OUAS 2012 August Challenge is up!!!

Once Upon A.. Sketch 2012 August Challenge

Wow, the July challenge had more than 100 entries. The OUAS DT certainly hope you find this month's challenge and sketch just as pleasing!

  

Theme: Season (Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring)

We would like you to create a layout and interpret the theme "Season" 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: current season in your part of the world, favourite season, seasonal traditions on your part of the word, a childhood memory, a summer romance, what summer/autumn/winter/spring brings for you, baby it's cold outside, summer loving, spring is in the air, autumn breeze, summer holidays, seasonal changes, etc etc. Anything goes ..

• 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 the OUAS 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 August 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 home page at OUAS

 
 

 
 

• Do you want to be our next Guest Designer?
• Do you want to know what the winner and the runners up wins?
• Did you know we even have prizes up for grabs for our RANDOMLY drawn entries?
• Do you want to know who our sponsors are?

Please visit the OAUS blog to find out more. Here you also will find out who our Guest Designer this month is and get some huge inspiration from the DT.
 
-----------------------------------
 
The OUAS DT is split into two groups: One half of the DT reveals their creations on the 1th of the month, the other half on the 15th. I belong to the second group so I'm sorry I can't show much more than a tiny sneak peak of my layout.
 
 

 
Can you tell I have had fun, playing with chipboards from our sponsor Imaginarium Designs and messy stuff like modelling paste?
 
 
Do we see you at OUAS?

Two simple cards

Today I have two simple cards for you.

The first one was made on saturday: I was home all alone with just one sick kid, sleeeping, and I was bored. There was this challenge on an FB group and it was perfect timing for playing. The challenge was quite easy: use five circles (referring to the Olympic games which just had started) and white space on you project.

I came up with this card:

Circle stamp: Club scrap. Patterned papers on butterfly: MME. Patterned base card: SEI, Cardstock: Bazill. Twine: The Twinery. Button and butterfly punch: unknown

The next card is made to celebrate one of the board members at My Scrapbooknook, Sophia. I used the Nook July Kit and Grab Bag to create it.

Base card: Bazill. Patterned Papers, trim, flower sticker & button: MME, Journaling Sprouts & Alpha: Jilli Bean, Twine: The Twinery. Border Punch: Martha Stewart

Have you made any cards lately? Can I come over to have a look?

OMG! I have stamped!!!

Not long ago I won a cute stamp set when the challenge blog Scrapping Everyday Miracles celebrated their birthday. There was this "Invite a friend" challenge: Sherri Funk invited me, I told she had done so, and we both won a set of stamps, identical sets. This stamps are from the company Close To My Heart.

When I started making cards, before I started scrapping, it was all about stamping. I hoarded stamps, I had ink in any colors, and pens, paint and other utensils enough to color images for the rest of my life. Then I discovered you could make cards without the stamping, and I just quit. Like that. And I have hardly stamped anything over the previous five years. OK, I admit I use some background stamps on layouts and crads, but that is about it.

The stamps I won are just adorable, and surely far away from my everyday style, but who says no to a good challenge? So I decided to give them a try! I also made an agreement with Sherri  we should do a twin blog post about our creations, and you'll find an intro about her, and a link to her blog, further down.


So I pulled out my ink, my old embossing powder, scared to death I would be completely rusty. I decided to start easy and use the stamps with some papers which was a safe pick: Webster's pages. I chose to stamp borders and sentiment on the background paper, but the medallion an butterfly were stamped on  seperate sheets and cut out. I also figured out that if I used lots of flowers, I could cover my mistakes easily - he-he. Here is card #1:

CTMH stamps used: Large frame, cameo, butterfly, border, sentiment

Close up photo from a different angle to show dimension

What I really loved about this stamps was they gave clean, sharp prints and the prints were easy to emboss because of that, too.


Then I made card #2: this time I stamped all on the background paper, but I still played safe with Webster's Pages papers and lots of flowers:

CTMH stamps used: Small frame, butterfly, sentiment

From a different angle

Pretty cards - easy to make when you have great stamps, pretty flowers and papers :-)
And very not my everyday style..

It was time to take it a bit longer, step out of the comford zone and see if I could use these stamps on more Clean & Simple cards...


CAS card #1:

CTMH stamps used: Small frame, cameo and sentiment. Embossed: frame & cameo

OK, it could be done *lol*


I then got this idea and pulled out the most horrible stamp ever made: a surprised cat by Cherry Arte. OMG, its aweful - and I love it so much. I'm willing to sell any of the stamps in my collection but this cat!


CAS card #2:

CTMH stamps used: Large frame, heart, sentiment

I think CAS card #2 is my fav.... More...me!?!


So I hadn't forgotten it all, I discovered lots of great stamps in my shelf, and will hopefully pull them out more often.

