Once Upon A ...Sketch: February 1st Challenge + Meet Our February Guest Designer Trina McClune

Hi everyone! A new month means a new challenge and we have something pretty interesting for you this month.

Here at Once Upon A...Sketch, we are nearing the end of our first year and during this time we have noticed a huge amount of support from many countries around the world and we are incredibly lucky that our challenges are supported by so many people from all different parts of the globe. One of these countries is Greece, and we have come to realise that we receive many entries from such a small country where scrapbooking is so new, so we had a think and decided to team up with another challenge blog based in Greece and run by our very own Irini Liolia called Get Creative. How exciting!! We have decided to become "sister" blogs, because let's face it...most of us scrapping are women and is there anything stronger than a sisterhood? So for this month only, the Design Team from Once Upon A..Sketch are guests over at Get Creative and taking part in THEIR 1st and 15th of the month challenges and the Design Team from Get Creative are guests on Once Upon A..Sketch! Thus a new bond is formed between 2 challenge blogs.

So head on over to Get Creative to see what our team did with the challenges and maybe play along too.

Oh and never fear! We have been keeping an eye on some other countries and their blogs too and we will do this again with some very popular blogs from other countries.

February 1st Challenge

Journalling Criteria/theme: LOVE

February 14th is Valentines Day here in Australia and in many parts of the world. For this challenge we would like you to create a project about the one MALE you love. And we do not mean just your partner or spouse. We mean any male in your life.

Ideas for journalling: You could journal about the love you have for your son, father, grandfather or a special person in your life or any pet.

Remember that you are allowed to also create a card or altered project based on this sketch and instead of the journalling criteria you need to use a quote.

You must combine our journalling criteria/theme with this sketch

Guest Designers

Trina McClune (New Zealand)

I started to scrapbook well before I realised it had a name, and when my MIL asked if I’d seen this new shop down the road, it was like I’d finally come home. As they say, the rest is history.

I’ve been scrapping ever since – approx 7.5 years - once my twins started sleeping through the night.

I’ve found it to be not only a wonderful creative outlet for me, but also a therapeutic way to mull over ideas, and thoughts as I scrap about those I love.

I currently design for Prima Marketing. I’ve loved Prima for so long I can’t imagine a LO of mine without Prima product on it. But I’ve also designed for several online challenge sites, magazines and have been published widely throughout Australia, NZ and somewhat in USA.

I live in NZ with my family of 3 children (Matt and Sarah 7, and Daniel 5) and incredibly supportive husband Andy. We live in the middle of NZ’s largest city and have somehow managed to obtain 6 chickens, a cat, 3 large vege gardens and numerous fruit trees.

Life is full. Life is fun. Life is chaotic. Life is challenging. Life is good.

My Blog: Living My Dream

Here is Trina's layout for our challenge

We also welcome one more guest, who is the winner of our last challenge...

Jeanette Lee (Singapore)

Hello, my name is Jeanette Lee. I am 26 years old and I reside in Singapore. I started scrapbooking since November 2008, with the initial intention of making some Christmas gifts for friends. I never thought I would actually fall in love with this hobby. Ever since then, it has been a wonderful journey and I am thankful that there is an outlet for me to record down memories through the use of scrapbooking. I am constantly challenging myself to try out new mediums and techniques. I would describe my scrapbooking style as shabby chic, clean and streamlined while enjoying adding special touches that defines who I am. Do find some time to visit my blog at http://nettescraps.blogspot.com

Once again, I am so honoured to be a part of the Once Upon A....Sketch Design Team for the month of February. Thank you for this lovely opportunity.

Here is Jeanette's layout for our challenge..

Now please welcome our Guest Design Team from Get Creative all the way from Greece..

Anastasia Sergiaki (digital layout)

Anastasia Teologlou (card)

Eleni Gratsia

Marie Papadopoulou (mini album cover)

Melenia Agapides

Olga Milona (card)

Elina Katechi

Channa Suitella (card)

Efi Stamateli

Alex Pantazi (card)

Irini Liolia

**Love Cherish Adore Imaginarium Designs chipboard

Sponsors

We are delighted to be sponsored once again by a friend of Once Upon A..Sketch, the gorgeous US kit club..

SWIRLYDOOS

Swirlydoos coordinated scrapbook kits are comprised of elegant papers and products that help our members create beautiful pieces of art both in their scrapbooks, and altered art projects. Swirlydoos tries to include only the newest and most innovative products on the market, as well as showcasing handmade and non-traditional products that we find within the crafting community. We encourage new growth in our members by offering monthly challenges on our forums and offering both photo and video tutorials which help them to learn new tips, tricks and techniques. We also offer a monthly technique or project kit to help further our members in their artistic ability. In addition, we offer various coordinating add ons for those ladies who can never have too many scrappy goodies!

Come check us out at http://www.swirlydoos.com/ and see for yourself what sets Swirlydoos apart from other scrapping communities on the net!

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We also welcome one more sponsor to Once Upon A..Sketch who will actually sponsor all our challenges with 1 prize all year long!! How exciting!

"Berry71bleu is an Etsy shop owned by Marivic Clifton. We specialize in custom and premade embellished hang tags, scrapbook pages, and altered gift ideas with a vintage flair. Each handmade item is unique and embellished with vintage or modern replica findings that goes perfectly with what we sell. We also accept custom orders. Pls visit our etsy shop,http://www.etsy.com/shop/berry71bleu/ or email berry71bleu@gmail.com for more information. Check out our blog, http://berry71bleu.blogspot.com/ for inspiration from our Design Team".

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Feature Art

Feature Art is an art paper designing company located in South Australia.

CREATING THE UNIQUE DESIGN is our company mission. We offer unique patterned paper that help to develop the versatile craft projects for the craft industry. All our paper product is designed and printed in Australia. We will continue to provide our customers with excellent products and best service always.

Website: http://www.featureart.net.au/store/index.php

Prizes

How would you like to be our Guest Designer for March? The winner of this challenge as voted by the Design Team will get to come back next month and be part of our Design Team. This person will also win this awesome kit from Swirlydoo's

December Kit from Swirlydoos

We also have 2 prizes up for grabs that will be given to two RANDOMLY selected entries.

The first prize is a BEAUTIFUL handmade tag from Berry71Bleu

The second prize for another randomly chosen person are these 2 paper collections from FeatureArt.

Things to consider when playing along...

**This is an international blog, so anyone can enter

**You are allowed to create a card, layout or off-the-page item based on the provided sketch and additional journalling criteria. If you are creating a card or altered item you only need to include a quote.

**You are also allowed to flip or rotate the sketch or alter it to suit your needs, but please make sure its still recognisable.

**Post your creation on your blog or an online gallery and link it on the right hand side of this blog using the Link tool. Please provide a direct link to your post, not your entire blog.If the link tool is down, please leave a comment on the comments section and link your layout there.

** The deadline for this challenge is midnight February 14th, Australian Eastern Standard Time . The Design Team will vote and the winners and the Top 5 project will be announced soon after the challenge has finished.

**You may enter as many times as you like and combine this with other challenges.

**Also, please consider turning off word verification for comments on your blog.