Challenge #210 - week of 25th April 2015

It was a special few days for me last weekend.

First came a rather special birthday on Thursday 21st - a 90th no less - and then came a celebratory British Tea Party for my family. My mum travelled over especially for the occasion even! I think the German side of the family think I'm ever so slightly crazy but they joined in the fun and came all dressed up in their finest including perfectly British fascinators and bunches of flowers in red, white and blue.

Of course, I was celebrating Queen Elizabeth's 90th birthday - a little bit of Britain in the heart of Germany.

So, in the spirit of patriotism, this week I'd like you to be inspired by red, white and blue.

Of course, when we think of the UK, the Union Jack flag comes to mind with its true red and blue, but the colour range is wider than that as you can see on this beautiful mood board below by Color Me Pretty (sad to see that the blog doesn't exist any more).

Source - Color Me Pretty on Decor8blog.com

I went with a broader range of tones myself in the window decorations I prepared - moving into a more aqua blue and a slightly orange red - much to the gentle irritation of my husband who felt that only the originals were appropriate! We agreed to disagree seeing as though it was "my" party :-)

Of course, these colours are found in many flags so you might want to go in the direction of your own nations colours, or talk about patriotism, or pick up the colours in a whole range of photos (like my London layout below). What about talking about a national holiday in your country, or a trip to the UK you experienced at some time? I've had prompts about the Queen before, but that is another possible way to go - the "real" Queen or your "own", whoever that might be for you.

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#210 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#210 in the write up text so that we can find it.

Challenge #209 - week of 18th April 2019

I listen to a lot of podcasts and read a lot of associated articles. Recently, I've noticed that there's been quite a lot of talk about how we are all so busy. And not in a good way :-)

It got me thinking. I do a lot of busy talk myself and I see what they mean. When someone asks me how I am, I often reply "Busy!" How about you?

I found a whole load of articles online about busyness:

• Forbes
• Lifehack.org
• Onbeing.org
• Tinybuddha.com
• TheMuse.com
• Unreasonable.is
• BBC

So, this week I'm going a little retrospective and asking you to be inspired by being busy.

Take it in the way I talk about above or about modern trends of being. Maybe you are genuinely busy working on something that deserves a spot in your albums or what about a time when you were anything but busy? You could make a busy page with lots of product or colours or reflect on a time when you were younger and didn't even consider the concept of busy! Or you could compare and contrast now with the past - because life really IS more, wait for it, BUSY!

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#209 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#209 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 #207 - week of 4th April 2016

A little on the run here and a day late but here I am again.

Mixing it up today, I took a look at the week to come and found out that Saturday 9th April is "Name Yourself Day" which seems like a lot of fun. Now, I did find a previous prompt WM#49 which was also inspired by names but this Name Yourself Day seems too good to miss so I'll change it up a little.

I'd like you to be inspired by names you give yourself

So many directions to take this one. The shortened version of the name you give to others to call you, the fact that you chose a new name for yourself or that you decided to use a middle name. How you refer to yourself to others around you - mum, Mrs... , Ms... , clumsy etc - or the name you actually would give yourself given half a chance!

This was the layout I made for that original prompt about the name I wanted to give myself when I was at school, inspired by The Merchant of Venice and my love for Simon Le Bon (Duran Duran). This still makes me laugh.

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#207 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#207 in the write up text so that we can find it.