Are you good at stamping?




Now, head over to Sherri Funk's blog to see what she has done with the same stamp set.
Sherri is a super talented, Canadian scrapper, and one of the sweetest persons I know. She design for plases like Let's Capture These Sketches, Let's Capture Our Memories and Scrapping Everyday Miracles and has a fun, carefree, linear style. Now please go and visit her to se her lovely creations (if her post isn't up yet when you read this, it is due to time zones)! Here is a sneak peak of Sherri's work:

And if you wonder: no, I'm not payed, or have been sposnsored, by anyone or any company to do this blog post *lol*

I have been messy :-)

Super talented Eila Sandberg has visited the Norwegian scrap blog Scrappehuset this week and shares some tips on how to add structure to pages (her tutorial is in English so anybody can follow her). Once I read her article/tutorial, I know I wanted to try out modelling paste!

Please have in mind I hate to mess up my pages and cards and I dislike any medium which has to lay on my desk to dry. So I dislike paint, I dislike mist and anything that require a heat gun! But I loved the dimension the modelling paste gave and wanted to give it a try. So I went out and bought a can of it.

I had some small canvases laying around, probably from a few years back when my kids were into painting. So off I went - misted, inked and added paste.

Here is my first attempt with modelling paste:




Canvas & modelling paste: Panduro. Butterfly mask: Crafter's Workshop. Mist: Tattered Angel. Clay charm: Charms Creations. Pearls, doilie & cloth: Unknown


I din't know where to start, I didn't know where to go, but I'm happy with my first attempt, even both the colors and flowers are very different from what I normally use (so why on earth do I have it among my supplies in the first place?)

The flower spray adds lots of dimension to the canvas

I enjoyed the process and deiced to give a second try. I felt more confident, and decided to try different colors and a new approach. This time I inked the background before I added a touch of clear glimmer mist and  the modelling paste.

Canvas & modelling paste: Panduro. Ink: Color Box. Glimmer mist: Tattered Angels. Butterfly Chipboard: Maya Road. Thistle Chipboard: Imaginarium Design. Burlap, alpha & twine: unknown

I discovered the negatives from the thistle chipboard worked perfectly as a mask, so I pulled out an old circulair frame to use as mask for the sun.

I admit it: I love the structure the modelling paste gave! And as I wanted to keep on playing, I added modelling paste both to my next layout and a card :-) And I will do it in the future, too, I know.


Tell me, have you discovered any fun tecniques lately? Do you have a link to share?
Have a happy, messy week!

Card Time!

I know that, as soon school start in four week, the boys will be invited to birthdays. And birthdays means I need to make cards - the boys prefer to give mum's hand made cards - bless them!

Over the last week I have created some cards (DT work mostly) where the designs have been my own. I admit it - some times it feel's great to let somebody else take care of the design itself, so I can focus on papers and embellies - so when it came to making the boy's cards, I was happy to find the card sketch blog Cardabilities. This blog have plenty of great sketches to work with and I picked the last three ones, created, and even all the challenge entries are closed, I want to show you my cards.

Under each card you will find the link to the current sketch: go ahead and have a look at them, they are really great card sketches.

Sketch #56
Papers: Crate Paper Story teller

Sketch #57
Papers: Simple Stories Fresh Summer, Wood veeners: Studio Calicio

Sketch #58
Papers: Pretty Little Studio Monsieur

Do you enjoy card sketches?
What are your favourite places? I'm always looking for some good ones :-)

Good Looking

DS9 last week.
Quite good looking in my, his mum's, eyes :-)

Background paper: BG, other patterned papers, tags & paper man: Pretty Little Studio, Felt embellies: Charm's Creations, Epoxy buttons: Epiphany Craft (paper: Pretty Little Studio), Star pins: Inkido, Ribbon & twine: unknown

I wasn't going to scrap today, but decided to have some computer time to catch up on new releases after CHA. I was browsing around, and on the Pretty Little Studio blog I found this cool sketch. Mojo kicked in, and I wanted to play :-) So I played with their Monsieur collection, adding a few items from my own stash.

Details

More details

I showed my layout to DS9, asking about his opinion, and he claimed to be very, very happy with it :-)
He's so cute.

We have teamed up again - multiple ways :-)

Over the years as card maker and scrapper, I have learned to know lots of amazing people, all around the world. Some live far away, some pretty close, and it's always fun to meet these people IRL.

One of those I have know for years is the Swedish scrapper Petra (Pysselpetra in the scrapping world). She lives a five hours drive from my place, so we don't get the chance to see each other too often. She and her family stayed a night at the Scoobie Mansion in March, when they were heading for a ski resort in the Norwegian mountains, and last week we got to meet again: her family had rented a cabin just an hour from our house, on the Swedish coast. So I brought husband and kids, and off we went to see her and her family

And what do you do when you meet a fellow scrapper? You document it on photos! You don't want to miss the opportunity to make (another) layout, do you?

