Challenge #330 - week of 16th September 2019

Happy Monday - again!

Today, I'm heading back to a product in my stash that I use very often but usually in the same way - this might be the week for me to break out of the splats and try something different.

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

I've got a whole bunch of mists and rarely make it to the end of a bottle. And I'm on the permanent look out for the perfect gold! The HS was a good one but not 100% and now that it's discontinued, I'm in need of a new one. I need try out a few I have my eye on. And I recently had a new super glimmer spray by Nuvo in my hands that was really impressive - I'll need to get one so that I can put it through its paces on my pages. But I'm open to suggestions if you have any. ;-) 

You will know that there's rarely a layout that I make without a little "dusting" of mists in one or two corners. A visual triangle is so easily made with a little sprinkle but I think I mostly follow through on my diagonal design when I add a few splashes. How about you?

Let's see if I can find evidence of more ways to use this product.

Here I used gold mist to highlight some of the words on the paper

Misting through a die cut background gave a whimsical and far from perfect polka dot background 

A swipe of gold to highlight the title 

Diagonal splats

Quite intensive spraying

A central diagonal 

Splats in a cluster

Monochromatic spraying and droplets using a background die cut as a template again.

Let's just have a think about the different ways you could use mists:

• spray them across your background page to make your own design
• splat or drop them in a cluster, a diagonal, visual triangle or randomly
• use them as you would a paint - on the background, to highlight parts of a patterned paper or even as a title
• spray or splat them across a template such as a mask or a bought/self-cut die cut
• spray them onto plastic packaging of some sort and then layer your background or paper over the top of it and "squish" it down - I have no idea what this technique is called but I did try it once, only to cover 90% of it up with my papers and photos - doh!

I'm sure if you looked around online, there's a dozen other techniques you could try. So, try something new or go back to a trusty method that you know works for you. If you're nervous about making a "mess" on your page, have a go on a journalling card or pocket page card which you can then use on your page. This is the week to experiment or just remember to use this versatile item in your stash. I know that I go through phases where I reach for three or four colours every layout and then completely forget for a while before I remember to grab them again. These are such an easy fun product to add a little "something" so let's showcase them this week.

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 #WMXX so we know exactly which inspiration you've taken.

Have a great day everyone!

#278 - be inspired by romance

This layout came together by rummaging through my Counterfeit Kit Challenge August kit, Heatwave (l/o #3) and using up everything that spoke to me and matched that gorgeous Pinkfresh Studio background paper.

I started off by identifying that I wanted to use the gorgeous 6x4 "choose joy" card, and then I just piled everything else up along that one third line.

I knew I wanted to make a page about romantic gestures but was not exactly sure of what that would look like until I had finished the base of the page. In the end, I had to tweak some of the items to make a suitable place for the photo and I made sure to leave a little space at the bottom for my words.

Then I went off to find a story and photo. Yes, that's how it works sometimes! Or rather, quite often. It might not work for most of you, but I scrap at a crop quite often and I'm not organised enough to get photos and stories ready before I go. So I just create with a rough idea of where I might want to take the story.

Anyway, this is a page about romance of course, and how it's sometimes not reflected in moonlight and roses but might be found in a message scrawled on the bathroom mirror. So, WM#278- be inspired by romance it turned out to be.

As always, I love it when you share too and if you've been inspired to create, don't forget that you can add your own creations to our Facebook group here. 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 #306 - week of 8th October 2018

I've been busy creating today and will have some shares during the week so watch this space. But I used a technique that I like a lot but I'm often too lazy to actually remember to do. And this gave me the idea for today's prompt.

I'd like you to be inspired by strip journalling.

You know, where you write or print your journalling on strips of paper and then glue them directly onto your journalling area. If I'm going to write, I usually just write directly onto the layout but sometimes, I want the story on a paper or cardstock to stand out a little more and that's when I go to the effort of printing my words and then cutting it all up in order to stick it back down again!

You can use patterned paper such as the second layout here or plain cardstock which tends to be my go to. You can make it even or staggered, whole lines of text, just one sentence at a time or even a single word. You can write, print or use a typewriter. You can put the strips close together or far apart such as in the last picture. You can make it tone on tone - first photo - or a strong contrast. However you use it, give it a try this week.

