Challenge #99 week of 22nd July 2013

ETA: Whimsical Musings prompt #100 will be posting week commencing 19th August 2013. Things are taking a little longer than planned to organise! Hope to see you back here next Monday!

Happy Monday everyone.

First of all, a little announcement.  See that number at the top, in the subject line? You know that #99? Well, what does that mean?

.... YES! It means that our next prompt will be a full

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles  /  FreeDigitalPhotos.net

And you know me well enough to know that I intend to celebrate!

I want to really shout from the rooftops that we have 100 fabulous, inspiring prompts to share with you all and that this marks almost 2 years of Whimsical Musings!

So, I'm going to take a short break after this prompt in order to get everything straight and organised for a fun WEEK of inspiration and a surprise or two that may or may not include a giveaway. And I know how much you all love surprises... I mean giveaways!

That means that prompt #100 will be scheduled for the week commencing August 12th so you better mark that on your calendar with a big exclamation mark.

But in the meantime, here is our prompt for this week.

It's hot round here. Now it may not be unusual for it to be hot where you are, but here in (relatively) northern Europe, a heatwave is something to get excited about. Or in my case, annoyed with after the first day and a half! I hate being too hot. It makes me grumpy. And it's been hot round here for days and days and days. It feels like forever but of course, it's only been a couple of weeks :-)

Now, we've had prompts about ice-cream, summer memories, beaches, seasonal food. What's left?

Summer drinks.

I'm sat here with a cold, cold glass of Schweppes Bitter Lemon and it's so refreshing. I might even break out an ice cold beer later. And hopefully before R departs for even hotter climes on his monthly trip out East, I'm hoping for a cocktail or two to keep me going. Over the years, I've done a few layouts featuring "the cocktail" and that might be the direction I take. Or maybe good old German beer. Or just a refreshing glass of water.

Of course now I want to find one I can only find this layout! It's old but you get the idea.

Wimbledon Martinis

Maybe you want to take the colour scheme from a drink or label from a bottle. Maybe you want to talk about your drinking habits or your drink of choice. What about taking inspiration from a drink advert or the flavours or traditions? There is a myriad of ways to take this and I'd LOVE to see where you go with it.

Strawberry Bowle (Strawberry beer)

My favourite Weizen beer.

And if this prompt seems a little beer heavy, I live in Germany - the land of the best beer in the world so it can only be expected!

Go on, treat us to some creative inspiration from your very own summer drink fave.

Challenge #98 week of 15th July 2013

Morning everyone.

So, it would appear that I can get a prompt up but not much else right now!

I managed to fulfill my new DT kit commitments recently, but no other scrapping has been possible. The list of catch up prompts is getting longer! But all the more fun for when I DO have time but need some inspiration. He he!

I'm thinking that everyone is busy. It's summer and I certainly notice the difference in my mail box, the galleries, the DTs, pretty much everything.

Not that life is any different for me in the summer - no time off or holidays planned for us :-( !

What has been different for me is the constant trail of (welcome) visitors to my door the last three months! There has hardly been a weekend when there hasn't been an international visitor (or three) or a returned loved one needing my attention for as long as I can remember. It's been amazing to see everyone and we've had such fun just hanging out, not doing a lot except eating, and just catching up. There are a few photos and many memories.

So this week, that's what I'd like to inspire you... visitors, house guests, sleepover friends or pj party mates... however you want to take it is fine by me!

I have a BIG family (for current times) and now the next generation has started, it's getting bigger. And every member (but one) has been to visit at least once in recent past. And hopefully, the last sister, BIL and gorgeous nieces and nephew will pop in next month for a few days. So that means I have SO much inspiration for this one. Let's see how I manage.

I wanted to include a photo for this post but can't find one suitable! Let me just add a happy snap of a visitor to my balcony last summer..

Challenge #97 week of 8th July 2013

What a weekend it's been round here.

We are by no means big sport fans but it's been nothing but since Thursday.

Being British, no summer is complete without Wimbledon and first there was a lovely, young, fresh German girl who had knocked out one of the Williams sisters and then went on to win her semi-final with great pazazz making her the first German in the finals of Wimbledon since the heroine of German tennis and everyone's darling, Steffi Graf.

And then, with the hopes of the nation on his shoulders to make British sporting history, Andy Murray won his semi-final game to get to the final for a second year in a row. So we were all set up for a possible German ladies' tennis win on Saturday and a possible British men's win on Sunday.

And if that wasn't enough, it was the German Formula 1 with Sebastian Vettel (German) in pole position hoping for the first European race win for two years. Phew. It was enough to make you tired just thinking about it.

In the end, young Sabine Lisicki was outplayed by French Marion Bartoli but charmed the crowds all the more with her emotional fight to the end.

And Andy Murray? The boy did good! He won the Wimbledon Men's crown for the first time in 77 years! Not since Fred Perry won in 1936, if you can believe it, has the home crowd had its win. (Just for info, the last ladies' winner for Britain was 1977 which is still an awful long time ago!!)

And Seb Vettel won his race too so there was really something for everyone round here and we all felt very emotional and patriotic.

For a non sporty househouse, that's not all bad.

So, with a nod to this monumental weekend, I'd like to challenge you to be inspired by sport!

Make a sporty page, make a page about your love for a particular team, be inspired by team colours, the layout of the court/pitch/place even.

Take this inspiration to the winning line!

Don't forget to share over at Flickr in the gallery with the tag WM#97.

Challenge #96 week of 1st July 2013

Happy July!

Are you all ready for the 2nd half of the year and for this week's prompt?

This is the fourth blog post I've written today so I'm keeping this one short and to the point.

I was busy preparing my July Counterfeit Kit over this weekend and I decided to include a whole batch of printables for Project Life style journalling cards and filler notes (I used these notes from Pinterest here and these from this blog here - they are gorgeous - all of them!). And the inspiration kit we were given had two sheets of cut apart papers - a bingo card sheet by Simple Stories paper and a bits and pieces sheet by Glitz.

So many scrapbook paper manufacturers are following this trend at the moment with cut apart sheets forming major parts of many collections. Simple Stories have been doing this right from the beginning with Echo Park, Dear Lizzy, Amy Tangerine, Authentique and in fact, almost all the main players joining in to some degree. I'm a sucker for them and when I flip through my stash I have page after page after page of them. Most of them uncut :-(

Now, I have a full set of Project Life products to start my very own album but so far, I haven't got around to it! I'm a bit hopeless with actually starting something new. And it's the middle of the year - I find myself thinking that I should wait for January. But that isn't what this prompt is all about.

What I'd like you to do this week is to use cut apart elements on your projects. On any project except a Project Life spread. A scrapbook layout, a mini-book or even a card. Get creative with incorporating journalling notes, bingo cards, cut out polaroids or just decorative blocks.

Don't forget to share your creations with us over at the Flickr gallery with the tag WM#96.

See you there.