Challenge #104 week of 23rd September 2013

I need a list. A list where I keep all my ideas for prompts. A list just to get stuff saved and not forgotten. I lay in bed and came up with a dozen different prompts for this week, but can I remember any of them?? Of course not....

Now, get those brain cells working.

Actually, there is one and I know it's a bit "out there" but try it - just for me!

I was watching Oblivion on Saturday night. I'm a huge TC fan and had been really looking forward to it even though the reviews were pretty so so. But if he's in it, I know I'm going to love it. Now Sci-Fi isn't really my favourite film genre either but again, if he's in it, I watch it. Do you see a pattern there! Ha ha!

But really, what has all this Tom Cruise stuff got to do with anything? Well, during the film he had flashbacks to a memory he thought he didn't have.

And there we have it. I want you to go back in time to one of your own flashbacks.

You know the ones. You're standing in a queue thinking of nothing in particular and suddenly you think, for no particular reason, of a sunny day back when you were 7 and you were sitting in the front garden playing school with your teddies. Or that time when you were at the back of the class laughing silently so hard you had tears streaming down your face because the poor teacher had said something ever so slightly riské. Or when you were sitting across the table from the love of your life at a restaurant and you were wearing that new dress you'd just bought and the food was so spectacular.

Just ordinary snippets of your life.

They come into your thoughts from nowhere and very often, they are gone again like a wisp of smoke before you can hold onto them and realise what they were. Like dreams when you've just woken up they slip away even while you're still thinking about them.

Pay attention this week to these little flashbacks and try to hold on to one of them for a page.

Don't forget to link up over at Flick (here) with the tag WM#104. Personally, my biggest problem for this prompt will be which one to grab. This happens to me all the time so watch this space.

And just because I like to have a photo in every prompt, here is one I took last year on 23rd September. And just seeing it gave me a flashback to another deer encounter I had previously which made me realise that I really do live somewhere very different from my hometown. Even though I've scrapped this photo before, I could really use it again for this flashback story. Mmmm ... food for thought.

We have winners!

Well, our centenary celebration is well and truly over!

I enticed you to join in on the fun and create a layout based on any of the previous 99 Whimsical Musings prompts for a chance to win this little collection:

And you had another chance to win this selection (if I don't nab the bows before they make it into the envelope!) if you created a project based on any of the 6 prompts for the 100 prompt celebrations:

I was thrilled to find that we had 16 layouts in the gallery based on one of the first 99 prompts we've posted here on the blog...

And the name pulled out of the basket is.....

Huge Congratulations to Tara who has been faithfully working through old prompts since she joined our group and we love to see these older challenges popping up. "Toothless" is a great layout and made me smile as soon as I saw it in the gallery. Tara wins the My Mind's Eye Collectable goodies.

And then I was even MORE thrilled to find 17 project in the gallery inspired by our six 100 prompts

I made sure I gave it a good shake

And the name pulled out of the basket is.....

Even HUGER congratulations to Lynette for her Polish tradition layout. This is the second prize Lynette has won for this super fun, happy, bright, fabulous layout as it was the first uploaded into the gallery after our celebration and for that she won a spot prize! Lynette, I hope your postman has a strong back! Ha ha. The Maggie Holmes for Crate Paper goodies will be on its way to you soon.

And just because it was so much fun pulling names out of the hat, I decided to throw all the entries into the basket one last time and pull a surprise name out of the pot...

And our last lucky, surprise winner is....

Waves and congrats to Ali! She contributed so many layouts to the gallery these last few weeks that it thrilled me to pull her name out and look, she won with a layout based on our FIRST prompt - destiny or what?!? Ali, I will pick something up from the shop for you when I'm there at the weekend :-)

To all three winners, please email or Flickr mail me with your snail mail address and as soon as I have a moment to breathe, I will be getting goodies in the post to you!

I want to thank ALL you loyal readers and contributors to our gallery for all your inspiring creations. You are the reason I continue with this creative endeavour and our little corner of the internet means more to me that you can know. Thank you for all 33 links - they were all perfect and made me happy with each and every upload.

Remember that just because the prizes have been distributed doesn't mean that it's the end of the fun. You can check out all the previous prompts up at the top of the blog on the "Previous Prompts" page and join our happy group over at Flickr (here) to browse our incredible gallery (here). We intend to keep on going to the next 100 celebration and I hope you will all be there to join in.

Prompt #103 week of 16th September 2013

Welcome back to another Monday and another prompt.

There's been a flurry of activity in the WM Flickr Gallery this week which might have something to do with the two great prize giveaways that I have to draw later today - he he! So, if you have made a layout for one of the 6 WM#100 prompts or maybe one of the previous 99 prompts but haven't yet uploaded your creation into the gallery, NOW is the time! It's not too late as long as this post is the top post. But the clock is ticking and once I start the draw, it'll be too late. :-)

Some of us are counting down to the beginning of the Scrap Happy members only LOAD in October and if I'm not wrong, our intrepid WM friends, Lynette and Leslie will be coming up with 31 amazing prompts.

