Challenge #194 - week of 28th December 2015

The week between Christmas and New Year is always a bit of an odd one. Christmas is over, and the New Year is still on its way. Most of the time here in Germany, we are off work and are happy the shops have reopened after several days of country shut down and a little glimmer of normality is on the horizon.

I find myself wishing time would go a little more slowly and at the same time, finding myself willing the New Year to begin. I'm not a big fan of New Year's Eve (and I miss the Big Ben chimes at midnight now that I'm no longer in the UK) but I always have the highest hopes for a good start and fresh chances.

Over the years, we've had prompts about goodbyes, new beginnings, turning points, goals and possibilities. And I love the idea of having a prompt that is linked in some way to the turn of the year.

So, this week, I'd like you to be inspired by... countdowns.

You might be inspired by the NYE TV countdown to the Big Ben chimes

or the ball drop in Times Square

or maybe the various countdown apps that can now help you remember every event you are looking forward to...

Screen shot from 14th December - I'm not that far off on my Christmas countdown!!!

Maybe your country or family have a specific way of counting down to some special event or maybe you are just a cross-off-the-days-on-a-calender type of girl (remembering some stories here for me!).

Record your special countdown stories and link up over at our Flickr Whimsical Musings gallery here with the tag WM#194.

And not to forget - there is an open giveaway that I mentioned on the blog post for WM#193 (see post here). Blog comments here or on that blog post will qualify for an entry and a layout in the gallery anytime up to January 11th will qualify for an extra entry - the more the merrier. 

Challenge #193 week of 14th December 2015

Well, the Christmas build up is in its most intensive phase for the next 10 days and I'm late with everything - of course!

There are certain things that I like to do every Christmas and so far, I'm not sure I've managed more than one or two small things. But we've started one or two new traditions this year which is nice.

What is definitely missing is the time I need to watch my nice pile of Christmas movies which I like to work through in the run up to the big day.

Therefore, in the absence of me actually watching any of them so far, I think we need to make them this week's prompt.

So, be inspired by Christmas movies.

Everyone has a favourite. Mine is Holiday Inn for sure. Classic black and white Fred Astair and Bing Crosby with the original version of White Christmas. Who could ask for more? But there are also plenty of modern films in my collection, how about you?

As always, I think there are many ways to take this inspiration - whether it's just about your favourite, or your collection. Childhood memories, or traditions. Identifying with the characters  - I have a good memory that's very similar to Clark Griswold's tree that I might retell - or how they reflect your thoughts on the festivities at this time of year. Take it in any direction you like!

I'm late uploading a few into the Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery but if you create, it would be lovely to see you there too. Don't forget to tag your creation with WM#193 so we can find you.

I'm in the mood for a little giveaway in celebration of this special time of year, so I'll put your name into the hat for any comments on this post and double points for a layout in the Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery - who doesn't love a giveaway?!?

Challenge #192 week of 30th November 2015

It's been a busy few weeks since the last prompt with several birthdays and a visit from my mum. It's such a great time of the year with the dark evenings, the opening of the Christmas Markets here in Germany, the first Sunday of Advent, Advent gift exchanges and of course, the aforementioned birthdays - both mine and my husband. Got to love a day that's all about you!

Well, I've done star signs, special birthdays and gift wrap in previous years so I decided just to go with something that I adore to use on my pages and is almost a duplication of prompt #124 but not quite.

This week, I'd like you to be inspired by stars - but stars in the form of scrapbook product rather than the night sky.

I use stars on my layouts all the time and they can just be for decoration or as part of the story.

Go on! Break out the stars and get decorating!

We'd love to see your creations so don't forget to share over at the Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery here with the tag WM#192.

Challenge #191 week of 16th November 2015

You no doubt noticed that I missed a week. Sucks I know. But I've come up with a plan.

From now until to the New Year, we are going to have fortnightly challenges and then I'm coming back in January with a bang and renewed energy and on time prompts! Sounds good, doesn't it?

So that means that there will be prompts like this:

WM#191 - 16th November
WM#192 - 30th November
WM#193 - 14th December
WM#194 - 28th December
WM#195 - 4th January 2016 and then so on...

