Challenge #284 - week of 16th April 2018

Happy Monday everyone. I hope you are feeling refreshed and ready to start a new week.

I know that many of you in the US are still (im)patiently waiting for spring to arrive but round here, it's all systems go and as my hay fever eyes and nose will tell you, nature is bursting forth!

I had something else to inspire us this week but when I saw the image below on Facebook a few moments ago, I just knew that this would be my prompt.

I'd like you to be inspired by "kindness changes everything".

Source - Pebbles Inc on Facebook

A small act of kindness can go a long, long way. It can change the way you think about that person, a whole situation or even the world at large. It can make you see things in a clearer way, maybe more positive or even a little more self-reflective. You might be one acting kindly, or the grateful recipient of someone else's thoughtfulness. You might wish to work on becoming a kinder person or thinking about how to install that attitude in those around you. Many ways to approach this. You might even have some product with a similar quote that you'd like to use on your project.

Many years ago when I first started scrapbooking, we had a wonderful Nova Scotia adventure which became the topic of a huge scrapbook album. I had just started my blog and every day while we were there, I'd record my thoughts about our trip and that all formed the journalling for this huge project when I came back. One of the stories I told was "Never underestimate the kindness of strangers" and is one of my favourite memories of our trip. My scrapbooking style was rather basic and I'd certainly make the album differently today but this page still warms my heart. (Let's not talk about the randomly tilted tag!!!) In fact, I've just realised that this formed the prompt WM#230 - be inspired by the kindness of strangers but I think we can never have enough kindness in our lives so another prompt, similar but different, is ok!

If you're inspired to create this week, don't forget that you can add your own creations to our Facebook group here - we love it when you share so please don't be shy! Tag your entry with #WMXX so we know exactly which inspiration you've taken. 

Or simply tell us in the comments where to find you... :-)

Challenge #230 - week of 19th September 2016

Last week I celebrated 10 years of blogging over at Recklinghausen Musings with a layout I shared here too (see post here). But it made me realised that 10 years ago was the day we travelled to Nova Scotia for our "beach holiday" and it's got the best memories. It's encouraged me to look back at the blog posts and the album I made.

Being new at scrapping and enthusiastic beyond my talents (!!) I made a full 12x12 album of that holiday and used my blog for the journalling. So looking back, I can see that 10 years ago today would appear to be the day that we had a minor emergency scare that gave us an insight into what lovely people the Canadians can be. We were helped out in our hour of need by complete strangers. My blog post title says it all "NEVER underestimate the kindness of strangers"

For prompt WM#230 I'd like you to be inspired by just that. Be inspired by the kindness of strangers.

This might be a difficult one to scrap because it's unlikely that you have photos of strangers or maybe you've never needed the help of one in particular. But think about getting lost in a town, being a helpless tourist on holiday, even someone giving up their seat for you on the train or bus. Your reaction to the situation might be an interesting direction or maybe you were the stranger helping someone else out. Even though you might have to get creative with the photographs, using something symbolic perhaps, I really think there are a few directions you could take this.

I don't have a photo of the people that helped us that day and to be honest, the event can be found in that huge album...

 just one page of three from this eventful day and look at that beginner style! *sigh* for Chatterbox papers though!

... but I have an inkling of an idea of where to take this prompt. *wink*

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#230 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#230 in the write up text so that we can find it.