#217 - inspired by "your vibe attracts your tribe"

Back in June (WM#217), Leslie asked us to be inspired by this...

... and I loved it right away.

My creative friends really are my tribe. We understand each other. We are there for each other. They are some of the best friends you could ever have and I'm so grateful for the chance to call these wonderful women, my friends.

And of course, from time to time, I've had the chance to get to meet them in real life. What a thrill that's been. 7 and counting so far...

I've made layouts about meeting them over the last couple of years but this layout was specifically prompted by Leslie's quotation. Fellow Master Forger Julene was in Europe on a river cruise up the Rhine and so of course, Cologne was the perfect meeting point. We only had a few hours together but it was great to get to know each other for "real" and to show her a little of my new home country.

I used the August Scrapabilly Kit des Monats (you can check it out at the shop here) featuring the gorgeously bright and happy Let's Party collection by Echo Park as well as die cuts from the Carpe Diem collection by Simple Stories. This was a fabulous layout to make and features those totally scrap worthy colourful buildings in Cologne!

I meant to share it before but am missing a lot of follow through at the moment! Better late than never. I have plans to be better... let's see.

Don't forget that if you follow one of our - now - 227 prompts, we'd love you to share with us either over at our Flickr group (here) or in our Facebook group (here). Just tag it with the number of the prompt you've used and we'll find you! (WM#XXX)

Giveaway prize!

When I posted at the beginning of the week, I promised that I would draw the name for our relaunch giveaway and here it is! Better late than never.

Because I was a little late, I included any layout uploaded to the Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery since the beginning of September - right up to today. I also included Julene's layout which is on Flickr but she doesn't seem to have been able to get it into the gallery. (If you are reading this Julene, get that layout in the gallery so everyone can enjoy it!)

There were a total of nine layouts...

All the names were folded up and put into a little basket so I could pull a name fairly.....

Tadaaaaa! Leslie - your R+R layout is the winner! So please expect a little prize to be heading your way as soon as I can get something in the post for you :-)

Because Leslie is also helping out around here and because I'm feeling generous this morning, I decided to pull a second name too to spread around the giveaway love.....

... Congrats to Julene! Julene, contact me with your snail mail address and I'll get a little something in the post to you as well. It's even more important now that you get your layout into the Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery too!!!

I'm off to my weekly crop this evening at my wonderful LSS, Scrapabilly, so I'll be picking up some bits and pieces for these giveaways which is always a lot of fun.

Come back soon for more inspiration!

Challenge #135 week of 1st September 2014

Well, that was a long break wasn't it?

I'm so sorry for leaving you all hanging! But I thought that this week was perfect to come back to the fold with Monday being the first of a brand new month. And the beginning of my favourite time of year to boot! So we're back and I'm hoping we can get organised enough to be here regularly week by week for you to find a little inspiration and some close-knit community.

It's been a chaotic few months and it's not yet over but I spoke to Leslie and Lynnette and we'd all like this little corner of the internet to keep going and get back to our friendly exchanges and shares over at our Flickr gallery (here). In fact, Leslie and Lynnette will be helping me out so I know that we all look forward to seeing what prompts they create for us! It's SO good to have friends and these two are most definitely that. I think I'd have given up on WM if it hadn't been for their friendship and support. I cherish each of them and also those of you out there reading this.

Of course, we still all miss my beloved Pam but life in the Big Apple is taking up all her time and unfortunately we will just have to wait for her to come back to us! We miss you Pam. :-) But I know that you are out there thinking of us!

I know that the blog is looking a little uninspired right now which certainly isn't how I'd like it to stay. So please bear with me while I find the time to tweak and adjust things round here until things look as pretty as they should!

I've just popped over to our Flickr gallery and am thrilled to see some recent activity! Hi there to Leslie and Ali! Tickled pink to see your uploads. :-) Thanks for keeping the spirit alive.

Now, with the promise of being here more often I'd like to offer you a fresh new prompt...

Coming back after all this time, it's only appropriate that this week I ask you to be inspired by reunions! Whether it be a school, college, university or work reunion, a reunion with a long-lost love or perhaps a friend, or even a reunion with something long neglected (à la Whimsical Musings), I'm sure we can all come up with at least one memorable event to put down on paper!

