More May 1st Projects + Meet Our May Sponsors

We are really excited to introduce two brand new sponsors for the month of May.  

First up is an amazing Australian store called Seriously Scrapbooking

which is owned by Jane Trezenga.

 Jane is not only the owner of Seriously Scrapbooking but is also the design team leader and owner for Imaginarium Designs . Imaginarium designs is a new chipboard company founded in 2010. It is the combined collaboration of  a Mother and Son who both work in the paper craft industry.

 You can visit their blog  here  for inspiration and to see what the design team has been up to. 

Our very own design team members Steph Devlin and Heather Jacob are also on the Imaginarium Designs team!!

 Imaginarium Designs have so generously offered to sponsor a major prize every month for a whole YEAR! WOW! How amazing is that? They have also sponsored our very own Design Team and we have all just received our goodies so you will see a lot of this wonderful chipboard on our layouts in the coming months !!

SO this is what the winner of our current challenge will receive this time, and what future winners will also receive....a pack of their latest and most popular chipboard. The best thing about this, is that the pack will be different each month and will be customised to fit the winners needs. So if you have girls, you will be sent girly chipboard etc. 

WELCOME Jane and Imaginarium Designs to our team at Once Upon A...Sketch!

We invited Jane to design for us this month and well..she didn't disappoint. Here is Jane's layout based on our current challenge

**All chipboard is from Imaginarium Designs

Jane is on the Graphic 45 Design Team for 2011. She regularly teaches 10-15 classes a month in her own store as well as teaching at Printblocks for store owners/teacher.  She loves sharing her passion for scrapbooking with everybody. She will be teaching in Brisbane at the Scrapbooking &  Papercraft  expo & convention in the June long weekend.  Her work has been published in Australia and America

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Next up we have our second sponsor for the month of May, who this time will sponsor the random prize, which will be $US10.00 to spend at the store. So please welcome...

At YourScrapbookStash.com we are committed to bringing you the best products out there.  We carry brands that are hard to find and we love to support the smaller manufacturers.  We offer low shipping rates and FREE shipping on qualifying offers. Our blog is updated daily with tips, techniques and inspiration posted by our amazing Design Team (including our very own Bente Fagerberg!)

We also invited the Design Team from Your Scrapbook Stash to be our Guests this month, and here is some further inspiration for you from the talented girls on the Design Team using our current sketch and journalling criteria..THANK YOU ladies for your outstanding projects using materials from Your Scrapbook Stash. 

Jessy Christopher 

Audrey Yeager

Laurel Seabrook

and of course our very own Bente Fagerberg who is a team member at Your Scrapbook Stash

Michelle Magana

Danielle Aubroeck

This wonderful sponsor is also giving you ONE more way to win ...a pretty easy one. Just head on over to their blog HERE and leave a comment with a link to your project completed using the current sketch and criteria and you could win some stash! You need to leave a comment on this post.

There you have it...AMAZING WORK ladies!

THANK YOU SO MUCH to Imaginarium Designs and Your Scrapbook Stash. Without generous sponsors like these, this site is almost not existent. 

Looking forward to seeing what you create!!

May 1st Challenge + meet our May Guest Designer

Hi again everyone!

Time for our next challenge! How quickly does time go? THANK YOU to everyone that participated in the last challenges. The Design Team is busy voting and I will have the winners in the next few days. 

Our May 1st challenge is:

Journalling criteria: write your journalling on a journalling spot (if you are making a card or altered project you use a quote on a journalling spot instead of journalling)

and this sketch...

Now introducing our next Guest designer. Please give a warm welcome to our May Guest Designer

Sarah Mullinex

Hello, I am a stay at home mom to my 3 kids Becca 14, Emmy 11, and Carter is 2. I live in central Indiana with my hubby of 15 years, 3 kids, and our yellow lab. I have been scrapbooking for a little over 14 years now and was first introduced to this hobby when I was expecting my first child and have been hooked ever since. I have been designing for various scrapbook design teams and also teaching classes for the past 6 years and I absolutely love every second! I am thrilled to have so many opportunities in this crazy scrapbooking world of ours, and honored to be a guest designer for Once Upon A Sketch!!

My Blog: Welcome To My Neighborhood

http://sarahmmullanix.blogspot.com

Welcome Sarah! It is LOVELY to have you here!!

Here is Sarah's interpretation of our sketch and criteria

Now here is an example from Kyoko, our other Guest Designer for May who was our winner last challenge..

