June Challenge + Meet Our June Guest Designer Eila Sandberg

Hi there everyone. Its time to reveal a new challenge here at Once Upon A..Sketch. As you know we recently had a Design Team call, which ended just tonight. Thank you SO very much to everyone that applied and expressed their interest and kind words towards our blog and being involved in our Design Team. The team has just about been finalised and I will send emails out in the next week or so. 

Can I also take a moment to THANK YOU all from the bottom of my heart for the amazing support you showed us in May. We had a RECORD 124 entries! WOW! The Design Team and I have been overwhelmed and we are sorry if we could not get to everyone this month... We are devising a new way to show the winners this month because there are simply TOO MANY gorgeous ones not to be acknowledged. So stay tuned in the next few days when I announce the winners. 

The theme of this challenge is BIRTHDAYS. 

We would like you to create a layout and interpret the theme "BIRTHDAYS" 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:most memorable birthday celebration for you or anyone in your family, the last birthday you celebrated and tell us your thoughts on turning this age, your child's/other family member's birthday and your thoughts on their age, a birthday that was a turning point in your life and your excitement/fears or other thoughts you had, an upcoming birthday for you or anyone and your thoughts, the best birthday present you ever received/gave and why?. You can also base your layout on a non - person birthday. This means your birthday theme can be based on : a pet, a business venture, a milestone anniversary etc etc. Its up to you how you interpret "BIRTHDAYS

Our invited Guest Designer for the month of June is none other than the super sweet, super popular and super talented..

Eila Sandberg (Sweden) 

Hi! My name is Eila Sandberg and I live in Sweden's capital called Stockholm on the east coast by the Baltic Sea. My family is a small one; it's me and my very supportive and patient husband Bengt and our 3 cats - Max, Alice and Elsa. My roots are Finnish but I was born and raised in Sweden. I've been sort of dabbling with scrapping since 2009 

I have the privilege of being a DT member of the Australian challenge sites The Color Room and Meg’s Garden, and CSI Color..Stories..Inspiration in the US.  

My blog: http://www.dollopsofscrap.blogspot.com/

Thank you Eila for being our Guest designer for the month of June!

Please click on their name to be directed to their blog for more details. I am sure they would appreciate some love too :)

(me!) Nadia Cannizzo  (Australia) 

(journalling written at the back of the page)

*Imaginarium Designs chipboard heart top fence, numbers and border

Patti Hamil (USA) 

*Imaginarium Designs chipboard frame

Irini Liolia (Greece) 

Natalie May (Australia)

**Imaginarium Designs Chipboard**

Georgia Heald (Australia) 

Vicky Varvadouka (Greece)

Sandi Taloumis (USA)

*Imaginarium Designs birdcage

Jeni O'Connor (Canada/Australia)

*Imaginarium Designs oval frame.

Lene Neby (Norway)

Our main sponsor for the month of June is a gorgeous etsy shop Zeus and Zoe owned by Marivic Clifton who also runs Berry71Bleu. 

"Zeus and Zoe is an etsy shop selling one-of-a-kind crafting goodies, embellishments for scrapbooking, crafting, altered art, home decor, collage art. We also make custom/themed project collection boxes depending on your crafting needs.  Each box has different vintage themes and sold individually. We had put together papers, vintage elements (buttons, rhinestone brooches, doilies, ephemera items), trims, skeleton keys, flowers, charms, hand-made tag and so much more. With any of these boxes, you will be able to make numerous projects or use the embellishments to add to your existing projects. Some of the collections come with boxes to decorate with or use for extra storage.We had made these collection with all crafters in mind. We all love the vintage theme and it goes very well with any pictures you want to scrap or just to decorate your home with."

Here is the link to the Etsy shop:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ZeusandZoe/

For information on custom themed collection/boxes, pls email berry71bleu@att.net.

Now here are our permanent ongoing sponsors for 2012. For more details on these sponsors please see the left sidebar of our blog or click on the images to be directed to their websites. 

The entry with the most points, as voted by the Design Team will be invited to be our GUEST DESIGNER in August and create along side our Design Team. This person will also win this fabulous prize from Zeus and Zoe

 A collection pack from the Zeus and Zoe etsy shop

The next 4 winning entries will receive the following prizes..

7 Dots Studio kit 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 

These are the prizes up for grabs for our RANDOMLY drawn entries..

Scrapbooking Fantasies has donated TWO ribbon packs (for 2 winners) from Scrapbooking Fantasies . Each prize is valued at over $10AUS each and contains 29 half metre lengths of ribbons, trims and lace in shades of red, yellow and sky blue from quality brands, plus FREE international postage!!

**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 June 30th, 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.

Sponsor Spotlight and More Inspiration for May's Challenge

Hey everyone! How are you going with this months challenge? You still have about 10 days to enter our challenge but today I thought I would offer you some more inspiration. 