This layout I shared for our 100 celebration last year was in fact a reunion of sorts. Although it was an open day to celebrate 100 years of the school building, I met up with a couple of girls I hadn't seen for more years than I care to mention!

And how about this layout which was created for a different prompt (a relationship not yet captured) but featuring what can only be called a reunion with my wonderful Filipino friend after almost 15 years!

Let's make this little comeback a great reunion of creative minds and in case you need a little incentive, I'll put up a small giveaway! Any and all entries for any prompts during September will go into the pot for a little prize!

So come on and join in! Let's celebrate a new month and a return to whimsical inspiration!

Challenge #125 week of 3rd March 2014

Today is "I want you to be happy day" and this was going to be my prompt for you this week. But you'll have to wait for it now because I'm going to schedule it later on and you will just be surprised by it one week.

I made this change because I want to celebrate the fact that this is the week I am going to travel to NYC and while I'm there, I'll be hanging out with my bestie Pam!

This will be the first time we have ever met in real life even though we've known each other for nearly 4 years now. How exciting is that?

I made this layout (and shared it here on WM last week) about my fabulous Valentine present during LOAD (doesn't she look cute!)

and this one to put down some of my thoughts about the trip

Yes, you could say that's pretty much all I'm thinking about right now.

But at the bottom of all this excitement is the fact that we'll be face to face for the first time and that's what I'd like you to be inspired by this week.

Be inspired by meeting someone for the first time - whoever it was and in whatever circumstances, capture that very first get together on paper.

We hope that you'll share over at the Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery (here) with the tag WM#125.

We have winners!

Well, our centenary celebration is well and truly over!

I enticed you to join in on the fun and create a layout based on any of the previous 99 Whimsical Musings prompts for a chance to win this little collection:

And you had another chance to win this selection (if I don't nab the bows before they make it into the envelope!) if you created a project based on any of the 6 prompts for the 100 prompt celebrations:

I was thrilled to find that we had 16 layouts in the gallery based on one of the first 99 prompts we've posted here on the blog...

And the name pulled out of the basket is.....

Huge Congratulations to Tara who has been faithfully working through old prompts since she joined our group and we love to see these older challenges popping up. "Toothless" is a great layout and made me smile as soon as I saw it in the gallery. Tara wins the My Mind's Eye Collectable goodies.

And then I was even MORE thrilled to find 17 project in the gallery inspired by our six 100 prompts

I made sure I gave it a good shake

And the name pulled out of the basket is.....

Even HUGER congratulations to Lynette for her Polish tradition layout. This is the second prize Lynette has won for this super fun, happy, bright, fabulous layout as it was the first uploaded into the gallery after our celebration and for that she won a spot prize! Lynette, I hope your postman has a strong back! Ha ha. The Maggie Holmes for Crate Paper goodies will be on its way to you soon.

And just because it was so much fun pulling names out of the hat, I decided to throw all the entries into the basket one last time and pull a surprise name out of the pot...

And our last lucky, surprise winner is....

Waves and congrats to Ali! She contributed so many layouts to the gallery these last few weeks that it thrilled me to pull her name out and look, she won with a layout based on our FIRST prompt - destiny or what?!? Ali, I will pick something up from the shop for you when I'm there at the weekend :-)

To all three winners, please email or Flickr mail me with your snail mail address and as soon as I have a moment to breathe, I will be getting goodies in the post to you!

I want to thank ALL you loyal readers and contributors to our gallery for all your inspiring creations. You are the reason I continue with this creative endeavour and our little corner of the internet means more to me that you can know. Thank you for all 33 links - they were all perfect and made me happy with each and every upload.

Remember that just because the prizes have been distributed doesn't mean that it's the end of the fun. You can check out all the previous prompts up at the top of the blog on the "Previous Prompts" page and join our happy group over at Flickr (here) to browse our incredible gallery (here). We intend to keep on going to the next 100 celebration and I hope you will all be there to join in.

Let's Celebrate - WM#100

Oh, the best laid plans.

