Love the idea of that - like a roaming collage. Just might try one!

Wonderful ! Love it !

This is so wonderful! I love seeing other people's thoughts in written form. I used to have this SAME sort of book in High School; I had it just because I wanted one and filled it full of thoughts, saved paper scraps, clipped photos and other snippets. I still have that old book.. it's so neat to go back and look through. Today I have an "idea" book that, in the tiniest handwriting I can muster, I jot down ideas that pop into my head and complete the thought with a thumbnail drawing. It contains names I hear that I like, ideas for series of paintings if (/when!;) I get into galleries someday, and the names of animals and plants I find intriguing and don't want to forget to include in a painting eventually. I had to go back and turn my art room upside down to re-collect all my old notes and doodles on lose scraps of paper from years past so I could keep them together in my "idea" book and all in one place. It’s a giant collage and menagerie of messy thoughts. I love it. I love the idea of adding an idea to your book every single day! Thank you so much for sharing this!

It really is the perfect way to remember experiences, thoughts and moments from your life. Dream journals are also fun to keep. GREAT POST!!!!!

Brooke, This is my favorite Storque blog post yet! I've been keeping similar journals for several years--sometimes I add to them daily, sometimes a lot less, but it's always a satisfying experience and a wonderful way to record my creative thoughts. The process also inspires me and always keeps me thinking. Thanks so much for this article. It makes me want to go home and put something down in my book right now! Happy Wednesday! Jeanne RainyPenguinVintage

Very interesting! Love it!

This is the coolest idea! I am stealing it

Beautiful story. I am going to check out Brooke's book. I too tape things into my sketch book with notes. Nice to see someone's process.

love, love love the quote... "to imagine what's possible" Thank you for your story! How wonderful to have these tactile (visual!) reminders of a journey. I kept diary thru HS, but then switched to sketchbooks, now I tend to blog. I miss the tactile experience sometimes. Perhaps it is time, inspired by your story, to get back to creating a visual diary!

I have notes about things scattered from here to there. I going to start putting them in there place, NOW. Thanks for the idea.

collage! collage! collage!

I have a few 3 ring binders (with clear pages) filled with pages and pages from magazines ~ inspirations and ideas for my dream home... and for the home I currently live in. :)

very interesting read! i thought i had moved house a lot!

Very cool.

I love that you have moved 39 times and have it and your life documented. Bravo! I collect objects and images from places I visit and those end up in jars or small drawers, and I've kept a writing journal on and off for years. I have used inspiration binders too. It really helps me clarify what I like.

What a great idea! I'm forever ripping pages out of magazines or newspapers, but the inevitably get misplaced. I saw a story on TV once about a man with a huge pile of spare parts in his yard. He called it his "Library of Visual Solutions." I think that will be the title of my journal.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who does this! I have been collecting images and hand/typewritten notes since having Nikki Giovanni as a writing professor in college. I love your images! Mine are pasted in the pages of old New Yorker magazines...

I fell in love with this idea when a book came out called the Journey is the Destination. Love this idea and it is so inspiring!

LOVE this! Doin it.

Your memoir sounds like a wonderful read. I like the idea of these collections as sourcebooks. I also love the visual nature of of these books - expressing a day in our life, our dreams... not just with language, but through scraps of paper, sketches, magazine clippings...

Excellent quote by Bell Hooks! Such a great post full of inspiration to work, make, create...and record. Brings to mind Warhol's boxes. and how many of us keep these journals in many different forms. I started putting some of my odds and ends and clippings and writings in packages, but recently moving to journal form. I was talking with someone about random things, places I had lived, that I was an artist. Then they said, "that's why you've moved so many times, artists seem to move a lot" I had never thought about it until then.

Can't wait to go out and get a journal - I have collected bits and pieces of paper, cards, torn pages of magazines, feathers, etc. for sooooo many years. I come across them stuck in drawers, boxes, baskets - and I wonder what to do with them. Now I know. Thanks so much. Maybe this will help me figure out what "my style" is and help define who I am.

wow - i just drew a portrait of you! how funny to see your face here! i also have a notebook from my college years that reminds me of your "source books" but it's mostly a concert journal. they are so creative and beautiful!

I have always LOVED this kind of journal...I do the same thing and I can honestly say that they are my most treasured posessions. For a visual person, a collection of images can evoke the same memories as a written record of events.

I like the idea. I used to do something like this when I was a teenager more writing than pictures but plenty of collages. Its fun to look back at what I created. I think I'll start this up again..... I've got to find a focus first... will it be living a natural life, our new life with our new baby, or all and everything in between? Thank you for sharing this with us.

love it!

Brooke this is really inspirational! I might incorporate this to my work space...

