Challenge #205 week of 21st March 2016

It's Easter week and at least over here in Europe, that means a full four day weekend which is a lovely treat. I'll be back in the UK celebrating time with my family which I'm so looking forward to but in the meantime, let's get creative with today's prompt.

Easter is a time full of symbolism, especially if you follow the Easter story. It also marks the start of spring and many of the decorations we use bring together these two elements. Then there's often egg hunts for the children out in the garden if the weather is as good as everyone hopes!

So, to bring this all together this week I'd like you to be inspired by hidden symbolism.

This is a technique I use very often relating to colours. I often use flag colours although you might not notice it immediately, but also colours that represent something on the layout which I did in the following three LOAD216 layouts.

This first one features colours of the UK flag - red white and blue.

This layout uses the muted neutrals, creams, black and gold which reminded me of the Karl Lagerfeld designs I saw in the exhibition I talk about on the layout as well as the Chanel label itself.

And another one using stylised versions of the colours of the German flag - red, black and "gold".

Or it could be something that only you can see - something hidden or something with meaning that you see and understand but the regular viewer might not notice. You could interpret the prompt as including something hidden - photos or journalling - or the more obvious symbols relating to the subject of your layout. And no doubt you have different ideas that I haven't even thought about which is always something I particularly love".

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#205 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#205 in the write up text so that we can find it.

Challenge #164 - week of Monday 30th March 2015

It's the week coming up to Easter and we are lucky enough here across Europe to have a wonderfully relaxing 4 day weekend awaiting us! Yes, I know we are lucky :-)

So, I was thinking about how to incorporate Easter into the prompt this week without it being all about Easter itself and went to look at my list of possible inspiration ideas. I saw that I'd noted down feathers which is certainly an embellishment trend right now - and has been for some time - and also ties in there with Easter chicks quite nicely I think.

I've pinned a whole lot of gorgeous feather inspiration on our Whimsical Musings Pinterest board if you need some more ideas and here are a few internet finds to kick us off.

I love how the hand-made feathers have been used to frame the central photo. I'd like to try this idea and aren't the colours just gorgeous?

Cari Locken at Scrapbook.com

Who doesn't love gold dipped feathers? Or is it just me?

Pinterest source here

And here's a way to make your own out of washi tape which I thought looked quite interesting. On our Pinterest board, there are a few freebie printable and cut files too. And I know that the Silhouette store has loads of different feathers as I've bought most of them!

Pinterest source here

I also know that I've made several layouts featuring either hand or Silhouette cut feathers but this was the only one I found! And I know that I have a layout in a less than complete stage somewhere with a feather banner which might be perfect to sort out and finish for this prompt.

So whether you take this challenge literally and incorporate feathers directly on your layout, or maybe give your layout a bird theme of some sort or even go the Easter route, I hope you'll have fun with these wonderfully inspirational, pretty, natural items.

Again, don't forget to check out our Whimsical Musings Pinterest board and share your creation over at the Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery with the tag WM#164.

Challenge #131 week of 14th April 2014

Here in Germany, we are looking forward to a long 4-day weekend at the end of the week with two bank holidays for Easter. With lovely spring weather it looks like it will a good one and most likely, will kick off the BBQ season in our house.

I know that some of you are not as lucky as us but at the same time, that many of you will be celebrating Easter in some way so this is where I'd like to take my inspiration this week.

Rather than narrowing it down to some aspect of the celebration, I found this lovely mood-board which I think has something for everyone.

Pinterest find - original source here

Coloured eggs, pastel colours, wreaths, ribbons, bunnies, presents, table decorations, even the design of the photo collage.

We'd love it if you shared your Easter inspired layouts over at our Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery (here) with the tag WM#131.

In the meantime, have a lovely Easter weekend and don't eat too much chocolate!

# 34 Inspired by Tablescapes

Lovely ladies,

clearly our Lisa is the master of all things pretty and pink. I loved her tablescapes and was clearly inspired by all the pretty Easter colors.

I decided to just put together the base for a page inspired by the colors and then add photos. This allowed me room to play, which is what I was going for this week.

I added the brads in both corners to drive the eye around the page.

I also had a bunch of brads still on my desk from last week's prompt and decided to use them up in a row

I mounted the photos on craft cardstock which I distressed a little.

Thanks for playing along for another week.

xo,

Pamage

#34 Inspired by Easter photos full of prettiness

Phew - what a week.

Last weekend was busy with family and filled with chocolate - most of which was brought back with me to hoard for times when I "need" my Cadbury fix. And since I've been back, I've been busy with stuff I can't share just yet but let me tell you that I have been cutting and gluing and sanding and inking all week.

But I managed to find time this evening to put together a little page from my challenge to you last weekend.

I wondered if I should make it more difficult for myself, perhaps taking the challenge is a different direction but in the end, decided to just use one of the pretty photos I'd posted and wrote a few lines about how I feel about decorating for my Easter dinner as well as mentioning a little cultural difference over here.

I scattered a bit of journalling around my page à la Pam but still need to practice that! I used my April Counterfeit Kit, Blossom, with its full-on colour palette and just played with layers and pretty stuff.

I'd like to get around to making another couple of pages with the other photos but we'll have to see how that works what with LOAD coming up and various other commitments. Another list of layouts to be added to my inspiration list I suppose!

If you had time to create this week, do share with us over at Flickr with the tag WM#34. How pretty can you go?

Challenge #34 week of 9th April

I'm scheduling this post ahead of time as I should be on the road right now as this goes live, heading home after an Easter break. I know that we are lucky in Europe to have two Bank Holidays for this and the four day weekend is always a treat :-)

So, I'm sitting here with a To Do list as long as my arm of bits and pieces to get one in the next 24 hours feeling a bit sorry that I'm not doing my usual über-pretty Easter table decorating this time around. We often have a large family dinner on Easter Sunday or Monday and I like to go to town with the pink, fluffy decorations - seems appropriate somehow!

And then I thought that all that prettiness shouldn't go to waste. Therefore, in honour of Easter bunnies, I'm posting a few of my over-the-top favorite Easter photos for you to use as your inspiration :-) I'm interested to see which bit you'll take into your creating this week.

Short and sweet - ready, steady, get scrapping :-)

Share your creations with us over in our Flickr gallery with the tag WM#34.

We love seeing the contributions that you share with us each week - each of you makes both of us very happy :-)