This time Petra and I chose to do a twist on creating layouts about our rendez-vous. We swapped photos, decided to use one or some of the same ones, create at the same time, and then do a twin blog post about it! A challenge just for the two of us.

Here is my take on the challenge:

Patterned papers and brads: MME, Mask: Crafter's workshop, Mist: StewardSuperior, Raw chipboard: Imaginarium Designs, Butterfly Stickers: Jenni Bowlin, Cardstock & twine: unknown

A close up of some details:

And here is a sneak peak of Petra's layout:

Now please head over to Petra's blog to see her layout and what she did with our photos! I'm sure she doesn't mind if you leave her som love :-)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I got the idea for my layout when I was bloghopping at Scrapbook Kits With A Difference, where Petra is one of the DT members. Not did they only have a blog hop they had a fun recipe challenge as well.

Here are the required ingrediences (my check out in red):

• 3 photos OK, counting: 1-2-3, 1 cardstock OK, grey in background, 2 patterned papers OK, the yellow I cut stripes from and the blue one I cut flowers & circles from, a wet medium (eg. paint, gesso, spray mist) OK, green mist, a mask (purchased or home-made) OK, a big one with flowers and butterflies, raw chipboard OK, in the middle, behind the photos, 5 buttons (or brads) OK, 5 brads, 3 rows of text OK, mine is hand written, but they didn't say I couldn't *lol*, twine (or string) OK, small bow on left side, and 2 butterflies OK, I guess the misted ones didn't count so I added to black ones too. Flowers, ribbons, and bling, are all optional (I chose not to use any of these).

I can't remember the last time I did a recipe challenge. Thank you SKWAD for providing us with this fun one!

CAS card - Dude

I have been playing and made some cards over the last few days.

• Cards for Myscrapbooknook: cards for challenges and member birthday cards - but none of them can't be shown yet :-(
• I won a cute stamp set from Close To My Heart over at Scrapping Everyday Miracles, but as I'm doing a twin blog post with Sherri, who won the same stamps, these cards can't be shown yet either.

So I have pulled out embossing powder, ink pads, papers, flowers, bling and you name it. And I played. But after working with all that stuff I got the urge to do a Clean And Simple card again.


The challenge blog CAS-ual FRIDAYS is a great source for ideas and inspiration when it comes to CAS cards. This week's challenge is no exception: CFC61: Use strips of color or pattern in your Clean And Simple creation.

So I cut up some strips from a paper, colored a wood veener, added some letters and voila! A card!

CS: Bazill, Paper: MME, Wood veener: Studio Calico, Alpha: AC, green paint: Ranger/Adirondack

I love the optical illusion arranging the stripes gave. It looks like the "arrows" are wider in front than back, but they are not - the strips are the excact width all over. The space between the stripes are all the same too, and at a 90 degree angel from the ends of the card, even if it doesn't look like that.

With two boys in the house, this masculin card will be out out the house quite soon, I guess.

I'm curious as always, so I want to know: when was the last time you made a masculine card?

The Runaway Bride

Kiwi, our budgie, managed to get out into open air last Saturday.
How sad, we never expected to get her back, even if we heard her on occations when her buddy, Fluffy, called for her. After all, she was just eight weeks old and not completely tamed yet.

The following Monday night I heard her again - the next morning she flew in the door in the living room. Oh happy day!


Title: A Taste Of Freedom
Journaling: The short version of the first two articles in this post


Here she is, happy in our walnut tre:

PP, rubons & cut out: Basic grey, Authentic croched doilie, flash card: October Afternoon, alphas: adornit and American Craft, Raw chipboard: Imaginarium Designs, calendar card: Jenni Bowlin,  canvas tags: Maya Road, clay bird: MyLittleShopOfWhimsey, Twine & paper tape: unknown 

This layout was made with this lovely sketch I found at the Pagemaps Blog. I have had some trouble with Mr Mojo, and this sketch was just what I needed to get me started. It was fun to finally pull out some old papers and a mix of embellies and just create!


Some close up shots:





Thank you for taking your time to stop by. I really appreciate it!

Tell me, have you ever lost and found any of your pets?

My first layout for OUAS is up!

Hi.