Now, I've not completed a LOAD for the last three now but it's not a problem. I will join in and just have fun with it. But when I think about preparing for LOAD, there's a few strategies I have for helping myself along the way. And one is sketches.

So today I thought I'd share a sketch for our prompt.

There are so many sketch sites around and usually my go to inspiration is Page Maps - still producing great sketches every month. However, checking out my Pinterest sketch board (you can see it here) I noticed that there were a few from Citrus Twist kits. They have a nice, small collection of unusual sketches and so I thought that this one might be as inspirational for you as it was for me.

Find the blog post for this sketch here

Take it literally, or put your own twist on it. Use it as a spring board and take it in a completely different direction, turn it, flip it or change out the number of photos. Do what you do but be inspired by this.

Don't forget to share over at the Flickr Gallery (here) with the tag WM#103. Can't wait to see.

Tune in later to see who were the lucky winners.

#100-6 Inspired by 100%

I am lucky enough to get a lot of presents from my husband who is travelling a lot right now for business and who likes to brings goodies back for me. It's fun to see what's caught his eye and maybe even to see what trends there are on the other side of the world.

Take the neon trend for example. He told me he'd seen a lot of it. I told him it was kind of trendy right now but I thought I might be too old to carry it off. But it did appeal.

So, I wasn't too surprised when last time he came back and he proudly presented me with not one but four neon coloured handbags! With matching make-up bags and coin purses. Ha ha. Very typical. And so very, very me. He knows me very, very well.

Now, not all four colourways are my absolute favouites but I have been carrying them every day since I got them so I guess that says it all. And I'm fully aware that many people think I'm crazy and wouldn't be seen carrying one. But who cares what others think. These beauties belong to me :-)

I Instagrammed this photo recently, captioning it "and everyone thinks I'm so black and white" which wasn't supposed to be dramatic. I really think it's kind of true. As soon as I printed it off, I knew I wanted to follow that sort of idea to turn it into a layout.

Using my August Solitude Counterfeit kit, I sorted out all those neutrals and greys to make up a seriously colour-free layout so that this photo really jumps out. It's a bit like the tone-on-tone prompt we had a few weeks ago (check it out here).

I knew this was the layout for the 100% Whimsical Musings WM#100 prompt (here), I just wasn't quite sure of how that would fit into the story. While I sorted out the product and started layering things up, the title and journalling started forming in my mind.

Yes, I might give the impression of being rather monochrome, a bit conservative and somewhat unfashionable, but there is a colourful side of me that many either don't know about, or don't notice.

Where did the 100% prompt take you?

Don't forget that you have just two days left to load up your layouts in our Flickr Gallery to be in for a chance to win one of two great prizes. We have one prize for those of who who have created a layout based on one of the WM#100 prompts and another for anyone tackling any of the previous 99 layouts.

Check out my post here to see details of the prizes. Go on! You know you want to! Who doesn't like a giveaway?!?

Challenge #102 week of 9th September 2013

**Don't forget to join in on the 100th Prompt celebrations and link up your layouts based on either the first 99 prompts or one of the WM#100 prompts for a chance to win. We've had lots of great layouts appearing in the Flickr Gallery for our 100th prompt celebration and it would be wonderful to see more. So, check out the 6 WM#100 prompts to see if something appeals or even one of the previous 99 prompts. You have a chance to win one of the two prizes featured in this post (here) for each layout you upload. It keeps the party going so it would be wonderful for you to join in**

We've had a whole lot of prompts recently that have been more about the journalling, theme or direction of your layouts so today I thought we'd go down the product route.

Can I tell you a secret? I've got a new scrap crush. I can't believe I haven't come across her before but thanks to a link to her series over at "A Flair For Buttons" on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog, I was delighted to discover the very talented Ashli Oliver.

Have you seen her work? If you like layers, lots of embellishments and plenty of ink splats, then you might find her as appealing as I do.

But the blog series on using flairs is the direction I'd like to go. I want you to be inspired by using flairs/buttons/badges (whatever you like to call them) on your layouts this week.

I can't get enough of them personally and try to use them all the time, while at the same time, hoarding them as I love them so much. Ha ha - I know you understand. Let's see if I can find some examples of where I've used them recently (or not so recently):

You might want to go over to the "No More Floating Flair!" series to check out some very different ways to incorporate them into your project such as journalling, embellishment clusters using them in a border and many more. I especially adore her use of twine wrapped around the flairs (see the detail from her layout here) and used it recently on a smaller scale around enamel dots.

But I can't wait to use it in the same way as she has - around flairs. Maybe this is the week.

