Let's Celebrate - WM#200 Guest Designer Leslie

Welcome to day 3 of our Whimsical Musings celebration week.

Today is the day I get to welcome Leslie to take the spotlight.

I'm trying to think how long I've known Leslie and I'm really not sure. We met through LOAD, I know that. I remember noticing her because of her screen name LCSmithSaved. It caught my eye every time because my maiden name used to be LCLSmith. Three names would often get shortened down to two and as strange as it sounds, every time I saw her post, I would think it was me! But of course, her layouts next caught my attention. She is always trying out new techniques and pushes the boundaries so often that I am in awe of her creativity. I was thrilled when she became a Master Forger with me over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog where she has rightfully earned the title "Queen Forger" (unofficially from me at least!) And I've been delighted that she has helped me out here at Whimsical Musings with prompts, contributions and moral support. She is generous with her compliments and has given me a virtual shoulder on many occasions.  A true friend.

So, here's Leslie to tell you about her creation:

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WM#158 Meeting someone for the first time

I have been wanting to do this prompt for so long! I knew right away what photo I would use to document Lynnette’s visit to Michigan. I think I was afraid I couldn’t do it justice, but my solution was to pull out some absolutely favorite things to document this über-special occasion. Can you see the love in her eyes? It was everything our first in-real-life meet up should have been (except that it was way too short AND we only took a couple of photos!) We got to shop a scrapbook convention & it being a LOAD month we shared my happy scrappy space to do our pages together. Sigh… perfection. L-O-V-E this lady!

Who am I?

I am a born-again believer happily married to my high school sweetheart. I have been scrapbooking since before the turn of the century - in the old-fashioned sense since I was a teenager (pasting images & poems, etc. onto pages in books) but in a contemporary sense since somewhere in the late 1990s. I adore patterned paper, fussy-cutting, and using a very eclectic mix of product on my pages. I am privileged to contribute prompts here on WM from time to time as well as serve on the Design Teams at Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog & Archi-scraps. I have had pages published in the e-book, Your Story Matters: 25 Memories to Capture Now.

One of the biggest influences in my scrappy evolution was being introduced to our own Lisa Hausmann, who taught me with her wonderful pages to scrap with luscious abandon and use the good stuff.  Another was my friend, Lynnette, who always gets her story on the page in delightful & innovative ways. I am blessed to have an international circle of friends who share a passion for this thing we call creative memory keeping.

Long may we scrap!

My blog, Out of the Mire, is found HERE and provides a link to my Flickr gallery.

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Thanks Leslie for such a gorgeous layout featuring the very adorable Lynnette and for the kind words you've said. Love that you are a part of the Whimsical Musings community!

Just to remind you that if you are inspired to make this week, don't forget that we love it when you share. You can upload your layout to the Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery here with the tags WM#XX as well as WM#200 for a chance to win.

We now also have a Whimsical Musings FB group (come along here to join in) and I've set up an album there for any layouts that you'd like to share for our 200 celebrations. There's a whole load of friends over there already and you will be given a warm welcome - don't be shy!

ANY comments on any of this weeks blog posts and ANY layouts made and posted either in the Flickr gallery (with tag) or over in the FB WM#200 album will be entered into a draw for one of two prizes.

Yesterday, I showed you that you could win some goodies from My Mind's Eye. Perhaps, you'd like to win these instead? Perfect for your planner pages, your Project Life album (or pocket page scrapbooking) or even just your regular, beautiful pages, these are embellishments for whatever you are creating! There's a pack of Heidi Swapp gold acetate words, a booklet of washi shapes, a pack of 12 perfectly adorable bows and a box of geometric clips. I might have to go back and get myself some of these items - they really are gorgeous!

Closing date for this giveaway will be 21st February which gives you two weeks for commenting and creating and sharing.

Which prompt will you pick to be inspired by?

Tune in tomorrow for another Guest Designer.