Challenge #243 - week of 26th December 2016

Christmas is over and we are looking towards the new year.

This is usually a time to  make plans for the year to come - things to change, things to stop, things to start.

So today's challenge is very much a challenge to myself to try out something new on my pages.

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

Amy Tan is probably one of the most well-known scrapbookers who uses a lot of watercolour lettering on her pages and if you subscribe to her on IG, you will see lots and lots of gorgeous watercolour, hand-lettered motivational phrases.

Find this gorgeous photo and her review of her favourite watercolours here

Of course, Whimsical Musings founder Pam used to paint a lot of her own titles which were always pretty mind-glowingly gorgeous - see this page here.

And I know that many of you use a lot of mixed media on your own layouts.

But why not try to use watercolours (or an equivalent) in a new way on your page this week.

I'm not a big wet-stuff-user on my layouts to be honest, a bit of ink splatting is about as far as I go so I'm really going to push myself to try something a bit more adventurous. Will you join me?

If you don't want to get messy on your page, perhaps you have a story about painting or even a favourite watercolour hanging on your wall. This might be the time to tell the story of an artist in the family or in your past or just which artists you love. There are plenty of watercolor design papers in recent paper collections that you could use for this prompt as well.

We'd love you to use 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#243 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#243 in the write up text so that we can find it.

Challenge #242 - week of 19th December 2016

Christmas is almost here and I hope that by the time this post goes live, I'm more organised than I feel right now and everything will have been purchased, wrapped and maybe even posted to their intended recipients.

With that in mind, I'd like you to be inspired by presents.

Although not obvious at first glance, these bags were presents but I decided to write about what they say about me

This layout talks about my niece's love for a present that we sent here one Christmas - still a firm favourite I'm happy to say

And this layout is a literal interpretation of the gift theme, talking about this wonderful gift I received from our WM friend Lynnette.

Would you like to talk about your gift buying process? How you love to go out Christmas shopping or even how much you can't stand the full shops and now shop online? A favourite present or a worst one perhaps? How about a stand out gift for some reason - this might be the direction I take as I have a story I've been wanting to tell for a long time about a present that Father Christmas was unable to bring me one year. I this is is a very wide prompt and I can't wait to read about your present memories!

We'd love you to use 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#242 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#242 in the write up text so that we can find it.

Challenge #241 - week of 12th December 2016

I read recently that the 13th Wedding Anniversary symbol is lace. That's a difficult one to think about with regard to a present for a man but what about including it on your project?

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

Back when I started scrapbooking, lace, ribbon and fibres were so popular to use and my layouts were unbelievably lumpy bumpy. I need to go back over some to slim them down but I really loved to use them all. Then, these items seemed to go out of fashion and my ribbon collection has reduced to just a handful of lengths which I often forget to use.

But here's a few layouts from way back which I might use to remind me how to use it on my project this week.

This layout features paper lace trimming - remember when that was popular?

How about a lace border punch?

Keeping it simple with a lace bow - I still love this effect

Or you might have a piece of paper with a lace design

I hope you will fish out your lace supplies and give this neglected supply a chance this week.

We'd love you to use 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#241 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#241 in the write up text so that we can find it.

Challenge #240 - week of 5th December 2016

And suddenly December is upon us.

It's St Nicolaus in Germany tomorrow, 6th December, which is a chance for kids round here to get some pre-Christmas chocolate and goodies to keep them going until the big day. St Nicolaus fills boots left outside the door and in some parts of Europe, this is the main day of the season.

Taking the boot motif as inspiration, along with my passion for pretty footwear, I'd like you to be inspired by shoes.

I made a layout about a particular pair of much loved, and still longed for shoes I spied in the window of the Chanel shop in Singapore a few years ago. The layout itself needs a rework as I really don't like how it turned out and those shoes are still in my dreams so this might be the way I go this week.

Do you have a favourite pair of shoes to include on your project this week. Or maybe like me, a pair you'd like to own - no matter how unlikely that is. Maybe you have a passion for shoes or even the opposite. How about your baby's first pair of shoes or memories of the new school shoes at the start of the school year. This one is really a prompt to take in any direction you like.

We'd love you to use 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#240 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#240 in the write up text so that we can find it.