Our last challenge ....

Hello everyone! 

It is with a sad but somewhat relieved heart that I share with you that this will be the last month we post a challenge at Once Upon A...Sketch. 

For me personally, although I am saddened as I write this, I do feel that this challenge blog did its job for the time it was active and I REALLY wish I could have continued it all but it is JUST TOO BIG . In fact the last few months I have stepped away from it and it has been continued all these months by Anna, Tracey, Lizzy, Wilma and at one time Val Thorpe as well. It takes THAT many people to run it and it is a demand I have hated to put on people.  Ladies, I have said it many times that without you this blog would have ended many months back so THANK YOU for continuing on. 

Life changed so much since 4 years ago when I started all this up. I will not got into the details but personally for me , I called this blog my "baby" while I was waiting for my own real baby to arrive. She finally did, in May last year and being my 3rd child well... it pretty much meant that whatever little time I had for anything extra vanished! I am not complaining AT ALL but yes decisions needed to be made and I have very little time these days to even just scrap . I always said I would not continue this unless I could give it my all and I just cant anymore.. 

SO firstly I would love to say a VERY BIG THANK YOU to all of you that joined in our challenges each and every month. From the very first month we had a HUGE amount of entries! It was mind blowing and throughout the years this job was HUGE for the DT as they voted, commented on etc on each entry. Sadly this job also became too big for them too. We felt bad that we could not get around to visit everyone's blog :( 

But THANK YOU ALL very very very much and I am sorry we could not continue this for you all :( 

Secondly a VERY VERY VERY VERY big thank you to all the people that served on this Design Team. You have no idea just what these people are like and SO many of them were around for a very difficult time in my life and helped me personally so much. They have all been patient, professional and understanding and I will miss having a little family online. 

Lastly, thank you to all the sponsors that for some reason donated AMAZING prizes month after month. We could not have continued all this without them as we just LOVED giving prizes out so THANK YOU VERY much :) 

I am not sure what else to say.. I think I better round it up as I am feeling emotional. ..

SO ... goodbye my friends, I hope we provided some inspiration while we were around. Thank you all for all the stories you told..

Goodbye my challenge blog.. thank you for filling the emptiness and for ALL those nights you kept my mind busy from wandering to sad thoughts .. 

Journalling Theme: "It's December..." 

You are free to interpret our theme ANY WAY you like. It is for your inspiration and this theme word DOES NOT need to be part of your title or journalling. But please make sure your layout is based on the sketch below and includes journalling (hidden journalling is fine). Acceptable journalling is MORE than just a sentence, or generic writing such as date/place etc. It needs to be present and at least 3 lines long. Remember, hidden journalling (under a photo/tag or behind your page) is perfectly fine but please DO let us know in your post where your journalling is! 

The winner of our October challenge is the FABULOUS scrapper, TERHI KOSKINEN:

"Hello all! I'm Terhi from Finland and I'm thrilled to be OUAS guest designer for December! I'm a scrapbooker, mum. full-time employee, wife, friend, sister, daughter, horse-back-rider... But mostly I'm a paper crafter with lots of inspiration and addiction to make beautiful things.
Scrapbooking is more than a hobby for me, it's a lifestyle - it starts with photograph session and ends when I get my creation where I wanted. And then it starts again.
My creations are filled layers, straight lines, and techniques I want to try out. If using a lot of different techniques and materials makes me a mixed media artists, then I am one.

I've done a lot of tutorials to my YouTube channel and I hope I can inspire you - hop on to my blog to learn more!

Thank you so much for letting me visit here with you today! Happy scrapping :)"

And here is Terhi's STUNNING take on our sketch:

 Now here is what our Design Team came up with. Please click on their blogs for more details on their creations. I am sure they would love to hear from you !!!

Olga Heldwein

Olga Vasilieva

Zaneta Glowa (Sweden)

December it's s my birth month, it's also my 12th month with OUAS DT and I'm celebrating this with a layout about me. On the backside I placed a personal note to myself.

Lizzy Hill (Australia)

Stephanie Schütze (Germany)

It's about me and a photoshooting for December I had to made and a and a new, secret, Challenge 2015 (Journaling behind the flap/frame).

Ulrika Blomfelt (Sweden)

(I turned the sketch a bit. My journaling about this photo shoot is on the back of the layout.)

Stacey Young (Australia)

Patricia Basson (South Africa)

Jelissa Mei (Singapore)

(Start to finish video tutorial here, and my journaling is on the back. It's about what December means to me and the special feeling it creates. Made with supplies from 13arts)

Elena Smoktunova (Russia)

Anna Wiśniewska - Wiosanka (Poland)

Tracey Sabella (USA)

(Journaling on tag tucked under photo)

Yuko Tanaka (Japan)

Daria Pneva (Russia) 

Aida Domisiewicz (Poland)

*journaling at the back of the page

Natalia Shalygina (Frau_Muller) (Ukraine)

 *journaling at the back of the page

Song Li (USA)