Challenge #215 week of 30th May 2016

I'm always on the lookout for a "new" product to use on my pages. The scrapbook industry is good at encouraging us to buy the next latest and greatest but sometimes there are items just hanging around that are perfect to use on our pages but maybe you just don't notice them. Tissue paper is one those items.

Therefore, this week I'd like you to be inspired by tissue paper

I added some to a kit I made last year and then even managed to use it on a page or two after noticing that Rahel Menig often added a roughly torn layout underneath her many layers. This is the layout I made inspired by her style

Detail shots on my blog here

Then I counterfeited some tissue paper flowers for a Counterfeit Kit Challenge kit last year. They never made it onto layouts to be honest but they were super quick and easy to make so maybe this is some inspiration for you and you never know, I might give them another go.

Details of these forged rosettes on my blog here

And just this last month, I used the tissue paper that my Scrapabilly kit came wrapped in to add a confetti border as well as a multi-layered photo mat. I love the textural detail it gives without the bulk.

And to give credit where credit is due, I got the idea of tissue confetti from Susan who sent me a wonderful selection of large and smaller multi-coloured tissue paper confetti after I oo'ed and ah'ed about some of her sprinkled pages! I've made other confetti myself before but just from paper.

So, get that tissue paper out of your wrapping paper box and get creative with it. I know that I'm really going to try to get this prompt done sooner rather than later!

We'd love you to be inspired by this prompt and hope you will share your creations - there are now two ways to do this!

You can either upload your layout into the Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery with the tag WM#215 or you can post it in our Whimsical Musings Facebook group. We've decided that we'll save albums for special occasions so just load up your photo to the group with the tag WM#215 in the write up text so that we can find it.

Challenge #214 - week of 23rd May 2016

I had all sorts of ideas about what to challenge you with today. Yes, I have them all listed down so they will see the light of day at some point. And then I thought about my Queen's birthday afternoon tea which I talked about the other week. Which made me think of my scones. Which made me think of recipes. Which made me think of coming up with a scrapbook recipe! Do you like how my brain works? Yes, we will have real recipes at some point too.

We had a recipe a long, long time ago (WM#7 to be precise) but it was a little different so I don't really think this is a duplicated prompt.

This week I'd like you to be inspired by this scrapbook recipe...

Musings À La Whimsy

• (makes one page)
• Pre-heat the printer to print two photos
• Take 4 different sheets of paper
• make sure to add in something old, a dash of something new and at least one pocket page card
• Fussy cut an element and add to the mix
• Stir in at least two different types of other embellishment
• Layer up generously
• Top off with pre-prepared photos, cropped according to taste
• Season with a sprinkle of ink/mist/paint to achieve desired effect
• Optional:- extra seasoning can include sequins, enamel dots or puffy elements 
• Title your creation with one large and one small alpha for that personal, finishing touch
• This is the perfect accompaniment to time alone with a beverage of your choice.

Enjoy and have fun!

Just so that there's a photo in this prompt! Here's my Delia Smith Buttermilk Scones - they will no doubt feature during the week we really have a "recipe" prompt!

We'd love you to be inspired by this prompt and hope you will share your creations - there are now two ways to do this!

You can either upload your layout into the Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery with the tag WM#214 or you can post it in our Whimsical Musings Facebook group. We've decided that we'll save albums for special occasions so just load up your photo to the group with the tag WM#214 in the write up text so that we can find it.

Challenge #213 - week of 16th May 2016

During April, I challenged myself to take a selfie every day. I've found myself out of the daily photograph habit and noticed that I was turning to the same photos of me when I come to scrapping so I pulled those two ideas together and went with it. Yes, a little self-indulgent. But I mostly scrapbook about myself and have no problem featuring myself on a page (although I'm terribly vain!) so it seemed a good thing to do. I learnt a lot. It's not easy to find new ways to take those photos so that they look different every day. Bad face days and bad hair days call for drastic action. Relish the days when you look in the mirror and like what you see. To name but three.

I intend to put them all onto one page at some point.

Anyway, this week I'd like you to be inspired by the selfie.

Include a selfie, make a page just about you, comment on how much you hate the selfie craze, make a page about a silly selfie or a silly situation where you were taking one. What about a page about someone else's selfie that you find on your phone or camera?

To be honest, I've been taking selfies forever. I was very often holding my camera out to take a shot or setting up the self-timer.

