Challenge #340 - week of 25th November 2019

I've talked before about changing my attitude to November a few years ago and now I see things far more positively. We have many blue sky days and the sun shines more often than it did in the past. My feeling is that autumn comes later than it used to and the rainbow of beautiful falling leaves has shifted into November. When I was a child, November was definitely winter but these days I feel as if autumn is somewhat at its best.

So I decided to find us a happy, bright, autumnal colour scheme for this week to show you what I feel when I think about this special month.

Be inspired by the "November Rain" colour palette which I found over at colour-hex.com

November Rain colour palette here at www-color-hex.com

It's less easy to come up with a list of ways to interpret a colour prompt but you can definitely think about different amounts of each shade, turn the volume up or down on the tones of each colour or focus on just one or two. Think about all the ways you can bring these colours together - paper, embellishments, alphabet, even the colours in a photo.

Whichever way you decide to go, I really hope you'll share. It would be great to see what you make.  You can connect with us in our Facebook group here. Tag your entry with #WMXXX (with the number of the prompt instead of the XXX) so we know exactly which inspiration you've taken.

Have a great day everyone!

Challenge #339 - week of 18th November 2019

Oh no! It's another calendar based prompt today - can you forgive me?

It's my birthday week and while I've done a couple of birthday focussed challenges in the past (WM#16 - be inspired by your birthday and WM#111 - be inspired by a "special" birthday), let's take it in a broader way this morning.

Be inspired by a wish list

Now, I really think that you can interpret this in different ways and many of them have nothing to do with birthdays

• Wish lists could be for birthdays, Christmas, weddings or special occasions
• You could have a travel wish list that you'd like to record
• Did you receive or achieve something on your wish list that could be captured
• Use a list on your page
• Use list products 
• Children often have long lists for these times of years and that could be a story to put on your layout
• And of course, there's always the "wish" part of the prompt that could be the focus. What wishes do you have, what do you wish for those you love, what would you do if you were given three wishes by a fairy godmother?

I knew exactly which layout I wanted to feature in this post today but of course, I can't find a photo of it so this one featuring a list will have to do. But then it IS Bowie so that's better than anything ;-) 

Whichever way you decide to go, I really hope you'll share. It would be great to see what you make.  You can connect with us in our Facebook group here. Tag your entry with #WMXXX (with the number of the prompt instead of the XXX) so we know exactly which inspiration you've taken.

Have a great day everyone!

Challenge #338 - week of 11th November 2019

Another calendar inspired prompt for this November Monday morning - I'm hoping to get off the calendar in the next weeks!

As many countries around the world stop to take a moment to remember those fallen in conflict as part of Remembrance Day commemorations, my thoughts turned to the famously sad and evocative poem that is often read aloud after the two minutes of silence.

Be inspired by "In Flanders Fields"

In Flanders Fields

By John McCrea

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Which ways could we interpret this today?

• The words of the poem
• A visit to Flanders or the Allied beaches northern Europe
• Recording details of a family member who served in times of conflict or perhaps a current member of the military
• Finding a moment or two of silence in our busy days and what that means for you
• How you mark this day in your own way, country, culture
• Your love of poetry or a school memory related to poems of some sort
• Products that feature poppies or pops of bright red or photo realistic fields

I hope this gives you some ideas of ways to take this prompt - we don't need to make a sad page but a little nostalgia from time to time gives us time to reflect and this may be the week to bring that to our projects.

Our previous prompts based around Remembrance Day can be found here

• WM#109 - be inspired by Remembrance Day
• WM#236 - be inspired by the Remembrance Day poppy
• WM#311 - be inspired by Lest We Forget

Whichever way you decide to go, I really hope you'll share. It would be great to see what you make.  You can connect with us in our Facebook group here. Tag your entry with #WMXXX (with the number of the prompt instead of the XXX) so we know exactly which inspiration you've taken.

Have a great day everyone!

Challenge #337 - week of 4th November 2019

It seems as if I'm constantly looking at the calendar for prompt ideas - especially at this time of year. But there really is so much inspiration right there that it's hard to resist and so I find myself turning to my calendar again this week.

I've talked about Guy Fawkes Night before, which is celebrated on the 5th November in the UK - you can find my original prompt here WM#144 - be inspired by fireworks - so I just want to take an element of that for this week.

Be inspired by fire.

With the darker nights and colder weather, I think this is a good challenge for this season.

I made this layout about our daily evening activity in Canada of sitting round the campfire at the end of the day and to be honest, I could probably make a whole bunch of these about the trip!

But you could think about the following ways to take the prompt:

• for winter layouts you could think about cosy evenings in front of the fire at home or trendy winter BBQs as well as bonfires for Bonfire Night 
• for summer layouts, fire could cover everything BBQ or fire-pit related 
• traditional medieval markets might be lit by fire
• you might have seen a circus act featuring a fire eater who you'd like to feature
• maybe something motivates you so much that you feel you have fire in your belly?
• sitting round the campfire in the same way I've documented above
• maybe you want to think about fire colours - the reds, oranges and yellows - for your colour scheme or product selection
• I'm sure there are lots of die cut files featuring fires which could be a fun way to take the challenge 

Whichever way you decide to go, I really hope you'll share. It would be great to see what you make.  You can connect with us in our Facebook group here. Tag your entry with #WMXXX (with the number of the prompt instead of the XXX) so we know exactly which inspiration you've taken.

Have a great day everyone!