Did you notice the number? ... we are heading to 200 and I'm hoping to celebrate a little so I hope you'll keep coming back to see what we are up to.

Anyway, on to the prompt for this week.

I wrote up my 15 Loves over on my blog yesterday and shared a colour scheme which I think is worth a peek over here.

It's a very non-traditional Christmas/winter combination but somehow, shouts out holiday season to me all the same.

This week, I'd like you to be inspired by this Design Seeds colour board featuring soft mints and shades of brown:

Colour scheme source here 

And just to show you what I mean about the holiday season combination, check these cupcakes out!

Cupcake source here

This reminds me of my infamous black pepper chocolate cookies that I always make at Christmas with that intense brown and the contrasting white. And the colour scheme reminds me of a wonderful Bellaboo kit from back in the day featuring Autumn Leaves Manhattan something or other that I featured in my Counterfeit Kit Challenge kit for July - Redux.

Here's a layout I made with that kit as a little added extra this week.

As always, please know that even if it's been a bit hit and miss recently, I'm still so very grateful for you all and hope that you will continue to drop by. If you are inspired to create, don't forget to link up over at our Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery with the tag WM#191.

Challenge #190 week of 2nd November 2015

It was Halloween weekend and while it's not that heavily celebrated here in Germany, there is plenty of evidence of it around and we were even invited to dress up and go along to a mini-party.

But although Halloween isn't a German "thing", it is a must to decorate your home as the seasons change and this time of year is all about the pumpkins - mini, large, white, orange, bright yellow or knobbly and green! Of course, I like to add a bit of glitter or metallics into the mix and enjoy bringing  both traditions together with some Halloween influences.

Some years, I carve pumpkins (can't for the life of me find the photo of my crowning carving glory but maybe I can track that down for my layout!) and generally, as the layout below shows, it's all about the details.

You know that I don't just want to give you All Hallow's Eve as inspiration, but rather the more specific pumpkin or Kurbis as we say round here.

So this week, be inspired by pumpkins.

Of course, that could encourage you to scrap a page about the 31st itself ...

Or you might like to be inspired by these gorgeous decorated pumpkins I found on Pinterest - use them as a design on your page, even make you own and then feature them on a page or maybe go in the direction of colours and form.

Pinterest find here

Pinterest find here

Pinterest find here

I hope you had a wonderfully spooky Halloween and I'd love to see your shares over at our Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery here with the tag WM#190.

Challenge #189 week of 26th October 2015

Here in Europe, we just turned our clocks back for winter meaning dark evenings and a few more days of not so dark mornings, although that will soon turn into very short days indeed in the run up to the Winter Solstice on 21st December. I happen to love it when I see that the days are getting shorter and the extra hour over the weekend was a welcome win.

It got me thinking about turning the "clocks" back and how many I have in the house that actually have to be changed manually. So far, I've managed four and will have to tackle the wall clocks in the days to come. It's a bi-yearly routine and something which is so normal for those of us who do it, but when you think about it, it's pretty strange - trying to change time. But all those clocks in my house and the act of making them all one hour earlier seemed like something we should talk about...

So this week, I'd like you to be inspired by clocks.

I had a quick search on Pinterest and found these beauties that could easily appear on any wish list of mine - especially the moonscape one! But I thought they might be a nice trigger for a page - design or story-wise - too.

Pinterest find here

Pinterest find here

Pinterest find here

Pinterest find here

Pinterest find here

I hope you find some inspiration her for your own project. I can think of a few stories relating to turning the clocks back or forward or how I feel at this time of year, or a particular clock, or there are several special watches I could write about. Or how about the design of a clock - this could easily be translated into a page design, or the colour scheme of any of the clocks featured here or one you find yourself.

I think this is a rather wide prompt!

It would be lovely to see you over at our Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery with the tag WM#189.

Hurry now, and don't be late!

Challenge #188 week of 19th October 2015

I just arrived back from a weekend away in Munich. More of that another time, but the timing was such that I arrived after the infamous Oktoberfest had finished.

But Oktoberfest is still on my list of things to do in Germany so I will get the timing right another time.

But it got me thinking that this renowned festival - the largest Volksfest (folk festival) in the world - is admired and copied around the globe and that could be a good source of inspiration.

