Challenge #324 - week of 25th March 2019

Another Monday and another chance to start the week with a "clean" slate and by clean, I mean it literally! At the moment, I'm home on Mondays which gives me a chance to get on top of the housework after the chaos of the weekend (when I generally do nothing household-y) and leaves the rest of the week free to do what I like! I read somewhere that your average German housewife spends more than four hours a day on housework which sounds rather a lot to me but then again, I'm not average, not German and definitely not a housewife. Maybe if I ticked one or two of these boxes, I'd spend more time not less!

Anyway, my place is now clean and tidy - more or less - and will remain this way until the weekend, although I do do a little cleaning most evenings after work. But this week, I decided to get a whole bunch of washing done - three loads in so far, another three waiting to be done. With no dryer and almost everything we own needing ironing when it is dry, that's a whole lot of work in itself. One step at a time.

So this week, I'd like you to be inspired by the washing (or laundry for my US friends!)

I think there are different ways to take this prompt:

• the physical act of doing the washing/laundry as a stand alone topic - maybe you have a huge amount, hardly any or are you lucky enough to have someone to do it for you? Do you send stuff out to be done or have someone come in to do the ironing? Do you have a routine or a standard time to get it done and do you always follow a certain way of doing it? I think this might be quite a cultural topic as I've noticed big differences across countries with how this household task is undertaken. You might have had a life change that has affected this task - a new baby who seems to need five outfits a day or a retirement which means that you no longer have to iron business shirts or a new job which means a uniform, different types of clothes or stuff that's tricky to manage. You could also think about the washing as part of a daily/weekly/regular routine which you might be recording on your page. A Day in the Life or A Week in the Life or just your Project Life project might touch on housework tasks.
• a problem you encountered during the activity - have you ever left a red sock in the white wash and sent all your husband's shirts pink? Or perhaps put a rather expensive woollen, designer jumper on a hot wash only for it to come out the size of a Barbie doll with the texture of solid felt? (true story that happened to a friend of mine while we were au pairs!) Or perhaps the washing machine let you down and flooded the house or something got washed by mistake (a special toy perhaps) and it was never the same again. 
• you might want to record it as part of things you love to do or maybe, like me, you are not a fan! A "Things Right Now" type layout are always a fun snapshot in time.
• part of your character - as my layout above shows, I'm not a natural and this layout records that. However, maybe you're a laundry fiend and could even consider it a superpower - record that this week.
• products - the Simple Scrapper collection in the layout above featured lots of housework elements both in the papers and die cuts and I loved trying to find a way to use them. The little washing machine cluster featured here made me happy.
• design - try hanging elements across your page from a "washing line". This is a design feature I've used again and again over the years and even have one hanging on my wall in a frame that even uses mini clothes pins to hold the photos and embellishments on the line

I think that's quite a list of ways you could take this prompt and I hope you'll give this prompt a try. 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!

Challenge #221 - week of 18th July 2016

I love the Timehop app. It shows me which photos I took on this day 1, 2 or more years ago and shows me my Instagram feed too.

Now the story is way too long to explain but today's Timehop included this photo.

And it got me thinking that I'd like you to be inspired by water.

It's something that we take for granted but is such a valuable resource for the planet. It might represent summer swimming in the local pool, a lake or the ocean. It might talk to you about the ongoing work through the summer to keep your plants watered. It might remind you of wet days - whether that's rain, humidity or the sprinkler in the garden. You might take the photo I posted as direct inspiration and talk about your dream sink, your love of standing by the kitchen sink and looking out of the window or how you hate the washing up! I think water is a topic that you can take in any direction you'd like!

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#221 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#221 in the write up text so that we can find it.

Challenge #118 week of 13th January 2013

Here at Whimsical Musings, we try to change things up a little, mixing in technique, subject, product or more off-the-wall type prompts. And I was just about to put a colour scheme that had called out to me on Pinterest, when I realised I'd given us a colour based (Pantone Colour of the Year) challenge last week. Back to the drawing board. Of course, organisation in terms of a list of possible prompts would be a really good place to start to avoid this kind of thing... another thing for the list!

Anyway, here I am looking around me and wondering if there's anything right in front of me that could be interesting for us today. I'll save that gorgeous colour scheme for another day....

I have it. Something that was given to me for my birthday and certainly sums me up.

Are you a "Putzteufel" or more of a "Putzmuffel" (no real translation for either of these but don't you just love these words! Literally a housework devil or a housework grump!) We all have to do it to a greater or lesser degree even if we have some help along the way. And I really can't be bothered to make the time for it when there are pretty papers and embellies to be played with, good TV to watch or friends to meet. I know quite a few Putzteufel and they make me feel very inadequate when I see them cleaning house at 7am before work, but that's just not me. I do a bit of Flylady from time to time and am a huge advocate of the clean sink and the 15 minute rule but then I tend to let it slip until I have hours just to get on top of it all. And there's only the two of us in the house!

So.... be inspired by housework in some way. Your attitude to it, something you love/hate to do, how you distribute tasks among the other members of your household, a story about your mum or granny and how different their attitude to housework is, compare your housework time to how it was in the past - even your own past, or what about a piece of housework equipment (does anyone remember Stacy J talking about her iron layout?). Maybe you are just inspired by the retro design of my coaster.

However this inspiration moves you this week, be sure to share your creations over at our Flickr gallery (here) with the tag WM#118.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a mountain (literally) of ironing to work through.