One of my favourites is this page about the moment I became someone else. The self-timer proved very useful those few weeks in Singapore, alone. Of course, we didn't call it a selfie back then :-)

 

I have so many selfie based layouts it's difficult to know which ones to share but you can go dark and introspective or bright and happy.

  

 

Alone or with others. 

 

There's so much space for your own interpretation here!

We'd love you to be inspired by this prompt and hope you will share your creations - there are now two ways to do this!

You can either upload your layout into the Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery with the tag WM#213 or you can post it in our Whimsical Musings Facebook group. We've decided that we'll save albums for special occasions so just load up your photo to the group with the tag WM#213 in the write up text so that we can find it.

Challenge #212 - week of 9th May 2016

I'm in the middle of LOAD516 at the moment.

LOAD stands for LayOut A Day and is hosted by Alice Boll over at the Scrap Happy community.

I have to admit to being a bit of a seasoned hand at it with 22 LOADS under my belt I think and 16 or 17 completed with at least one layout every single day for a complete month.#

I do it for fun and as long as I'm still enjoying it, then I keep going. When life or lack of enthusiasm gets in the way, I stop. There's not much else that I enjoy doing on a daily basis so often that doesn't involve work so this makes me happy.

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

Daily routines - both good and bad, things you do, think, eat or drink on a daily basis. Maybe you've participated in LOAD and would like to make a page about that experience or another daily challenge - whatever that might be! Things that happened daily in the past but not today. Things that you'd LIKE to be part of your daily routine even.

And because I never like to leave you without a photo or a layout, here is my round up page from LOAD216 and a couple of pages I've made so far this month!

This was for the last day of LOAD216 using my January Counterfeit Kit Rekindle

This layout is for the LOAD516 prompt - What the hair?! - and uses my April Counterfeit Kit, Bisou

This layout is for the LOAD516 prompt - Where's the food? - and uses my May Counterfeit Kit, Sprinkle - I'm not completely happy with it but I'll come back to it at the end of the month to see what it needs!

I'm sure you can think of other ways to take this prompt if none of my suggestions hit the mark.


We'd love you to be inspired by this prompt and hope you will share your creations - there are now two ways to do this! 

You can either upload your layout into the Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery with the tag WM#212 or you can post it in our Whimsical Musings Facebook group. We've decided that we'll save albums for special occasions so just load up your photo to the group with the tag WM#212 in the write up text so that we can find it.

#211 - be inspired by sunshine

It's not often recently that I've managed to make a layout for a current prompt but increased motivation and productivity courtesy of LOAD516 means that it all came together.

I had the photo hanging around and I knew I wanted to use it for the sunshine prompt. I've used it before on a layout about Phoebe but I thought it would be nice to take the journalling in another direction.

The original layout used products from Kaisercraft and the leftovers became part of the Counterfeit Kit in July last year - Redux. It also had some extras thrown in at the weekend as I completed my Scrapabilly layouts featuring a kit using the latest Kaisercraft papers - Sea Breeze - which matched perfectly too.

I also scrap lifted myself to create the sunburst effect with the papers and had some fun with the sewing machine to add texture and dimension.

Therefore, this layout came together relatively easily if a little long winded with the background and the sewing.

Were you inspired by this prompt? If you were, we hope you will share your creations - there are now two ways to do this! 

You can either upload your layout into the Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery with the tag WM#211 or you can post it in our Whimsical Musings Facebook group. We've decided that we'll save albums for special occasions so just load up your photo to the group with the tag WM#211 in the write up text so that we can find it.

Challenge #211 - week of 2nd May 2016

Can you believe that it's May already?

Round here, it looks like spring is here at last and we have fresh blue skies and a bright, warming sun. And everyone is smiling.

So, why don't we go down that rabbit hole today?

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

That could be taken in the very literal sense of course: scrap a sunny day, how the sunshine makes you feel or sitting on the beach and feeling the sun on your skin. You could use sunshine papers or colours. You could talk about someone's sunny personality or how lack of sunshine makes you feel. Is someone in your life your very own little ray of sunshine? The field is wide open.

I've tried to track down a few layouts which could fall into this category:

This first one features the family sunshine and also a sun flair photo...

Then a page about Boracay in the Philippines can only make me think of hot, sunny days...

And another sun flair photo with a little philosophical message...

We'd love you to be inspired by this prompt and hope you will share your creations - there are now two ways to do this! 

You can either upload your layout into the Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery with the tag WM#211 or you can post it in our Whimsical Musings Facebook group. We've decided that we'll save albums for special occasions so just load up your photo to the group with the tag WM#211 in the write up text so that we can find it.