My first layout as DT member at Once Upon A Sketch (OUAS) was revealed yesterday. The team is large (to give you even more inspiration) so half of the team's layouts are revealed on the 1th of the month, then the rest on the 15th. And my layouts go live on the 15th :-)

Here is the OUAS July Sketch and challenge:

Theme: Friend

We would like you to create a layout and interpret the theme "Friend" 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: one of your current friends, a childhood friend, an unexpected friendship,what having friends mean for you, a friend that you miss or have lost, family member who is your closest friend, a scrappy/online friend, a special person that has touched your life, someone who has helped you out lately, a friend that you couldn't do without, your children's friends / classmates etc., your pet and the friendship you have with it..

 
And here is my take on the sketch/challenge:
 

Sponsor materials:
Imaginarium Design: corner ornaments and chipboard frame

Closeup photo of corner cluster

 
Please head over to the OUAS blog to see the rest of the DT's stunning creation, find more about the lovely prizes you can win if you play along, learn more about our spnsors and to see how other scrappers have interpreted the July Challenge. You still have another two weeks to play with us. Do we see you there?

New Chick In Town!

I got this cute little budgie baby a few weeks ago. Isn't she adorable?
Her name is Kiwi, because of her color, and she is now about two months old.

I want to tell you something funny about budgie colors - they aren't always what they look like. Actually, Kiwi is probably a blue bird, genetecly, not green. But because of the amount of yellow she looks green (you know what happens when you mix yellow and blue, don't you? You get green). If you have look at her, closely, in bright light, you do see the blue. Funny, isn't it?
Unfortenately, she's not to fond of human beeings, so I doubt we will ever get her completely tamed. But she is good company to our other budgie, and that's the most important!

DT work for MyScrapbooknook, featuring the June kit + Grab bag

What is your favourite color today?

The last farewell

3 1/2 weeks ago we burried my only brother.
We kept the service very private, only the closest family was present (but in lat August we'll have a new service for the rest of the family and friends).

I found the colors in the MME Indie Chic Citron collection perfect for the photo of my parents and I taking a laste farewell with my brother. I chose to keep this layout very simple (may be too simple when looking of it afterwords, but what the heck - it's made for me, and I can recall this sad day even if it's simple, when looking at it).

A background paper particialle flower printed, a few stickers from the same collection, and then some cut out flowers from a second paper, was what I needed to create this layout, along with a ribbon and an aplha.

All matearials from MyScrapbookNook July Grab Bag

Thank you for taking your time to stop by - I really apreciate it!

A new month, a new kit and a new creation

Today it's Thursday. Tomorrow it's Friday. And it will be my last workday before I take a six week long break!!!!

And I'm so looking forward to it! There has beeen too much "Life Happens" for the last three months, so I need time to relax and get back on track. And  I ordered a family trip to greece in August - just because I don't rely on Norwegian summers any more: the two last ones has been greay and cold, and it doesn't look we are going to have a good one this year either. Blahhh!

But now it's a new month - and I'll have plenty of time to play with the MyScrapbooknook july Kit which dropped down in my mail box the other day:

Isn't this lovely? Lots of fun MME and Jillibean Soup stuff!

And I have started cutting in it :-)


Last week the kids attended a BMX summer shool. And it vent, as it always does, with falls and skratces and aches. This time DS9.

Have you started scrapping your summer photos yet? Or your winter photos if you are in the part of the world where they have oposite seasons than me?

OUAS July Challenge And A Layout

Hi folks!

I can't believe we're writing July 1th today. I have no idea where the last three months have gone, and there isn't much that reminds me of summer in my part of Norway - it's still chilly. I have one week left to work before I take a six week break - I'm just soooo looking forward to it. We'll hang a lot around home, but head for Greece in August - I needed to make sure we'll at least have some sun this summer.

July 1th means the July challenge is up at Once Upon A Sketch. This month's theme is

Friend

We would like you to create a layout and interpret the theme "Friend" 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: one of your current friends, a childhood friend, an unexpected friendship,what having friends mean for you, a friend that you miss or have lost, family member who is your closest friend, a scrappy/online friend, a special person that has touched your life, someone who has helped you out lately, a friend that you couldn't do without, your children's friends / classmates etc., your pet and the friendship you have with it..

and here is the sketch provided.

My take on the sketch is going up on the 15th, so you have to wait a few weeks to find out what I made (but I promise, I had lots of fun doing this challenge). But you are welcome, off course, to visit the OUAS blog to see some of my fellow DTers jaw dropping work, to read about our sponsors, and learn how to play along with us :-)

------------------------------------

Meanwhile I want to show you another layout made with MyScrapbooknook June Kit.

In the middle of May, DS9 and I took a trip to a glass blowers cabin, where the kid got a chance to make his own glass. In fact, he thought it was so fun that he returned to the hut later th same day to blow a second one. If you want a close up shot off the glass he made, you find it here.

Patterned papers: Simple Stories. Corrugated shapes: Jillibean Soup

I had seen a glass blower at work, so it was very interesting to see how they did it.

Have you ever visited one?