So, go create using flair and don't forget to share over at the Flickr Gallery with the tag WM#102. :-)

#101 Inspired by something you learnt

Yeah! I made a layout to a current prompt! Gosh, it's been a long time since that happened. But I knew what I wanted to make for this when I took the photo on Friday and posted it to Instagram. It's been a lot on my mind recently. In fact, just this one single photo could give me more than one lesson learnt, but that's a post for another day I think.

Here's the photo

Yes, I know I've posted about my Bowie obsession before. But here it is again.

I had a horrendous week at work with more hours worked than I could possibly imagine and just an hour or two per evening for me. I missed the "David Bowie Is..." exhibition in London but wanted some of the merchandise and I have no idea what made me suddenly think of it amongst all the chaos of the week, but I got it in my head to head over to the V&A website to order all the bits I wanted. From there I jumped to Amazon to order the exhibition book (so much cheaper than the museum shop) and while I was there, I plonked a few more items into my basket. Isn't it way too easy to do that these days? I would never have done this before Amazon days... well, maybe not. I was always a book freak even then... But I digress. After ordering, I promptly went to bed and worked my little socks off for the rest of the week. When the DHL man ran up the office steps with this box of goodies in his hand on Friday lunchtime, I could have kissed him! I tore open the box and grinned from ear to ear. Yes, this week, I most definitely earned this little treat to myself.

Lesson learnt? Sometimes, you just have to treat yourself because you deserve it. Something to remember more often as I work harder than almost ever before.

Somewhat inspired by Lynette's mini-book (see her post here) using the BG Hipster line I knew I wanted to use my August Counterfeit kit, Solitude for the layout. Whenever I think of Bowie, I have that bright orange hair in my mind, and all those 1970's colours and this kit was certainly full of product which reminded me of that. So I had lots of fun just layering and piling up all the fun bits and pieces from the collection that I dumped into my kit.

Now, all I have to do is find the time to actually open the books and read them without falling asleep after the first paragraph!

What did you learn this week? Make sure you link up your creations over at Flickr (here) with the tag WM#101. This could be a prompt to come back to over and over again. Suddenly I feel all inspired to catch up on the Shimelle class - I'm sure I can look back over the last week and come up with something per day. A whole month of layouts? I think not, but at least a list with some matching photos. Watch this space.

#100-5 Inspired by heading to 100 years old

I am determined to have a go at each of the wonderful prompts offered by our marvellous Guest Designers during our Prompt 100 celebrations and the first one that "got" me was Sherrie's idea of heading to 100 years old. It may take me a while to get through them all, but I promise that I will share as and when I get to them. And I recommend you have a go too - they are all so very inspiring.

I hadn't planned to scrap anything but I had printed out this blurred, out of focus photo during the week with the intention of possibly sending it to my Granny because I just think it's a fun, happy photo. It was sitting on my desk and in a moment of sentimentality (and I'm missing him loads right now) , I suddenly knew what I wanted to do with it.

Yes, the photo is bad - but it's perfect in how it sums up the truth of us.

WM#100-5 using CKC June kit, Personality

I love how the layout turned out. It didn't need much journalling because the title says it all. Just a few layered papers and elements from my Counterfeit Kit Challenge June kit, Personality, and a few extra colourful sequins were all it needed.

Sometimes, you don't need to make things complicated to say what needs to be said. Maybe that should be my lesson today for LSNED! A double win perhaps.

So, how does heading to 100 years of age resonate with you? Make sure you share over at our Flickr gallery (here) with the prompt WM#100 and for this prompt in particular, WM#100-5.

Challenge #101 week of 2nd September 2013

**We've had a few layouts trickling into the Flickr Gallery for our 100th prompt celebration and it would be wonderful to see more. So, check out the 6 WM#100 prompts to see if something appeals or even one of the previous 99 prompts. You have a chance to win one of the two prizes featured in this post (here) for each layout you upload. It keeps the party going so it would be wonderful for you to join in**

But how about moving on with the prompts? Are you ready to kick off the next 100?

1st September marks the beginning of a Shimelle class I first signed up to in 2006, shortly after I first started scrapping. I've recently rediscovered my love for Shimelle's work and having joined her class once, you get lifetime access and can join in every year if you like.

I haven't done that since the first year but when the reminder email came in the other day, it got me thinking. The class is "Learn Something New Every Day" and the clue to the class is in the title. A month long reflective class creating a mini-book, journal or series of pages throughout.

I might just do it again this month - I think I've come a long way since that first mini book (which was pretty much a copy of Shimelle's book here below) ...

Which brings me to our new Whimsical Musings prompt.

Be inspired by something you have learnt today (or yesterday or this week or last year - you get the idea).

It can be something deep and meaningful, something silly and whimsical, something you've known all along and just got a reminder for, or something that's hit you like a bolt out of the blue. Scrap one lesson learnt or a whole list of them (tie them in with the 100 prompt and come up with 100 perhaps!)

It's September which for most of us reminds us of "back to school" so let's get learning.

Happy Monday everyone and here's to the next big WM celebration. And don't forget those prizes!