One of our awesome sponsors for the month of May, who has also agreed to sponsor us for the rest of the year is a wonderful online store called Scrapbook Fantasies run by a very nice and professional lady called Alicia. Alicia has a small Design Team who I invited to be our sponsor Guest Designers here this month. They have created some lovely work for you to use as inspiration for the May challenge. 

Here is a little bit about Scrapbook Fantasies. 

Scrapbook Fantasies is a Scrapbooking, Papercrafts and Mixed Media store opened in March 2003 in Gladstone, Queensland.  The well stocked store receives new stock daily, and supports a boutique style online store HERE.  The owner Alicia runs Weekly Challanges and many other competitions giving away over $250 dollars in store vouchers every month.  The GALLERY  hosts thousands of customer creations, and is available for viewing without login. Parcels are posted within Australia at a flat $8.50 or the actual postage rate (whichever is the lesser), or FREE for orders over $65.  International parcels are posted at the actual postage rate.

 Theme: Mum

We would like you to create a layout and interpret the theme "Mum" 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.

Ideas for journalling: you as a mother, your role as a working/stay-at-home mum, sacrifices/benefits of being a mum, one day in your life as a mum, how your life has changed since being a mum, a tribute to your own mum, grandmother, guardian or someone you consider as close as your mum, your relationship with your mum or your daughter, one trait you have take from your mum, your desire to be a mum, your feelings on motherhood, what does it mean to be a mum?, what kind of mum do you want to be? , Mother's Day celebrations/traditions, your favourite Mother's Day gift given/receive etc..

Alicia Redshaw

Hi my name is Alicia Redshaw and I live in Gladstone, Queensland. I am married to the most amazing man, and later this year we will celebrate 20 years together. We share three beautiful and talented children, who are our reason for living the life we live. I own Scrapbook Fantasies and love that my life is full of creativity and I get the opportunity to meet new people every day.  I have been creating all of my life, as I come from a long line of creative women.  I couldn’t imagine life without creativity.

My blog can be found at: www.aliciaredshaw.com.au

Candy Chelepy 

Hi my name is Candy and I am Married to Laurie with two grown up children, Tracy and Michael. I work in my dream job in our local Scrapbooking shop in Gladstone where I teach card classes to our lovely lady customers.  My favourite product to create with is of course, flowers.

My blog can be found at: www.cchelepy.blogspot.com

Margaret Walz

Hello my name is Margaret, but everyone calls me Mar. I wasn't going to Scrapbook, but fell victim to the addiction when my daughter opened Scrapbook Fantasies in 2003. I am a widow with two children and five grandchildren, all of whom feature in my creations.  My must use on every creation is my distressing tool.

My  blog can be found at: www.messymarmar.blogspot.com

Thank you SO much to these lovely ladies for their wonderful inspiration. Don't forget to drop by their blogs to leave them some love :)

Scrapbooking Fantasies has donated TWO ribbon packs (for 2 winners) from Scrapbooking Fantasies . Each prize is valued at over $40AUS each and contains 71 half metre lengths of ribbons, trims and lace in shades of pink, brown, cream and gold from quality brands such as Prima, Maya Road, Websters Pages, May Arts, Vandoros, Green Tara and Birch Australia, including international postage!!

Thanks so much to Scrapbooking Fantasies for their wonderful support of our blog :) I look forward to working with you the rest of this year!

Now here are the rest of the prizes from our other sponsors for May. 

We are SO lucky to have so many people wanting to support our site and our challenges! 

Due to this, we will change the way we give out prizes from here on. I am happy to announce that we will have more than one winner here at Once Upon A..Sketch depending on how many prizes we have to give away. SO from this month onward our Top 5 layouts will include the winner and they will all receive a prize. 

Then we will also have more featured layout on top of our Top 5. There are just TOO many gorgeous layouts to limit them to just a few. 

So the winner of this challenge with the most points, as voted by the Design Team will be invited to be our GUEST DESIGNER in July and create along side our Design Team. This person will also win this fabulous prize from Enjoy Scrapping ...

Be You Combo Kit

(album kit 18x23 cm. Includes 50 blank pages, 15 pockets for photo keeping, an extra 15 pockets for memory keeping. Embellishments include, 12 pages of patterned paper, 10 cards, cover pages, 1 sticker sheet and 1 alphabet sticker sheet)

The following prizes will be given to the next 4 winning layouts. 

An Echo Park mini kit from Enjoy Scrapping .

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. 

Of course we do not forget our random winners. These are the prizes up for grabs for our RANDOMLY drawn entries..

*example

A chipboard pack from Imaginarium Designs.

*example

A handmade tag from Berry71Bleu.

A fabric and paper set from the Oh girl! collection from Julia Cotrim Scrapbooking PLUS a decorated canvas collection.

**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 May 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.