Rachel's Mixed Media Challenge - March

First off, congratulations to the winner for February's challenge, Janisn! Coupons for the winner and participants will be out shortly.

Each month through 2025, a broad theme will be provided for the challenge and you can interpret these themes as literally or as loosely and abstractly as you wish.

If you’d like to learn something specific please let us know!

This month's theme is BATTLE.

March is named after Mars, the Roman god of war. But that shouldn't freak you out — Mars represents courage, determination, and the ability to overcome obstacles. Spiritually, this is a call to face your battles, internal or external, with strength and resilience. So this month, we're going to examine a battle that you've been challenged with.

This month's prompts:

-The War Within – Create a page that represents the internal struggles you face. Use contrasting colors or symbols to illustrate the conflict between your fears and strengths
-Shadows of the Past – Reflect on a past experience that felt like a battle. How did it shape who you are now? Use shadows, textures, and fragmented images to express the lingering effects
-Phoenix Rising – Represent a personal battle you've overcome. Use imagery of fire, rebirth, or transformation to show how you've emerged stronger from the struggle
-The Mask I Wear – Illustrate the mask or facade you put on to face the world, especially during times of difficulty. Use layers or symbols to depict the emotional barriers you've built
-The Storm Inside – Symbolize the chaos or emotional turmoil you experience during a difficult period. Play with movement and contrasts between calm and stormy elements
-The Silent Struggle – Create a page that shows the quiet, invisible battles you fight daily. Use subtle or soft textures, muted colors, and hidden symbols to represent struggles that aren’t always visible to others
-Strength Through Adversity – Create a piece that showcases your strength, resilience, and growth after facing a personal challenge. Incorporate symbols of power and endurance
-The Turning Point – Reflect on a moment when you made a decision to change or face a challenge head-on. Illustrate this pivotal moment with symbols of choice, crossroads, or key moments of realization
-Self-Compassion Battle – Create a piece that explores the struggle between self-criticism and self-compassion. Use opposing elements to represent the battle between being kind to yourself versus being harsh

Each of these prompts can be expanded with mixed media, textures, and even journaled thoughts to deepen the connection between your creative process and emotional reflection.

Tips/Technique/Tutorial:
With each challenge, a tip/technique/tutorial will be included. There is no pressure to incorporate the tip/technique/tutorial into your challenge page, the choice is entirely yours.

This month, I encourage you to use Rachel's fabulous mixed media elements to really think about your own personal iconography and metaphors and how you incorporate them into your work. Use the elements in different sizes and levels of intensity to illustrate your feelings and show symbolism.

Use several elements together to create your own type of symbol or sigil that can be a secret mark of sorts that reminds you of how you were feeling at the time you created the page, but that doesn't necessarily announce it to the world.

In my page, I've used mark elements from Rachel's Better Together kit to create a quasi-personal crest that makes me feel like I'm raising a shield, ready to do battle.



And Rachel created this lovely page inspired by the Mask I Wear prompt:


Look at this gorgeous inspiration from Roxana...





Challenge Requirements:

• Create a new page using one of the prompts
• Use at least 75% of Rachel's Product currently available in her LilyPad shop.
• Any remaining percentage must be product from another current LilyPad designer. This could also include retired products from Rachel or the other current LilyPad designer.
• Hybrid projects are also welcome and the same product rules apply. Where digital products are used in a hybrid project they must all come from current LilyPad designers, and at least 75% must be Rachel's Product.
• Upload your layout to the Rachel Jefferies Designs Gallery at the LilyPad with your product credits.
• For your challenge entry to be counted, you MUST upload your finished layout to this thread. Please link your gallery image to your post in this thread, as it helps us leave love on your layout (and validate your project).
• No double-dipping… your layout must be created for this challenge only, no others.
• You must create a NEW layout for this challenge.
• This challenge will remain open for the monthly coupons through March 31st, 2025

Prizes:

• All participants who post their page during the challenge month by the end of month deadline and meet the criteria will be eligible for a coupon of 15% off their next order (from Rachel's shop) of $8.99 or more.
• ONE lucky random winner who posts their page during the challenge month by the end of month deadline and meets the criteria will receive a $8.00 coupon for Rachel's Shop here at the LilyPad!

If you have any questions just tag me and I will get back to you as soon as I can. I look forward to your creations

 

Oops!!! I messed that up. Yes, I did take the text from last year's challenges. So sorry for the mixup!!! Thanks for changing that, @Rachel Jefferies!!! So sorry, @Pheeebzzz... thanks for catching that!

 

Oh wow... you have all just done such amazing things with this challenge so far! I'm so in love with these pages.

 

These are all such wonderful expressions! I love what you're all doing with this challenge.