December Challenge + Meet our Guest designer **TARA ORR**

Hi everyone and welcome too the VERY last challenge for 2012!!! This time next month it will be 2013...WOW I am not ready for that.

Well anyway, even though it is still a busy time of the year some of us , I hope you will still find some time to scrap and  I hope you have fun with this one. 

Thank you VERY much to everyone who entered our last challenge. The Design Team is busy voting and we will have the winners very soon. 

So I hope you all stay sane during this busy month LOL! Can't wait to see your interpretations of our December challenge:)

Theme:  It's December...

We would like you to create a layout and interpret the theme "'It's December.. " however you like based on the following sketch. You can journal as little or as much as you like, but your layout must incorporate this theme and the sketch below. Please make sure that we see some sort of journalling on your layouts and please tell us where your journalling is . Hidden journalling is perfectly fine.

Ideas for Journalling: We know that not everyone celebrates Christmas in December, but if you do we would love to hear all about it. If not, then tell us anything that you like about December..celebratory on not! 

Tara Orr

I live in Beautiful British Columbia, Canada with my gorgeous husband of 12 years and our three amazing kids who are the heart and soul of my projects. I am now a SAHM to my precious little kiddos but before that, I worked as a webmaster in the Technology industry for many years and loved it. I think I will return to the ‘work’ force one day but for now, my job is at home, raising my kids (and squeezing in a little scrapping on the side).

Random Facts about Me: I have a degree in Psychology, a green belt in karate, love horseback riding (although its been way too long since I last rode), I order a grande dark from Starbucks almost every day, prefer chocolate to any other sweet – although I’ll eat any other sweet over chips/salty stuff any day, I’m the oldest of 3 siblings, gave up hope of maintaining my ‘Monica from Friends’ (as my husband would describe) cleaning habit once I had kids of my own, have earned more grey hairs and wrinkes in the past 8 years than I could have imagined and love my family more than anything else on the face of this earth!

I love papercrafting – LOVE it. It challenges me, it relaxes me and it lets me escape into a world of creativity that I adore.

I want to thank Nadia and OUAS so very much for giving me the pleasure of working with such amazing sketches and allowing me to create with so much inspiration.  If you want to take a peek at some of my work, please stop by my blog   Each Moment Only Once  for a visit – I’d love to have you!

"Our family tradition is to put up our trees together while listening to Christmas tunes and sipping eggnog, hot chocolate and eating cookies! There is a hidden journaling tag to the right of the page which reads: What a difference from last year! So glad we are all healthy and really able to enjoy Christmas in 2012! So excited in fact, that our tree was up the weekend of Remembrance Day!!! Guess we have to make up for lost time!!

The papers are from Graphic 45's Nutcracker Sweet Collection and the bling and flowers are from ZVA Creative "

Now here is what our Design Team created. To see further details of their work please click on their name to be directed to their blog. 

Svetlana Austin (South Africa)

** Imaginarium Designs Chipboard (the title, corner and hearts)**

Tina Walker (USA)

**Imaganarium Designs Chipboard (leaves, alphas)

**Journaling on tag, hidden behind paper**

Florence Teixeira - France 

Vicky Alberto (Canada)

*Imaganarium Designs Chipboard (corners, title and fence)

*Hidden journaling about winter escapes*

Georgia Heald - (Australia)

Cathy Cafun (Australia) 

 **Hidden journaling on the tag to the right of photo** 

Chantalle McDaniel (Australia)

(Sketch rotated 90 degrees clockwise)

**Main image is a booklet - additional photos and journalling inside **

Kelly Foster (USA)

* Imaginarium Designs Chipboard flourishes

Romy Veul (The Netherlands) 

*Imaginarium Design chipboard frames 

Mona Pendleton (USA)

Anna Zaprzelska (Poland)

** Journaling on tag, hidden behind a paper napkin

Renata Moni (Brazil)

**Hidden Journaling on a tag behind photos.

Erin Blegen (USA)

**Hidden journaling on the tag to the right of photos

Our main sponsor for December is the gorgeous Swedish manufacturer Maja Design 

MajaDesign Corp is situated in Uddevalla, Sweden. We are dedicated to create unique and high quality vintage inspired patterned paper for scrapbooking and crafts. Majadesign was founded in November 2007, and since then been growing over 70 retailers in Sweden and 80 in Europe. Founder Marie Jansson says :  "In the fall of 2004, a dear friend asked me to join her to a scrapbooking course. from that moment, i became totally amazed and thrilled by all the beautiful papers and decorations in the art of scrapbooking. After some time as a captivated scrapper, I got curious to create my own patterns. I have always have had a devotion for color and form, as well as I had great printing facilities close, as I worked at a printers office. Since 2007, I have been blessed to be able to work with my great passion - to design and create colored coordinated paper". 

Here is the link to Maja Design's website - Maja Design 

 Our other sponsor for December is once again the beautiful online store called The Trinket Track..

Welcome to The Trinket Track. The home of the cutest little trinkets around!

Here at The Trinket Track we aim to provide a variety of crafters with a wide selection of embellishments for scrapbooking and cardmaking. Love to make your own accesories? No problem, we have you covered too with a selection of beads, links, ribbon and other little trinkets.

We hope you have an enjoyable shopping experience down the track!

For ideas on how to use our embellishments visit the blog http://www.thetrinkettrack.blogspot.com.au/

 and our store address is http://www.thetrinkettrack.com/

Now here are our permanent sponsors for 2012. For more information please see our sidebar. 

How would you like to be our Guest Designer for the month of February?  The winner of this challenge with the most points, as voted by the Design Team will be invited to be our Guest Designer in January and create along side our Design Team. This person will also win a $25.00 store voucher from ...

The next four winning entries will win the following prizes

Paper collection from Maja Design - Vintage Summer Basics 

A US$20.00 store gift card from C'est Magnifique Kit Club + FREE postage to anywhere in the world + add any other item in the store at NO extra postage cost from C'est Magnifique kit club. 

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There will also be 4 randomly picked winners who will receive the following..

2 ribbon packs for 2 winners from Scrapbooking Fantasies. Each pack includes 29 x ½ mt lengths.

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

**You are free to combine Once Upon A..Sketch challenges with other challenges. We don't mind at all!!!

**You are allowed to enter only layouts  for our challenges

**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 December 31st Australian Eastern Standard Time . The Design Team will vote and the Top 5 layouts PLUS Top 5 featured layouts will be announced soon after the challenge has finished.

**You may enter as many times as you like

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

For a complete list of the rules please see the top of this page.