I had high hopes of creating this week, perhaps even a layout per prompt. I thought I might make a video to share. And one or two other little things. But I know you'll know exactly what I mean when I say that life took over once again and I've been busy with my sister and her family the last three days, giving me little time to prepare as I'd wanted to. I know you'll forgive me and let me put these things on the list for another time! :-)

But what a week we've had. I was thrilled with all our WM Friends Guest Designers. Their willingness to join in, to come up with a prompt and then to create a page for us following my 100 theme made me very, very happy and I'm sure you will agree that they were fabulous. So a round of applause for all of them.

So... to Cathy

 Michelle

Lynette

Sherrie

and last but no means last... Leslie

THANK YOU! 

Your layouts wowed us and inspired and you all showed me how great it is to have GDs on board spreading the fun around. Something for the future...

I promised to recap on the prompts we had this week so we had :

• Be inspired by a centenary celebration - celebrations around a centenary anniversary whether that's a person, a place, a historical event, the birth or death of someone famous of historical (or someone not so famous), the turn of a century, or even a millennium, maybe even celebrating doing something 100 times 
• Be inspired by your top 100 - top lists of anything you love (or even don't love) - books, music, films, places, people, events, art, things to do, things you've done or places you've visited, scrapbook items, way to spend your time. The list of lists is literally endless. Or perhaps you'd like to focus on just your top 10 or top one as Cathy did, whether you use it in your design or creation, or have it as the focus of your journalling or subject of your page.
• Be inspired by 100 items - 100 items on your page, 100 items in the journalling of your page, 100 items featured in some way in the design of your page. Think large numbers on your page or in the design of your paper or products like Michelle did, or as the main feature of your photo or journalling. Use 100 different scrap items on your page, 100 words in your journalling. I read a report sometime ago about a family who had decided to downsize - to 100 items per family member. What would your 100 things be?
• Be inspired by the song "100 years" - create a timeline of your life, your year, your week or even your day. Think about the concept of time flying so fast - what are the things you want to capture right now? You could create a timeline for so many different topics whether it's your own life, your family's, perhaps an ancestor or a historical figure. You could think about history and create a timeline about an event, a place or even a holiday. What about your likes or dislikes over the years, your development in certain areas of your life? Or just using a timeline concept into the design of your page in some way. I know that this is one that is going on my list for sure
• Be inspired by heading to 100 years of age - think about hopes and dreams for the future, where you are, where you've been and where you'd like to be. Think about you in relation to the other women in your family and how your life has developed in relation to them. Sherrie started thinking about this page when she thought about the longevity she can expect when looking at the ripe ages other women in her family are reaching. Think about a baby and how their life will change over the next 100 years. You could write a letter about your hopes for them. Technology changes could also be another direction to take this. When I think about my own grandmother who is now 91 and could well reach 100 as she's in relatively good health and then think back to the changes she has seen across her life, it's amazing. I could imagine talking to her about what her ideas were about heading to 100 when she was younger.  
• Be inspired by 100% - this is such a fun prompt to take literally or in a more abstract way. What are you 100% inspired by. What is 100% in your life? You could be inspired by test scores or surveys or breaking things down into proportions. I like the idea of thinking about my daily activities and making a super trendy pie chart showing where I waste, I mean spend my time! Again, incorporating numbers is a great way to take this inspiration, if that's as a design feature or in the page subject. Think about engaging in activities 100% or creating a list of things you (100%) know. I created a page like this some years ago and have been promising myself to update it so this could be the time. Or things you want to achieve. Wish lists that are being worked through or have been finished. 

I don't know about you, but I could work on these 6 prompts for the next 100 pages in one way or another? I love the fact that we all came up with something different for the prompts and took them in different directions, even if they sound similar to begin with. 

And of course, you are interested in prizes! Who doesn't love the chance to win?

Like I said, it's busy season for us all, so you have until 16th September to create and post your layouts/projects to our Flickr Gallery (here).

For those of you using one of the 100 prompts from this week, don't forget to use the tag WM#100 (or the individual WM#100 tags listed in each post) for the chance to win this

Or go back over the previous 99 prompts found in the "Whimsical Musings Past Prompts" page tab at the top of the blog (link here) using the appropriate tag WM#XX to be in the draw for this 

Congratulations to Lynette for being the first to post a WM#100 layout in the gallery. She'll be getting something in the post as soon as I can catch my breath after our busy week. Watch your mailbox Lynette! :-)

And of course, to be inspired by other WM friends, be sure to come on over to Flickr and join in the discussion. We'd love to see you there and are always thrilled to see new followers.

