Challenge #316 - week of 28th January 2018

Another Monday, another early morning appointment. This time at the local transport registration office. Anyone who knows anything about Germany knows that it's a bureaucratic system and this will be my third visit to the office in an attempt register our new car. Not easy for a non-native but all part of the fun of living in a foreign country. :-)

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

A layout from a previous WM#79 prompt to just show you that I love Germany despite the rolling eyes at all the red tape sometimes!

And another one to show you that I love my adopted home country but can still get frustrated!  Sometimes it all just makes me smile!

There are some ways to take this so shall we have a look and see where we can find inspiration?

• local government - we all have our stories of "fighting" the local government system to get something done. I'm not thinking negative stories here, although of course, feel free to tell those too! But the Catch 22 type of scenarios that I'm sure we've all experienced at least once! I have one that springs to mind about receiving my British passport with my new married name here in Germany with an eventful trip to the post office so that might be my story this week! Local government has a reputation for having a lot of red tape no matter what country so this could be a direction for you.
• national government - perhaps you've been affected by something bureaucratic at a higher level that you could write about this week. Again, Catch 22 situations spring to mind where you just seem to go round in circles! 
• business - jobs and business is full of red tape. Maybe you made a recommendation that would have reduced red tape in your company that you'd like to write about or something that was introduced that just seemed so crazy that it was funny! This might be the week to put that down on a project.
• Project Life - if you are recording your daily/weekly/monthly life in a Project Life or pocket page system, then you're bound to be recording snippets of life that include aspects of procedures or processes that could be linked to bureaucracy. Get it written down for this week's prompt!
• red tape - of course, bureaucracy is also known as "red tape" as I've mentioned above so how about using red tape on your project. Washi or strips of red paper or even twine could match this idea. 
• the origins of red tape - in the past, the files that lawyers needed to refer to in court were wrapped with red (or pink) tape. So you could write a story about a lawyer you know, studying the law, official files, or a legal story.

Enough? I hope so. I really think that that post office story might be the one for me. It's hilarious and familiar to anyone and everyone I've told, no matter what country they come from. Let's see if I can get creative this week.

However you interpret it, we'd love to see! You can connect with us in our Facebook group here. Tag your entry with #WMXX so we know exactly which inspiration you've taken.

Have a great day everyone!

Challenge #315 - week of 21st January 2019

Morning! I hope you're having a great start to the new week and I'm happy to report that we've had some simply wonderful winter weather round here - blue skies with a warming, bright sun and thick frost that stays all day! I think the ducks outside where we live are a little confused, as always, as to why the water is totally frozen over suddenly!

But I'm up and out early this week because I have a check up at the doctor's which gave me the idea for this week.

I'd like you to be inspired by checks.

Checking off items from a to-do list 

Checking progress on health and fitness goals

I can hear you scratching your head from here but let's think about how you could interpret this:

• doctor's check - this could include an update in a baby book through to a regular yearly routine that you'd like to record. It could be a funny anecdote, something that you'd been dreading that turned out fine or if you are recording a difficult story or journey, something from that timeline. 
• a check list - this might include any kind of list making such as Christmas lists, present lists, Monday to do lists, yearly goals and everything in between.
• quirks - we all have them and sometimes they include regular checks that you do at certain times or at regular intervals or before you do something else. Maybe you check that you turned off the iron five times before you leave the house, or like me, check that you have your passport with you every five minutes on the way to the airport.
• travel - travelling is full of checks. Packing lists, places to go, planning the trip with a guidebook, airport security checks, checking off the things you've done throughout the trip.
• household - part of running a household is having checks - mental or written down. Regular checks of equipments, supplies, things to do. Winter checks, summer checks. Clothing, cleaning, gardening, storage.
• paper supplies - I've seen many supplies which include check lists which could be interesting to  include on your project this week - paper, journalling cards and embellishments. Sometimes there are even full collections based on this style - Daily Grind from Simple Stories back in 2013 for example! Or how about a checked paper design - gingham, plaid, grid, geometric.
• general checks - I'm sure you can think of stories where something needed to be checked. Maybe even checked twice!