I think you know how important I think story is on my layouts and I love finding different ways to incorporate it into the design so I hope you'll find a way to take this inspiration for yourself this week.

And if you are inspired, I hope that you'll share. You can do that in our Facebook group here. Tag your entry with #WMXX so we know exactly which inspiration you've taken. 

Challenge #250 week of 27th February 2017

Today is the main day for German Carnival (Rose Monday) and I wondered about finding a prompt around that before I realised that I'd kicked off the Carnival 5th season with prompt #237 so I'll save the big event itself for another year.

However, even though I don't personally celebrate Rose Monday or Carnival,  the day before Ash Wednesday is Shrove Tuesday in the UK which I most definitely do celebrate in its more colloquial form of "Pancake Day" .

This week, I'd like you to be inspired by pancakes or flipping!

I know I've made a page about pancakes before but I can't track it down anywhere!

You can read all about Pancake Day online including details of some of the more quirky aspects of this "all the pancakes you can eat" sort of day, such as Pancake races. These often have strict rules about flipping the pancake in the frying pan at the beginning and end of the race. When we were children, it was a highlight of the day to watch the varying success of our parents' flipping skills and when I make them for myself these days, there will be at least one attempt at a true flip!

Now, if you celebrate some sort of pancake day itself, this would be the ideal time to capture this snippet for your albums. Or maybe you have a thing for breakfast pancakes that needs to be recorded. How about some sort of food cooking technique which may or may not have been perfected in your house? You could take the "flip" into your design such as flipping a sketch around, mirroring some elements of your page, or scattering something. I'm sure you can find a way of being inspired by Pancake Day!

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#250 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#250 in the write up text so that we can find it.

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 #232 week of 10th October 2016

I'm pretty caught up with the ScrapHappy family exclusive LOAD1016 at the moment so I'm here with a very quick prompt for you. And I'll be sure to get it done and shared with you by the end of the week. In fact, I have a few to show you from the first week already!

I'd like you to be inspired by your signature technique.

Whether this is a technique you find yourself doing just recently or something you've done from day  one, let's celebrate those things that you do on your scrapbook pages which make a page distinctively you!

I'm back into thread, twine and splatting right now - my LOAD layouts from the first week are full of them! But I'm always taking my layout photos at the end of the night in terrible light so they're not shown at their best. I promise to find time this week to take some better photos and post them here.

In the meantime, thread, twine and splatting definitely comes in waves so why don't I share a few previous makes?

We'd love you 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#232 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#232 in the write up text so that we can find it.

#229 - inspired by using products by a manufacturer no longer in the scrap industry

I've just blogged over at Recklinghausen Musings about this layout if you'd like to see the back story to my little blog anniversary creation.

But, for now, you knew that I'd used BasicGrey, didn't you? Urban Couture is so 2006 (or it might even have been 2005, before I started) and I think these were some of the first papers I ever got myself. I loved them so much that I used them in a year review album and then I bought myself the whole collection pack - maybe even twice!

I tried to bring it up to date with some modern techniques - splatting, distressing, layering - and matching them up with some newer products - washi, mist, Thickers, mini alphas. I also tried really hard to convince myself to use some of the fibres I'd bought to match the minimal collection pack. But I just couldn't. I think those fibres might have to go into the recycle bag...

I'm not sure about that tag on the right there but overall, the layout pleases me. If nothing else, it gets a small amount of my hoard stash of BG onto a page where it belongs!

We love it when you share too and you can do that at either of our Whimsical Musings groups which can be found at Flickr (here) or over at Facebook (here). Whichever is better for you is great for us. We will find you! Tag your layouts with WM#XXX so that we know which prompt you followed.

Challenge #223 - week of 1st August 2016

I don't know about you but I go through phases of doing one technique all the time and then sort of forgetting it for a while only to remember it and start repeating it all over again.

My bunchy thread clusters or loops is one of those.

I've been clearing up my scrap room ready for visitors in a few weeks (it doubles as our guest room and is rather full) and I discovered a couple of brand new reels of thread - because I see colours I *need* and forget that I've already got them. And that's made me realise that I haven't done a messy thread element for a while.

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

Here are a few layouts I've shared over the years showing one or two of my favourite thread techniques.