I'd like to extend an extra special thank you to Lynette and Leslie who jumped on board right away when I emailed them about my ideas for this week of celebration. They both offered to help in any way they could and Lynette took on the role of WM Promoter through her blog, the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog, Scrap Happy as well as right here within our WM community, while Leslie offered plenty of motivation and also to update our previous prompt list for me and keep it up to date this week. They both offered encouragement and support and for that I am so very grateful. There has been a lot of commenting this week on the posts about the friendships that have been built through this hobby of ours and I'm so happy to have "met" these lovely ladies and become their friend. 

Each of my GDs have a place in my heart and all our WM followers are special so a big thank you to you too. You made my celebratory dream come true.

But of course, there is someone out there who deserves an extra special mention. Someone who is my BFF in the scrapbooking community. Someone without whom none of this would have happened. Pam! When Pam and I decided to do our own little daily layout challenge more than two years ago now, we loved it so much, we went on to challenge each other every week. Taking it to a sharing level seemed the next step and the Whimsical Musings blog came to life. We've had such fun inspiring you all over all those prompts and were so thrilled to find that our other "besties" in the virtual scrapbooking world wanted to join in on the fun. But without Pam's amazing talent and her ability to motivate me and make me happy, we wouldn't be here today. She is a wonderful, inspiring and loving person to have in my life and I want to take this opportunity to thank here for all she's done for me and for us.

She may be taking a creative break right now, but we all hope she'll be back with us when she can. Pam, we all miss you and and will be here for you when you return :-)

So, that's it everyone. Our 100th celebration is coming to an end. But there's still lots going on over at Flickr and that chance to win will continue for another three weeks so get creating.

Have a wonderful Sunday and see you over at Flickr!

Let's Celebrate - WM#100 Guest Designer Leslie

Welcome to our last day :-( of Whimsical Musings Guest Designers and please say hello to the very talented Leslie.

Another LOAD connection here but she very quickly joined in with the Whimsical Musings family and she has proved to be a true friend to us all. A listening sounding board, a creative inspiration and a calming influence to us all, I am so very happy that she agreed to help out this week with her own prompt to help us celebrate our special milestone.


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I think everyone can point to things in life – milestones - that mark a distinctive encounter with something or someone that changed things. Whimsical Musings was one for me.

WM - two remarkable women, separated by a great sea, who connected because of their love of all things scrappy & their admiration for each other’s artistic gifts. Generous paper artists who share their own weekly challenge, who inspire, whose signature moves infuse our pages with creativity.

WM#14 “Incorporate, or be inspired by, maps” was my first. I was inspired by Lisa’s clustering skills.

Hi, I’m Leslie from just outside of Flint, Michigan, USA. My childhood sweetheart & I share our little acre with our grand-dog Lila & our cantankerous cat, Captain Hook. Retirement is looming and with 3 grandbabies to spoil & enjoy it should be sweet :~)

It is with great delight that I join in this week’s celebration of 100 Whimsical Musings prompts!

100%   

is my take on the 100^th prompt.

The butterflies were fussy-cut from a scrap along with the b/w doodles framing the photos. Over at CKC our second August challenge was to use scraps so I trolled for any & all black or yellow tones as well as accents from my Girl Power kit. The yellow legal pad conversation bubbles were in my kit but I didn’t feel like I needed any journaling so I used them to anchor the butterflies instead. They make a nice layer underneath & add some movement to the page. 

I am loving the chalkboard trend & the medallion shape - a recent gift from a friend - seemed perfect to use with these latest studio shots of my granddaughter Chloe. I felt the left side of the layout seemed out of balance. I decided to just doodle over the floral pattern in the paper, there & other random places. Subtle but added just what it needed!

The banner came from my kit as well & I backed it with black to help the medallion not feel so heavy at the bottom. As usual I regretted not matting my photos so this time I just added a simple drawn line around them, tying them to the salvaged scrap doodly accents that frame them up so well.

 I made sure to overlap the arrow onto the medallion to keep it from being a floating element. Can this little cutie sell lemonade or what? These photos definitely DO make me smile!

