An Act of Kindness + Messy and Beautiful: Creative Prompts 9 & 10
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
Welcome to the month of challenges, creating around the theme of “These Moments Matter”.
Over the month, we will be setting four challenges a week that anyone can play along with. Can you believe we are already half way through?!
Prompt number 10 brings us to the half way mark, what a fun month of creativity we are having :)
Here are some finer details that we shared in the founding post to this month of challenges as a recap . . .
At the end of the challenge month, participants who have completed all 20 Challenges/Creative Prompts will be entered into a draw to win a ‘forever’ pass to access exclusive premium content and goodies here at Pixels, Paper and Paint - Life in Pictures by Lynn and Rachel.
Runners up and participants who didn’t manage to complete all of the 20 Challenges/Creative Prompts will be entered into a drawing to win spot prizes for passes with limited access to exclusive premium content and goodies here at Pixels, Paper and Paint - Life in Pictures by Lynn and Rachel.
In order to be eligible for the drawing for a chance to win exclusive premium content and goodies here at Pixels, Paper and Paint - Life in Pictures by Lynn and Rachel you will need to:
Ensure you are subscribed to this publication when the draw takes place in February.
Ensure that at least 75% of each finished page or project used digital art from either Rachel Jefferies Designs or Lynn Grieveson Designs. You can find our creative assets at The Lilypad and Oscraps.
Share your finished pages or projects within the designated ‘chat thread’ for each challenge. You’ll find the links for each thread where you can share your pages and projects posted with it’s associated challenge.
Please note that whilst our digital assets are available to purchase at the LilyPad and Oscraps, these Challenges and Creative Prompts are not associated or affiliated with either store, and so by sharing them in the designated threads here, we are able to efficiently keep track of your participation to validate your entry into the drawings at the end of the challenge month.You are very welcome to, and encouraged to share your pages and projects in our designer galleries at the LilyPad and/or Oscraps. We will be checking into our galleries throughout January and awarding some spot prizes of coupons to spend in our shops! When posting your pages and projects in the galleries please note in the description box ‘Created for the ‘These Moments Matter’ Month of Challenges by Pixels, Paper and Paint - Life in Pictures by Lynn and Rachel.
SOMETHING OLD SOMETHING NEW SALE
If you’re here to read about our Something Old Something New Sale offerings this Wednesday at the LilyPad you’ll find them (reduced in price by 50%) at the end of today’s email!
AN ACT OF KINDNESS (a challenge from Lynn)
Aesop said: “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”
This challenge asks you to remember a kind gesture someone made to you, and to reflect on its significance. What did it mean to you? Why has it stuck in your mind?
Many years ago I was messaging very early in the morning with a neighbour, who knew I got up soon after dawn to work from home. I mentioned in passing that I had an awful cold, and a few minutes later there was a knock at the door and there she was with a steaming mug of lemon and honey.
That little act of kindness was just the first as, not long after, she rallied to my side in a crisis and became a great friend. But even so, it strikes me that, at that time, it was one of the few times since I had left home three decades earlier that someone had looked after me that way. Which is, of course, not how it should be. It’s a tiny memory with many layers.
For Rachel, the challenge was bittersweet, she knew immediately which act of kindness was at the forefront of her mind, but, the events that preceded it are still so raw and that chapter of her life hasn’t been resolved.
She therefore decided to take this challenge in a very personal direction and create a hybrid art journal page to represent her thoughts.
Initially, she intended to go bold and include lots of colour and focus on the positives that came about from the act of kindness, and that’s the beauty of art journaling, it is what it is and it’s not about creating something beautiful, or the importance of the end result, but it’s about following that muse, and allowing it to just ‘be’, allowing things to unfold as they will just as life does . . .
MESSY AND BEAUTIFUL (a challenge from Rachel)
Talking of messy, life doesn’t always go as planned, and things can get messy—but beauty often emerges from chaos.
Use this prompt to see the positive in what might initially seem disorganised or imperfect. Create a page or project themed around something messy yet undeniably beautiful.
Forget the insta worthy photos and forget tidying up before you shoot to get ‘the perfect shot’.
A friend commented on a facebook post of mine and said “some of us don't scrap realism, and the kids generation, says social media is full of lies” “Scrapbooks should have more truth - i've stopped photoshopping the washing basket out of the background in more recent years”
My page represents the happiness that can be found in messy! Our bookshelf is utter chaos! It used to house ornaments and ‘grown up books’ for us adults, but over the years, as our main living room is where we also play, we absolutely keep a ton of the kids stuff there and this bookshelf is theres.
The chaos is gorgeous because it’s packed full of colouring books, pencil cases, jigsaws, board games, racing cars, pokemon cards . . . the list goes on. Everything that they could want or need on a daily basis is accessible to them and we embrace this messy corner of our room!
This photo during our winter holidays shows Mackenzie re-organising an area of the shelf and re-ordering boxes and it made me smile so I quickly snapped this whilst sitting on the sofa watching her.
Lynn, however, found this challenge a challenge in more ways than one.
In recent years she has increasingly defined herself by her love of organising, never happier than when doing a good clean out and sorting the drawers out (yet again!). Clutter makes her stressed - and looking back at old photos of her home when she was juggling parenting a preschooler and a teen, along with ill health and working from home also makes her stressed!
So she challenged herself to find the beauty evident in the photos: The books they loved to read, the joy on her daughter’s face, and the hand-knitted clothes found by her nana in charity shops.
Designated Chat Threads for today’s Challenges
Remember, in order to be eligible for the drawing for a chance to win exclusive premium content and goodies here at Pixels, Paper and Paint - Life in Pictures by Lynn and Rachel, you will need to share your finished pages or projects within the designated ‘chat threads’ for each challenge so that we can can keep track of them and validate your entries.
Share your pages for challenge prompts 9 & 10 in the following chat threads:
To share your act of kindness pages post them in this thread here
To share your messy and beautiful pages post them in this thread here
For help with participating in Substacks Chat feature see here, and if you get lost and lose these links, you can find all of our chat threads here.
A few of you have found a little quirk when you click through to the chat thread from the e-mail in your inbox and are welcomed with a message with an error saying the page is private. This is because you are not logged in when arriving to the substack platform. You need to be logged in before you can view and participate in the chat threads - let us know if you have any problems!
PS don’t forget you can always pop to the site to keep up to date with the challenges. There is a designated section there for you which you can find here.
SOMETHING OLD SOMETHING NEW SALE - ITEMS REDUCED IN PRICE
Hand picked by Lynn and I are some wonderful items that have been reduced in price but only for today, 15th JAN 2025.
You’ll find they are a great fit for this weeks challenges and those from our past prompts ;)
From hints and references to days and years gone by, designs that focus on ‘you’, ‘us’, and ‘these days’ to gorgeous collaborations and adventure filled pocket templates. Have fun wading through the specials and finding something new to create with.
Click here, or the button or image below to go shopping at the LilyPad.
Don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any questions or difficulties you may have and look out for two new prompts landing in your inbox and on our substack page on Friday!
I love this "Forget the insta worthy photos and forget tidying up before you shoot to get ‘the perfect shot’." It reminds me of a moment when the children were looking at recipes on Pinterest when we had to add another allergen to the diet for my 3 year old. They said "We need a special Pinterest for not-Pinterest worthy photos - you know real photos of what it looks like when we've been cooking or baking. Not the professionally staged ones"
Lynn/Rachel.... this morning I am unable to get into any of the substack challenges... I have 2 left to post, today is the last day... I am frustrated and don't know what to do... It says I have to be a paid subscriber... I have been trying to fin da way in for over an hour.... Hope you get this message???