I hope you've got ideas churning and maybe that will turn into a page which I'd love to see!

You can connect with us in our Facebook group here. Tag your entry with #WMXX so we know exactly which inspiration you've taken.

Happy Monday everyone, let the games begin!

Challenge #314 - week of 14th January 2018

It's pretty dark and miserable round here. A bit drizzly - or rather a lot in fact! - and windy and not really what we like to envision when we think about winter.

In contrast, down south in Bavaria and the Alps, they have a dangerously large amount of snow which are causing a huge amount of problems but the photos we're being given show beautifully stunning landscapes covered with thick white snow. It's hard to imagine it's as dangerous as it is..

Both of these have inspired my prompt this week. 

I'd like you to be inspired by this Winter Tones colour scheme by Design Seeds. 

(https://www.design-seeds.com/seasons/winter/winter-tones-8/)

INSPIRATION BY DESIGN SEEDS

{ WINTER TONES } | IMAGE VIA:@JULIE_AUDET

I searched for colour schemes with grey and this one jumped out at me - it seems to sum up everything wonderful about winter. A log cabin in the snow covered woods. Looks perfect.

Here are some ways to take the prompt:

• the actual colour scheme provided in the inspiration photo
• grey days - actually or metaphorically. This doesn't have to be negative although we tend to automatically think of grey days as rather sad or miserable! Maybe how you pull yourself out of a grey mood by picking up spring flowers that start to appear at this time of year.
• snow - ski holidays, snowmen, snow days off school, favourite snow stories or a weather chaos memory perhaps.
• log cabin - your own or a dream for the future. An idea for the perfect holiday or a memory of any sort of cabin trip.

I think there's different aspects to this that you could consider and as always, however you interpret it, we'd love to see! You can connect with us in our Facebook group here. Tag your entry with #WMXX so we know exactly which inspiration you've taken.

Have a great day everyone!

Challenge #313 - week of 7th January 2019

It's been a while. I know. But are you still here?

The end of November and all of December was a crazy time round here which started with birthdays, parties, more birthdays, Christmas celebrations and ended up with a round trip to the UK, followed by New Year and back to work.

But here we are at the beginning of January and it's the first Monday of the new year which seems like a good time to hit the restart button.

So where does this leave us? Hopefully, a new year of prompts and as always, a desire and will to continue, and a goal to be more organised in getting prompts scheduled ahead of time so that I have a better chance of posting each week.

Sounds like a plan.

And therefore I'd like you to be inspired by plans.

I'm hoping that this has sent your brain off in a million directions as it has mine but let's think about what you could bring to your page this week.

• new year plans - I have them and I'm sure you do too
• resolutions, goals, objectives - I know that resolutions are not so "on trend" these days but sometimes we still make them and even sometimes, keep them 
• plans in general - day, week, year or even life plans for yourself or any member of your family
• holiday plans - are you planning on travelling this year? You could even think about a whole mini-book about the planning process for a big trip.
• the planner trend - maybe you're new to this and would like to record your entry into the wonderful world of pretty planners. Mint green washi friend categorisation and all (in joke relating to an old Paperclipping April Fool's Joke here!
• planning style stash - you might have patterned paper that looks like pages from a calendar, pocket page cards where you can list your goals or embellies from a planning style collection. 

I've treated myself to a Webster's Pages planner this year - not really for the scheduling side of the planner, more for the to lists, noting down ideas, capturing inspiration and general moving forward side of things. Let's see if it helps my organisation!

I think you'll agree that there are a few different ways to take this new year prompt and as always, however you interpret it, we'd love to see! You can connect with us in our Facebook group here. Tag your entry with #WMXX so we know exactly which inspiration you've taken.

Now, let's get 2019 up and running!