 Lisa & Pam, one million thanks (or should that be 100, lol) for being such an inspiration! I am hard at work to complete my first 100 prompts & can’t wait to see what’s in store for the next 100.  

I would love to invite your visitors over to my blog at Out of the Mire for a little goodie bag giveaway in honor of Whimsical Musing’s Challenge Blog’s success!

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The next, and final prompt for this week is therefore,

Be inspired by... 100%

Take it and make it yours but don't forget to share your creations over at the Whimsical Musings Flickr Gallery (here) with the tag WM#100-6. 

Leslie can be found creating scrappy lovliness at her blog (here), over at the WM Flickr Gallery (here) and as part of the Counterfeit Kit Challenge design team (here). And she will wow you with her counterfeiting, so do make sure you check out those posts on her blog - where does she get her ideas?

But that's not the end of the party! We hope you will drop by again tomorrow for a round up post and a reminder about the prize draw giveaway. 

Let's Celebrate - WM#100 Guest Designer Sherrie

It's Friday which means it's time to present Sherrie.

Sherrie is a prolific scrapper when she is on a roll and can easily create dozens and dozens of pages in a very short period. Always impressive. And she is so much fun, making me smile with her pages and her comments. She also provides me with tangs of envy as she's lucky enough to live in Canada - my dream destination in case you didn't know! I am secretly planning to descend on her one day for a weekend of scrapping and chatting in her scrap space which is big enough for the two of us as well as a few more of our WM friends!

She dragged herself out of the garden where she spends most of those long, long days to create a page just for us so let me hand you over to her.

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Slouching Towards 100! part 1

Hello friends, and welcome to day 5 commemorating Whimsical Musings' 100 weeks of prompts.

My name is Sherrie Breese and I have been seriously scrapping since 2006. I love the paper, the ribbons, buttons, bits and bobs. The pleasure of playing with tactile products is what pulls me in and can hold my attention to the exclusion of all else. Sometimes I get so immersed in the design process, it surprises me when I look up from the desk to see that the afternoon has turned to evening or even night. I wonder how that can happen, yet it only feels like I have been working for an hour or two.

Lisa and Pam became a part of my life when I joined  up for LOAD1011. Their design sensibilities had a major influence on me and I can say with certainty that they have had a huge impact on my scrapping style.  From Pam, I learned to use white cardstock and to (sometimes) allow some negative space. From Lisa, I learned to turn my random collages into clusters with focus. Through them I have also learned many fun tricks, like doodled borders, wrapping pages with string and twine, using paper doilies, tiny slivers of curled paper, photo collages with picasa, and I am sure a few more.

In celebration of their 100 weeks of prompts, I created a layout that is a retrospective of my first 50 years on my way to 100. I used my June Counterfeit Kit, Country Cousins Mel & Sam. The photos are representative of each decade. The idea came from the lineage of longevity afforded to me by the women in my family.  Hopefully I will be able to complement this layout  with part 2 in another 50 years or so.



 

Don't you just love the idea of using a whole "lifetime" of photos on one layout. And the idea that this is just part 1 is such a great take on the idea of a full and happy life as well as paying homage to the older women in her family.

Typical Sherrie to combine so many different elements, colours and patterns - it all works so well

Love the green dymo labels - that's the second layout this week to remind me to get my dymo out !

In the meantime, the WM party continues at my blog (here), where we will peruse the BBC's "must read" list of 100 Books. How many have you read?

Scrap "sis-stars" Lisa and Pam, thank you for all the work you do bringing us inspiration and challenges for the past, (almost) two years.

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So, Sherrie is expecting to reach 100 which is certainly something I suspect many of us can hope for too. So think of a life full of living and... 

Be inspired by... heading to 100 years of age. 

Whether you are half way there or even just 25% of the way to 100, think about heading to that wonderful number and make a page about some aspect of it. Please share your ideas and creations over at the Flickr Gallery (here) with the tag WM#100-5 - we'd love to see where you go with this today.

When Sherrie isn't out enjoying her garden and grandchildren, she can be found on her blog (here), as well as over at the Whimsical Musings Flickr group (here) or the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog (here).

ETA: Congratulations to Lynette who was the first to share her WM#100 layout over at Flickr. A little extra surprise will be winging its way across the ocean to you for being the first to join in :-)