What a fantastic idea! I am taken by all things visual, but don't know what to do with these things...be them typography or otherwise. I might just have to start my own!!!

i hav done this in high school for bk lessons!!

awesome I love memory books. I once met a lady who carried with her felt tip pens everywhere she went - and she went everywhere1 - and drew a picture. It was such an amazing way to see the world and it can bring new life even to familiar places.

I do something like this, but my books are full of drawings and ideas with electronic circuits added.

This is a great practice for anybody with creative energies! I've been doing this for about 5 years with fashion collages. Now, I never leave the house to shop for clothing or fabric for sewing without first looking through at least one of those journals. This ensures that I only acquire clothing that defines who I am.

Brooke, I always dreamed of living in NY even to this day. Thanks for the glimpse into your visual records. I must get your book so that I can continue...

Journaling, in art and writing, has been such a valuable thing for me. Both as a person and as an artist, I would not be the same without them.

Nice images! thanks for the post!

So inspiring and thought provoking!

Great article! As someone who is lousy at keeping a written journal, I've always found a visual journal much more fun. It's a catalog of influences for me.

Love the advice of that teacher! Thank you for sharing your journals, though I feel like a voyeur into such a personal area.

What a cool way to do journals. Now I need to go out and buy a blank book and fill it with my imagination!

This makes me want to collage so bad.

What a great way to be creative everyday, I may need to start doing this. thank you for sharing this!

the voyeur in me says thank you.

Lovely idea :) takes me back when I was doing it :)

Well is sounds as though i was never as loyal to it as you, but I also use this to help me refocus myself and keep track of my tohughts

i used to do this all the time, and wish i had kept it up. i have a terrible memory and it was a good way for me to remember thoughts and ideas. it is often a surprise when i go back and read them. i must start again.

This is brilliant! Manifesting a wonderful life through the images and words in your journals. I need to live by this.

Your journals sound much more interesting than my trail of post-it notes...

What an interesting idea; make your own portable, personal, and completely unique record of your life during that particular journal's time. Fabulous, thank you for sharing!

I do the same.. it's very relaxing.

I love the idea of this! I couldn't do it on a daily basis, but I can definitely see how this would make decision making easier. You can start to see patterns and learn things about yourself that you might not otherwise be able to do. I love to write, but I like that it's visual too. It works both sides of the brain! Thanks for sharing and have a great elopement!

Very cool idea! I'm going to try to do this. What a great treasure to leave for my kids as well.

This is too awesome!

Oh, thank you VERY MUCH for sharing your books! That's what I really need to do! I use to write my diary since I was teenager, but nowadays it's not diary anymore. Maybe I should call it "monthly", instead. And I have the ridiculous mania of keeping all paper I've found everywhere and magazines that I know I'll never read again. So, nothing better than creating books like yours! Hugs, Tati

I'm inspired! One of my favorite blogs in a while ;)

Awe...Brooke has painted a beautiful portrait to share with us all! Blessings Brooke! Come visit our blog, become part of our family and live out life with us here at LeafandInk! http://leafandink.wordpress.com/

I do this too :) It's an amazing thing that I think everyone should definately try ^_^ So expressive :)

This is a very cool idea. I have always been into 'inspiration boards' and this is similar to what I've been doing since I was a teenager: cutting up pics from misc. magazines or sketching something and taping them to my wall (my mom hated it!!) until I ran out of space. Thanks for sharing yours. Definitely inspired me to return to this habit but this time, I'm using your idea of putting it into a book:)

VERY IMPORTANT - bell hooks spells her name in lower case, ALWAYS. Someone best change it quick smart!!! Otherwise a lovely post, thank you x

Great Idea. I do something similar to this to preserve our family memories.

Great article! I used to do source books like this in college, but now I have a magnetic board instead. It saves time and fits right next to my easel!

how inspirational! It's great to see an artist taking such meaning and inspiration from everyday images. Great work!

Great idea, reminds me of when I was in college and we did mood boards. I always found them quite effective : )

So good!

the collage clipboard is wonderful. vintage paper is my thing, hence the name Paper Picker.

Thanks for sharing! I have a similar book/ journal in which I write quotes, thoughts, and paste news clippings into. It's fun to flip through the pages and see how you have evolved as a person as your interest and prespective on things change. :)

I agree! Some people are more visual and other people are more verbal. Collecting images like writers collect smart quips is a great way to inspire the soul!

It is kinda like my habits! I order fashion magazine and cut good design bag picturs. I have an album full of pictures of unique design bags. When I make my purse, I always look through my album to get inspirations!

This is a fantastic idea....what a great summer keepsake for kids...or even all year long. I have a collage I made years ago folded up with my old pictures...it's fun to "find it" every now & then & remember the time I made it and the images & drawings I chose. Thanks for sharing your story! Very inspirational!