Design Team Examples

..starting with the first one from Irma. Irma has used the May kit from Tidbitz In Time and is also Guest Designer there this month. Tidbitz In Time is a US kit club who have invited our entire Design Team to be Guest Designers there and work with their upcoming kits for almost the rest of the year. Lucky us! We get their latest kit to work with and you will get to see some examples here and the rest of what our team has created at the Tidbitz In Time blog and website gallery. 

Irma Peredne

Nadia Cannizzo

Irini Liolia

Nerrida Mitchell

Helen Tilbury

Gerry Van Gent

**All chipboard is from Imaginarium Designs

Hope you have been inspired by all this AMAZING talent!!!

Now its YOUR TURN!!!

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 our right sidebar 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 May 14th. The Design Team will vote and the winner 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.

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

Please see below for our May sponsors. 

Can't wait to see what you all create!

We have some outstanding entries so far, but just reminding you that you have just under 5 days left to get your entry in for the current challenge.

Up for grabs is a HUGE $50.00 and $20.00 voucher to use at Scrap Matrix!! 

Remember anyone can enter from anywhere in the world ..

Click here for the details. 

April 15th Challenge

**PLEASE NOTE- THIS POST WILL STAY AT THE TOP. LOOK FURTHER DOWN FOR WINNERS**


Hi again everyone! 

Firstly a HUGE thank you for the absolutely amazing projects you shared with us in our previous challenge. We have seen entries come in from ALL over the world and I am so pleased at that! This is the vision that I had for this challenge blog, and I hope it continues this way. I love how people have journalled in their own language and I encourage anyone to do so! And please remember...it is not about how neat your handwriting is, or whether you spelled some words wrong. The whole point of this is to document a special time or create a card or project with some meaning behind it ..:o)

I can tell you that the winners of the last challenge might take a little longer to announce as I know that the Design Team will have quite a bit of trouble trying to narrow it down to their Top 6. I will announce the winners as soon as I get the votes in!

I wanted to again direct your attention to the TOP of this blog where you will find all the rules. Please read the challenge rules carefully as to avoid disappointment.  Don't forget too that you can translate this blog using Google Translator which is on the right hand side of this blog. Its not the best but you will get the idea!


Let me also remind you that although not encouraged, hidden journalling will be permitted as we understand that not everyone wants to share their deepest thoughts with everyone else. If you hide your journalling please direct us to where on your page it is and that you have indeed journalled.

Now moving on to our next challenge...

Your journalling criteria for this challenge is to write the reason you chose to scrap this photo 
(e.g. to remember this moment, to remember someone, to send a message to someone, because this photo makes you smile, the photo shows a personal achievement, your child's milestone etc. etc. )

Your journalling can be any type i.e. handwritten, printed etc.. and as long as you wish it to be. 

REMEMBER: If you are making a card or altered project you DO NOT need to include the journalling criteria BUT you MUST use a quote somewhere on your card or project.....

This is the sketch you need to follow..

and here is an example from our April Guest Designer Piradee Talvanna. THANK YOU SO MUCH for being our guest for April Piradee..we LOVED having you here!

Piradee has journalled her love for cupcakes! I cannot argue with you there Piradee :o) Piradee turned the sketch to its side! Just lovely. 

Our Design Team examples

Trudi Harrison's  reason for scrapping this photo is her love of watching her beautiful little girl play. So innocent and sweet. Trudi flipped over the sketch and provided us with a different option to scrap this sketch. 

Heather Jacob wonders what is going through the mind of beautiful Ella. She has used a stunning heart shaped piece of chipboard from Imaginarium Designs to express her love for this precious little girl. 

Natalie Elphinstone has created a mini album for her cute little girl Moriah's first birthday. Do you see how she has included the sketch in all the pages where her journalling is? Natalie says "A mini-album can be quite a daunting prospect. In fact, I had put off doing this project ever since my daughter turned 1 in November. It hadn't crossed my mind before that it would be so easy to put together each page like a mini-layout, and using the sketch made it a breeze!" And I have to agree with you Natalie..you have just given me an idea!

Steph Devlin has used the sketch almost precisely and this is what she had to say about her girl...her little dark beauty "My littlest girl is such a thinker. When she was a baby, you could see the cogs turning. Sometimes I find her sitting in a room by herself just having some time, and I wonder what she is thinking about". Steph has used hidden journalling as she felt what she had to say was too private to share.