Of course, you could also just use it to sew!

Or maybe you have another approach to this prompt - a story about watching a family member sewing for example? Or your sewing supplies. I'm sure you can find many ways of interpreting "thread".

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#223 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#223 in the write up text so that we can find it.

Challenge #208 week of 11th April 2016

Are you inspired by the latest trends? Although it might not be my go-to, I do find that I enjoy seeing what new ideas are out there and of course, some not so new ideas that are rebounding or making a comeback.

String art appears to be one of those. I remember first seeing it several years ago and more recently, it is definitely showing up all over the place. Paige Evans even has a string art template as part of her recent Pink Paislee release.

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

I've included a few examples of more simple or even rather complex ideas for how you could incorporate some twiney decoration on your pages. And yes, you just know that the third picture here is one to inspire me!

Source - Papierprojekt.de  

Source - Ashley Horton for A Flair for Buttons 

Source - FindingNana.com

Source - Pinterest here

Or maybe you want to tell a story about making some string art when you were a child, or that decoration that's been hanging on your wall since the 70s, or even your overflowing supply of scrapbooking twine stash!

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#208 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#208 in the write up text so that we can find it.

Challenge #92 week of 3rd June 2013

I've been caught on the hop today and didn't have a prompt ready to go. Not that I don't know that it's my turn every second week - ha ha!

But I gave it some thought and had a peek around the internet and found something that made me smile.

On my personal blog, I have a widget that lists holidays and birthdays for each day. When you click on it, you are connected to a gift site but they give a bit of background to each of the holidays (and birthdays) listed.

Well.... today, 3rd June 2013 (and every 13th June in fact), is... Repeat Day.

I read what they had to say:

"Repeat Day is a day to do something over and over again. Just keep repeating, preferably something that you like to do. A good idea would be to choose a snack that you enjoy. Repeat eating that snack over and over again. You should avoid things that you don't like because you don't want to keep repeating something that is not enjoyable." (source here)

Why on earth we need a special day to do things we love over and over again I'll never know and the fact that they needed to warn us that we shouldn't choose something we dislike to do over and over again makes me realise that there's a lot of dross out there!

But... Repeat Day. Do what you love over and over and over.

So that's my challenge to you. Take an element of your page design, subject matter, paper choices, colour selections - whatever you love, and repeat it. At least once. Bonus points if you do it more than once!

I know that you all know I love the stacking

the clustering

 and the tying up with string.

Pam loves the doodling

the bright colours

and the quirky mixing up of papers.

If you look through the gallery you will find many many examples of these features. We repeat things all the time. It makes us happy. It makes sense to do what you love and repeat it. Let's do it!

Don't forget to share over at Flickr (here) with the prompt WM#92. Can't wait to see all that repetition!

#84 inspired by Ombre

Ok, I will admit that I have always been a little ombre crazy. Every before it was popular. Even before I knew the name of it. I used to call it "gradient" which is a much less fun word to say. 

Anyway, I have paintings I did in 2007 that will prove that I was onto this trend way before it started. And I jumped on it's bandwagon from the very beginning, mostly creating my own effects with paints, mists, colored pencils and patterned papers.

So of course, I was thrilled by this challenge - and I wanted to challenge myself in the same ways... but also in new ways. I bring you my two layouts.

 this first layout wasn't all that different from what i've done before except i threw it all on the diagonal for a little twist. love this color scheme and how the photo just stands out. This is a funny/silly story that was just begging to be told.

this next layout I wanted to do something a little different. So I thought long and hard for a story involving ombre effect... and in the end I ended up with something which is sort of a continuation of the page from last week. 

   I cheated a little by using the paint chips I collected when choosing my paint colors to tell this story. I say I cheated because the paint chips are set up in a gradient so I had a ready made ombre effect. I searched long and hard for a sketch to use since I was out of my mojo but ended up just moving things around until they fit and creating my own design. 

 again I added some splats to grunge things up a bit. And since my title was pink I was really happy with the die cut card I found to bring in some more of that color.

Lastly, I used my mistable alphas to created another ombre effect with some inks. I added a lot of pink working up from the bottom and a touch of orange to the tips. 

Overall, I love my two ombre pages almost as much as I love this technique. Thanks Lisa.

xo,

Pamage