Thanks for sharing!! I really think a lot of people would benefit form doing something like this. I always save images and things and don't know what to do with them, and now I have something new to try out. Thanks

That's a cool idea! Thank you for sharing it!:)

Reminds me of Dan Eldon's "The Journey is The Desitnation".

I love this idea! I keep a box under my bed of ideas I find, pictures I like, and projects I can do later. A bit like this, but with more of an inner monologue. A friend of mine does something similar to this by decorating her french notebook throughout the year with different images she likes. Its got a few layers by the end of June.

I love that you're writing about this. Having gone to art school and every professor telling you about the importance of keeping a sketchbook, I can definitely relate, and am trying to keep up one of my own. 1 in progress, many more to come!

Great article. I keep journey like these as well. I paste whatever that I find interesting from magazines to newspaper. It becomes a great references for me.

my daughter and i started our source books last night. an hour of sweet bonding. thank you for the inspiration.

what a beautiful idea! Really want to make a collage now! going to buy a nice chunky notebook :) thanks for such an lovely post!

I love this idea, and I've realized that I've been doing something similar for years. I have a collection of written journals, but I also have sketchbooks which I've kept since I was an architecture student. When I started printmaking, the two passions merged into a single book. I love to go back through them and find sketches, notes, and clippings from both parts of my life, side by side. The other night, I was searching for notes from an etching class that I took in 1997, and found random ideas about what I wanted my architectural career to be like in the future. It's a lovely record of your own thought processes and evolution as an artist.

I have a dream house book just like this! Well, a few actually. My beach house, mountain home, country getaway... i've been dreaming up these homes for the last ten years. When I have the house to myself, instead of turning on the TV and take out my books and try to piece together a floor plan! I actually now have the land for the country getaway... if I can just nail down that dream floor plan.... glad to hear i'm not the only one who does this sort of thing... i get some crazy looks when i mention my "dream books". But how will it ever manifest if you don't plan it out, right??!!

This reminds me of my journals. I have these little books tucked all over the house. Some alongside the cookbooks in my kitchen others in the library and of course two or three on my nightstand. They're like mini scrapbook/collages of me. It's an artsy way to track where you've been and what you're experiencing in life. I will include everything from newspaper articles, my own thoughts and feelings, quotes and photographs. I think this is such a fun thing everyone should try it. Next entry for my closest of journals, "The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is — it’s to imagine what’s possible.” — Bell Hooks. Thanks for the quote and your story!

I get bogged down with a written journal or a drawing journal. I love the freedom to just add whatever and write/paint whatever. So inspiring!

Great - I have been meaning to start a similar type of book myself - this was a great reminder :)

Learned to keep journals for sewing & home decor projects. Love the look on life - like raw scrapbooking.

It's nice to here that people make there living thruogh still make time to do artisitic things just to do them. I loved the idea that collecting images is a tangible way to help in creating the world you want to see.

love it

Hmmm, interesting.

I could look at images of these books all day!

Wonderful, simply wonderful. What a great teacher you had, who knew the influence she would have on the rest of your life and now on all of us. I had a small collage journal like this and it was lost in a move. I missed it for years and would love to see it again. I don't know why I've never done another one but now I'm feeling so inspired to do so! Really enjoyed this post.

I once worked in a building scheduled to be torn down. I collaged one wall of my office. When we moved, I felt I had lost an important expression, and continued in journals. I now use journals to store ideas, ripped out images, words, pieces of articles I think are well-written. I go through them to create smaller, one-idea journals I make myself. You have inspired a lot of people--thank you!

Very cool! I love that you've kept them all even thru so many moves over the years. It's great to be able to look back at the things that have inspired us!

love, love, love, LOVE this!!! I have kept this sort of book since I was 13 years old, and it's amazing to look back at them for inspiration, to see how far I have come, andto relive important memories. Really enjoyed this post!

mrkd

I haven't kept a book like this since high school. This is so inspiring. Doing it.

so glad I stumbled upon this article tonite! love the idea...i did this years algo but stopped - now i think i will try again...its a good way to dream! I have a ton of postcards too that I want to do something with and this will be a perfect place for them.. thanks!

This sounds like such a wonderful thing. I don't know where to start my life is pretty boring and humdrum but I'm looking for a new hobby. Maybe this is it. Now where to begin?

I absolutely love this idea! I've kept journals for years with little hand-drawn pics of holiday family events, or eclipses and meteor showers, etc. but I like the idea of using other media. This opens up my view and I see a whole new opportunity to set the cre8eve spirit free. Thanks! I had a teacher who taught us to write by thinking of a subject and "free-writing" everything that came to mind before beginning an outline or structure of any kind...and I loved him for that. I still use that method. Thanks again for your inspiration!

This is the perfect solution to my ever growing problem of wanting to keep all my ideas together before they fly away!!

I do the same...and I thought I was strange :D