Helen Tilbury documents her daughter's love for this woolly hat. Helen says : "I Loved the sketch &  stuck to it pretty literally - except for the orientation of the photos - as I really wanted to use these two to tell the story of my daughter's obsession with her woolly hat"

Irma Peredne tells us her reason for scrapping this photo is for her boys to remember how they spent the last day of summer before school started in this mixed media layout.  Irma has also adjusted the sketch by moving it to the right. Our talented artist also wanted to give you a little feedback on how she created this gorgeous project: "This is a 3D mixed media piece done on gessoed chipboard and backed by another chipboard piece with stacks of foam squares. The water holes are cut with a crafting knife; Inside each there's acrylic pebbles, reeds and die cut leaves peeking through. This is a thick piece so I trimmed off the side to fit in a 12"x12" page protector. More detailed photos on my blog."

 LG Belarmino decided to create a 8.5 x 11 layout. How creative!!! LG's reason for creating this layout is to share with us her love and friendship with her two sisters.  LG says: "This is a fun sketch to play with. There are so much possibilities by simply flipping or rotating it. For my layout, I decided to do an 8.5x11 layout of my two best friends, my sisters" 

Rossella Palladino expresses her passion for scrapbooking in this layout. She described a beautiful day out, scrapping with her friends and being surrounded by papers. Rosella says: "This page represents my passion for scrapbooking. I used a fun background, flowers and colours to show that when I am scrapping I am relaxed and easy going. It was important for me to scrap this photo as it was taken at the last meeting with my scrap-friends, one of few happy and carefree days!".We hear you Rossella!

Bente Fagerberg, decided to turn the sketch on its side to accomodate her photos better. Bente explains her reason for scrapping this photo... "In the little envelope I have a little message from my DD. My journalling is in Swedish and says:"I love these photos because they remind me of a beautiful Spring day that we spent in the garden together. We re-potted seedlings and sowed new little seeds to get more flowers.You enjoyed it very much and were able to do it all by yourself."

Carole Janson's reason for scrapping this photo is pretty obvious..to remember a beautiful milestone in her friends life..her wedding day. Carole says " I loved this sketch. It has such a spacious feel to it and really easy to add plenty of detail so it was perfect for my photo of my best friend Lauren and Josh on their wedding day" 



Lou Dalhstrom chose a beautiful vintage photo to represent Easter. The beautiful soft pastel colours, together with that little girl and bunnies chipboard  by our sponsor Scrap Matrix capture the warmth of the upcoming season. 

WOW!! I think there is SO much inspiration there. Thank you to my wonderful and super talented Design Team for your hard work.


Now its your turn!!


Don't forget our sponsor this month is

who have generously sponsored all our prizes this month. Remember, they will ship internationally to ANYONE at actual shipping cost!

So what does the winner get for this challenge?

As voted by the Design Team the winning entry will receive a HUGE

 

at Scrap Matrix to spend in the store here !!

The Design Team will also vote on their top 5 favourites and those 5 entries will be our FEATURED projects for this challenge. 

We will also have 1 randomly chosen winner amongst the rest of the entries. This person will receive a cool

to also spend at the Scrap Matrix store. 

THANK YOU so much Rae Cooper from Scrap matrix for your generous prizes! It was a pleasure dealing with you and hope to see you back here again soon. 

We hope to see more lovely entries from you! You have until midnight 30th of April, Sydney time (Australian Eastern Standard Time) to submit your entries. Please link your entries to the top right of the blog using the Link Tool. 

Have fun!

April 1st **WINNERS**

Hi everyone..

It's time to announce the winners of our April 1st challenge. 

Before I announce the winners I would like to just quickly tell you that in order to be considered for a prize or a feature YOU MUST FOLLOW THE JOURNALING CRITERIA very closely. Besides the sketch, each challenge will have a set journaling criteria that you must include on your projects. Off the page or altered items and cards MUST have a quote on them in order to be in the running for a prize or feature. 

Our  *MAIN PRIZE* winner for the April 1st challenge, who also gets to come back in May as our Guest Designer is...

KYOKO of Japan

CONGRATULATIONS KYOKO!!!! Your layout was chosen by our Design Team out of 101 entries!!! 

You now have $AUS50.00 to spend at SCRAP MATRIX . Please email Lou here to get the details of how to claim your prize and please email Irma here regarding your Guest Designer spot next month.

Now these are the Top 5 as again voted by the Design Team. Can I just say here that there was probably 1 point different between all of these. Voting was SO close!

