paradise, to make up utopias, propose a future for ourselves? Julio Cortazar There's a certain nostalgia and romance in a place you left. David Guterson This was nostalgia in the literal Greek sense: the pain of not being able to return to one's home and family. John Thorn I'd rather be homesick than home. Leo Vroman A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. Robert Frost Concepts, like individuals, have their histories and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are individuals. But in and through all this they retain a kind of homesickness for the scenes of their childhood. Soren Kierkegaard Homesickness is nothing. Fifty percent of the people in the world are homesick all the time. John Cheever One's homesickness for Heaven finds at least an inn there; and it's an inn on the right road. Ruth Pitter Stay tuned for the launch of the April 2010 kit, Femininity, tomorrow!