The Soundtrack Of My Life

Music has played a hugely important part in my life. From a very early age my parents would encourage me to listen to the radio or to their records - just as they encouraged me to read. As I got older, I used to sing along to the radio while my older brother and sisters were getting ready to go to school in the morning and tape songs from the radio to make my own 'collections'. I remember buying my very first single, on vinyl, of course.

Music became an every day part of life as I struggled to learn the piano, the saxaphone and quite a few percussion instruments as part of my high school orchestra and how, as life began to change, music helped me to make the difficult transition from teenager to adult. At university my most important possessions were my shelves full of albums and I would happily spend a week eating toast if it meant I could afford to go dancing in the evenings.

Older still and I realise that music has been a constant in my life. It has understood me when I felt misunderstood; lifted my spirits when I have felt low and said the words that I have sometimes felt difficult to articulate. It has never let me down.

So, when I found out that this month's second challenge at All About Me was to be The Soundtrack Of My Life, I knew that I couldn't possibly create a layout that included all of the songs that mean something to me - there isn't enough space or time - but I did know that not having a working camera wouldn't stop me. I had to do this challenge!

And this leads me to a rather convoluted explanation of how I designed my layout. Not having any digital scrapbook materials, I chose to create the main image using Polyvore. That's right folks. Not only can you use Polyvore to create fashionable collages, but also the most amazing illustrations. It's actually very simple to find items, arrange them in layers and create. Admittedly, to save the image, you need to e-mail it to yourself, then save the image as a useable file. But that's not really a big deal, right? Still much easier than fiddling with lots of layers in Photoshop.

Once I had the main image, I transferred it to Photoshop Elements and placed an electronic version of a Basic Grey scrapbooking paper behind it as a background. I then made some adjustments to the colours and added my text. Et voila.

Do let me know what you think before heading over to All About Me to see what the rest of the Design Team came up with. If you have any questions about Polyvore, etc, feel free to ask in the comments, okay?

What Colour Are You?

The second All About Me challenge has now been revealed by the Design Team and we're asking you, what colour are you?

Really think about it though, won't you? The colour that represents you may not be your favourite colour; it might not be the colour that you wear or decorate with most often; it might not even be an obvious colour. You could even be cheeky, like some of the Design Team and choose to be represented by more than one colour. And I know I gave some thought to representing my often...um...colourful language!

Having said all that, though my choice of colour may seem a little less obvious than most, I knew almost instantly how I wanted to approach this challenge. I used to be a lively, confident sort of person - always the life and soul of the party; out with friends and family all of the time; quite the socialite. I had a colourful and interesting life. Over the past few years, I've had a few knocks and I've found myself making careful and considered choices; safe choices. Choices about what clothes I should wear to look more professional. Choices about which career moves I should make to show that I was progressing. Choices which meant staying quiet rather than saying what I felt and rocking the boat. Choices, it seems now, that were much more about what was expected of me, than what I truly wanted for myself.

I thought that making the 'right' choices would increase my confidence; would make people see me in a new light; would make me stand out. Instead, I felt more and more as though I was just another person in the corporate machine. I was starting to blend into the background, but the more I tried to be seen, the more invisible I was to other people. I became beige.

Beige. Safe, conservative, unoffensive beige.

Since leaving work in April, things have started to change and 'the old me' is starting to resurface but there are still times when I feel as though I've lost something; lost a part of who I was but at least I know that there's a colourful future ahead!