Therefore, this week, I'd like you to be inspired by the Münchner Oktoberfest

Here are some Pinterest finds to start your brain working.

Pinterest link here

Pinterest link here

The most adorable cookies - Pinterest link here

The most beautiful Dirndl I think I've ever seen Pinterest link here

I know that you will come up with many ways to take this inspiration. So put on your Dirndl or your Lederhosen and get thinking about your very own Volksfest!

It would be lovely to see your creations over at our Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery here with the tag WM#188 or even one of our older prompts - just check out our previous prompt page at the top of the blog. See you there!

Challenge #187 week of 12th October 2015

I appear to be managing to post here every second week despite the very best of intentions. Sorry for that. I clearly need to consider my options for this blog as I'm not doing very well.

Anyway, back for another week and another prompt to hopefully inspire you to create and share.

I brought home a considerable amount of the Pink Paislee Memorandum with me last week *sigh*! I just love it and had to have it. I know that you know what I mean :-)

Here's the collection in case you haven't seen it.

Pink Paislee Memorandum here

But that's not the inspiration this week. Or not entirely.

As well as the pockets and washi elements, I also picked up the gorgeous gold and white photo frames.

Pink Paislee Memorandum here

I have a lot of photo frames in my stash and love using them in all sorts of ways although I don't think I use them often enough. So this week, let's be inspired by our photo frames.

Here are a few layouts I've made using frames to get us started.

It's always wonderful to see your creations so why not share what you make over in our Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery with the tag WM#187.

Challenge #186 week of 28th September 2015

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Even though I live in Germany, I still stay connected to "home" in various ways - including heading over to the BBC website (BBC.co.uk) on a more than regular basis. I have to admit that I really miss the BBC and all the amazing tv shows and series they produce.

So, I was thrilled last week when I saw that my very favourite version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice was celebrating its 20th anniversary. You can read the article and see "that" scene here (Pride & Prejudice at 20). Oh my! I have this particular BBC version on DVD and must have watched it a dozen times or more. In fact, it might be time to watch it again even though I can practically talk along with them.

There's something very special about this adaptation - make sure you read the article to find out all about it if you're not familiar with it - and Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle made the perfect Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. *sigh*

So of course, this week I'd like you to be inspired by Pride & Prejudice.

Have you read it? Is it your favourite book? Have you seen this television adaptation or maybe one of the films? Do you like period costume dramas? Do you have a "thing" for Colin Firth? What about the fashions, architecture or era featured? I think there are various directions you could take for this prompt and I really think this might be a chance for me to go romantic.

It would be wonderful to see your creations over at the Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery with the tag WM#186.

Challenge #185 week of 21st September 2015

I was looking through a very old album recently - the giant 12x12 set of pages I created for our Nova Scotia holiday back in 2006. The style is pretty dated and of course, I'd do it totally differently today but I love it all the same - there are beautiful photos, heartfelt journalling and so many memories locked in those pages.

It was interesting to see how I'd included some of the memorabilia of the holiday as design techniques and was reminded of this when I pinned this beautiful card below by Julia Stainton for MFT.

Looks to me like some things haven't gone out of style in all those years so this week, I'd like you to be inspired by shaker-box elements.

Here's that original home-made element! Basic but I was so proud of achieving this! Remember that I made this a long time ago!

While not strictly, shaker-boxes, these could also be interpreted as a shaker-style element. 

And I know that I have a little clear pocket element filled with shaker-bits and pieces on a layout but can I find it? Of course not! If I come across it, I'll add it in!

Anyway, if you are inspired to create this week, please don't forget to link up your project in our Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery with the tag WM#185. We'd love to see what you make!

Challenge #184 week of 14th September 2015

I thought it was time to give us a sketch to use as it's been quite some months since we did that.

However, I was really disappointed to see that Creative Scrappers has closed their sketch doors. This was definitely one of my favourite places to go for sketch ideas - as well as Citrus Twist - as I think the designs that Kristine came up with were often very original and the DT was awesome.

So, I've decided to link up their last sketch #286 for us to be inspired by today.

I particularly love the strips of paper and how this can be interpreted in many ways - pp, journalling strips, layers, washi, banners, rows of die cuts etc. The blog post for this reveal has many different takes as well in case you'd like to take a peek at how others have used this design in so many creative ways.