TOP 5 *FEATURED PROJECTS*

LORETA from Lithuania

SHARMAINE KRUIJVER from Australia

PATTI HAMIL from the USA

SUSAN from the USA

CHERUBS from Lithuania

CONGRATULATIONS to the Top 5. You were all STAND OUTS and your layouts are ALL stunning!

Now ladies...the Design Team and I have been so stunned with not only the amount of entries, but also how absolutely gorgeous all your projects were. We ALL had such a hard time trying to narrow down our Top 6 out of over 100 entries...so even though we normally feature our Top 5 and the winner, here are some more that caught our eye...

        Chantelle from Australia                                         

Vicky Varvadouka from Greece

Lynnda Hosni from Australia 

Rachael Funnell from Australia

Agneja from Lithuania

Well done to these 5 as well!

And last but not least...we have our RANDOMLY chosen winner....

CONGRATULATIONS TO..

Number 65 is Kristal with this entry

Kristal you have won $AUS20.00 to spend at Scrap Matrix. Please email Lou here to claim your prize. 

Thank you so much for your beautiful entries and we hope to see you back here again.

Bye for now!

April 1st Challenge + Meet our Guest Designer Piradee Talvanna

Hi everyone! 

Here we are with our very first challenge. Firstly I wanted to say a HUGE thank you to everyone that has supported us in the past week...to all our new followers...to our wonderful sponsors and to my outstanding Design Team, who I must have stressed a little in the last few days...

Before I post the sketch and the criteria, I would like to remind you to have a quick read of the challenge rules and how this will work , which you will find located on the right hand side of this blog!

So on with our very first challenge...

Remember you can create a layout, card or any other project you can adapt this sketch to. If you are creating a card , off the page or altered project, the journalling criteria does not apply to you. You can use the sketch and a quote instead. 

Journalling criteria : Your journalling has to be HANDWRITTEN and at least 25 words long. 

and here is the sketch for your inspiration 

First up a HUGE welcome to our very first Guest Designer...the lovely 

Piradee Talvanna of Thailand

Hi Everyone, I'm Piradee Talvanna from Bangkok, Thailand although I'm currently working and living in Singapore with my dearest hubby. It was when I relocated to Singapore in mid-2008 for work that I discovered and fell in loving with this hobby. For me scrapbooking not only allows me to explore and challenge my creativity but also helps me de-stress after a long day at work. And the best part of it all, are the strolls through my LSS (I think I'm more of a hoarder than a scrapper) - that allows me to be a kid again (in a big candy/well scrapbooking store).

A very big thank you to Nadia for this amazing opportunity to guest design here !

Cheers,Piradee

http://www.piradee.blogspot.com/


Here is Piradee's take on the sketch...

Here is an example from one more Guest this month... Rae Cooper, the owner of Scrap Matrix, our April sponsor. Welcome! 

**WOW! Rae's layout was picked up for publication by a magazine!!! How exciting! WELL DONE RAE!!!***

Thank You Piradee and Rae for your wonderful layouts! 

Now on to the rest of our Design Team examples

Helen Tilbury 

Nadia Cannizzo

Irini Liolia

Gerry Van Gent

Irma Peredne

Nerrida Mitchell

Lou Dahlstrom

Rossella Palladino

As mentioned earlier our sponsor this month is 

who have generously sponsored all our prizes this month. Remember, they will ship internationally to ANYONE!

So what does the winner get for this challenge? 

As voted by the Design Team, the winning entry will get to come back in May as our GUEST DESIGNER and design alongside our Design team + this time the winner will also receive a HUGE

at Scrap Matrix to spend in the store here !!

The Design Team will also vote on their top 5 favourites and those 5 entries will be our FEATURED projects for this challenge. 

We will also have 1 randomly chosen winner amongst the rest of the entries. This person will receive a cool

to also spend at the Scrap Matrix store. I hope that the random draw will encourage people who are new to this craft or do not feel as confident in  sharing their work with others, to still participate in our challenges. We love to see EVERYONE'S interpretation of our sketch and criteria. 

And here are just some of the products Scrap Matrix have available as a kit..

We sincerely hope you have been inspired somewhat to start creating!!

We cannot wait to see your entries. Please upload your project to your blog or online gallery, and link DIRECTLY back to it through the link tool at the bottom of this post. 

You have until midnight, Thursday, 14th April Sydney time (Australian Eastern Standard Time) to link your entry. Please see the clock located on the top of this post for time references or the bottom of the link tool will tell you how long you have left!

Have fun!