Adding this to my must do list this week.

As always, we love it when you link up your creations over at our Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery and don't forget to tag your upload with WM#184. See you there!

Challenge #183 week of 7th September 2015

Sometimes I like to look up if there is anything weird or wonderful being celebrated around the world at the moment that we could use as a prompt and I have to say, I came up with a good one today.

Wednesday 9th September is National Teddy Bear Day! Well, in the US anyway. I'm not sure if it's celebrated anywhere else but hey, it's good enough for me.

So this week, I'd like you to be inspired by teddy bears.

I found some information about this "special" day here and here but I don't think you really need any reason to celebrate those special toys in your collection. I love teddies and have quite a grouping - what's the collective noun for them? A cuddle of teddies perhaps? Some of my bear family, and many are not bears at all to be honest, are really quite old and some of them far younger but loved all the same.

Over the years, I've done one or two layouts and almost feel bound to redo both of these that I tracked down as I have so much more to say and a better layout design to make! But I will try not to and just find another soft companion in my life to say something about. In fact, having found that second layout in an album, and seeing how little I wrote, I may well just leave it out and get more journalling written up right now!

I know you can find a way to scrap a page about a special teddy - whether it's your own, a family heirloom or your kids' favourites. One that is a constant travelling companion perhaps or even sadly, one that got lost (yes, I experienced that trauma as an adult). Go soft and cuddly today and record that special friend.

We would really love to see your creations over at our Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery here with the tag WM#183.

Challenge #182 week of 31st August 2015

Where have I been? You might well ask and the truth is, right here at my computer. But busy working. The end is in sight but it got me thinking about our prompt in relation to the activity I was undertaking.

I've got some work translating from German to English. There's quite a lot of skill involved but also a lot of interpretation and creative thinking. So why not use this as a challenge for us? Not the German to English bit! Just the meaning of the word itself.

Be inspired by translate

translate

verb (transitiv or intransitive)

/trænsˈleɪt/  /trænz-/

to ​change words into a different ​language: 
We were ​asked to translate a ​list of ​sentences.She ​works for the UN, translating from ​English into ​French.

to ​change something into a new ​form, ​especially to ​turn a ​plan into something ​real: So how does this ​theory translate into ​practical ​policy?The ​ways of ​working that he had ​learned at ​college did not translate well (= were not ​suitable) to the ​world of ​business

to ​decide that words, ​behaviour, or ​actions ​mean a ​particular thing: 
He ​mumbled something which I translated as ​agreement.

I hope you agree with me that there are many, many ways to take this prompt and really run with it. I'm thinking literal translation, problems encountered in foreign countries, learning languages at school or foreign words you use in your own environment. Then there's more creative translation, the realisation of plans, how you understand something, how you relate to words, what you think when you travel and can't speak the language. So many directions. I can think of a list of a dozen pages at least - if only I could get around to scrapping more than a handful of pages per month :-(

As always, we love it when you share your creations over at our Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery and don't forget to tag it WM#182 so we can track you down!

Challenge #181 week of 18th August 2015

This week, I was looking over the last prompts and decided that we need to go back to something a little "old school". It's a long time since we really did a regular product type challenge and so this is that week :-)

It's something that first came out in a big way around 2009/10 and hasn't really gone away. It's something I use on my layouts (and cards) over and over again in a variety of ways and is something that I always like. My Pinterest scrapbooking board is full of them and if I'm not just cutting out shapes to form them along the top or bottom of my layout, or under my photo, then I'm fussy cutting out bits of pretty paper that can be used instead. Have you any idea what I'm talking about?

This week, I'd like you to be inspired by ... banners!

Let me share a just a couple of recent pages I've made with banners (there's quite a few out there!):

Inspired by a layout by Janna Warner

Fussy cutting is one of my favourite ways of adding some banner whimsy

An overloaded banner with loopy twine is a new favourite

A banner doesn't have to be on the main body of the page to add some detail

Another little example of fussy cutting to create a ready-made embellishment

A mix of pre-made mini cards and more loopy twine.

Where will you be adding your banners this week?

Don't forget to link up your creations over at the Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery with the tag WM#181.