February Sketch

For the February sketch, Ann and I have used the beautiful Lost and Found 2 range by My Mind's Eye.

Ann has moved her photographs down the page and centralised the bottom photo. She used her page to celebrate her meeting with Matt Cardle.

I took the sketch more literally and positioned my photographs as in the sketch but I decided to mount my photos and embellishments onto blocks of patterned paper.

My page was used to celebrate a fabulous family walk a couple of years ago.

So there you are two very different layouts from the same sketch.

Challenge Deadlines

With the weekend upon us and the end of the month looming we just wanted to remind you of a couple of challenges whose deadlines are coming up if you would like to enter them and be in with a chance to win a prize.

The scrapbook a Year-in-Review layout challenge closes on 31st January at midnight and can be found here.

Karen's sketch challenge posted here ends this Sunday at 8pm.

And finally your January Thirsty Thursday Challenges for the letters P, Q & R all end at midnight on February 1st. (This week's letter S challenge runs to March 1st)

There you have plenty of inspiration, and many a chance to win something from ATDML, and with all those new CHA goodies on order wouldn't it be a fab time to win?

*S* Thirsty Thursday

Once more Thursday rolls around with another of our Thirsty Thursday challenge series, this week with the letter S. You know by now how to play along - below we have listed some prompts for you and we challenge you to use to kickstart your next papercrafting project. Incorporate one or more in a layout or card and share your creativity using the link at the end of this blog post for a chance to win a prize in our monthly draw. This S challenge being issued so late in january will remain open until midnight on March 1st giving you plenty of to play along!

S is for SUZANNE - This week we challenge you to scraplift this layout by Suzanne from our Design team. Often one for many layers and detailed elements on her pages this should hopefully be a nice one to challenge you all this week.

S is for STICKLES - One of my favourite go-to products in my scrapbooking stash, my stickles glitter glue. Perfect for adding a little sparkly or a rustic matt dimension with the distress stickles I use them often on my pages and we challenge you to incorporate them into your next project.

S is for SIMPLE STORIES - Over 60 images in our January Gallery using the many ranges from this relatively new company, they certainly proved popular with the design team! Why not take a look at their papers and use them for this weeks challenge? They have some great new collections coming our soon as well with some divine images being revealed this week on their site.

S is for STITCH or SEW - An inexpensive way to add embellishments, texture and interest to your projects we do like a bit of sewing on our pages (or at least I do!). This sneak peak below of a layout I have created for next month's gallery features some stitching detail and we'd love to see your sewing skills on your next page or card.

S is for SCRAPLIFT - “Scraplifting” — this is a term that refers to copying/borrowing (or taking direct inspiration from) the idea behind a layout or design and using it or modifying it for your own layout. This week we challenge you to scraplift a layout of your own that you have created and to share both the original and your "inspired" by projects with us. We will be asking some of the design team to share their scraplifted projects in February so look out for those on Scraplift Saturday's next month!

That's it for another week folks. As always we would love to see how you interpret the challenges this week. If you'd like to be in with a chance to win a prize from the shop simply link your creations using our Inlinkz tool below, or leave us a lovely comment with a link to your page and which of the S challenges (one or more) that you have met with your creation. This challenge runs until middnight on March 1st 2012.

Patterned Paper Reductions

We have reduced the following papers to try to make room for the new CHA releases which should start arriving next month.

Webster's Pages, Authentique, Bo Bunny and Fancy Pants are now all showing reductions. There are other offers also showing on our Home Page and on UKS.

Musings on Sketches and a Challenge

I have signed up for an online course that focuses on developing your sketches and that made me wonder. How many of you use sketches. Are they your own sketches or do you use well know sketch sites for inspiration. I do both but I also 'scrap from scratch' too. The first task, for the online course, was to think about things you like about your pages and to incorporate them into a sketch. After doing this I made this sketch and then this made me think - how do you make your sketches, do you make them in a computer program or do you draw them.

I do both of these too. I sometimes use Word to make my sketches but equally I have little note books and scraps of paper with sketches on - sometimes you don't have your laptop with you when inspiration hits.

So this is my interpretation of the sketch - it has things I like such as journaling strips, layering, buttons and pearls and 1 large photo.

I have stuck pretty rigidly to the sketch (something I don't usually do) and the MME Madison Avenue papers worked perfectly with the photo.

So tell us - to sketch or not to sketch, that is the question?

***Added by Mel***

I love Karens layout and the accompanying sketch. We have a £10 ATDML shopping voucher to giveaway to one blog reader who uses Karens sketch to create their own layout. I will hold my hand up and say that Ann is the whizz with the link tool thing not me and I don't know how to add that sooooo.... upload your page to your blog or online gallery and link in the comments box to be entered. We will pick a winner on Sunday 29th January at 8pm

*R* Thirsty Thursday

My favourite day of the week again as we continue our Thirsty Thursday challenge series with the letter R. Below we have listed some R prompts for you which you can take to kickstart your next papercrafting project. Incorporate one or more in a layout or card and share your creativity using the link at the end of this blog post for a chance to win a prize in our monthly draw.

R is for RE-DO - Do you ever go back and re-do your layouts? I know some people who do, others who resist and move on to another photo and story to tell. I do however sometimes rescrap the same photo (especially if I am very fond of it!) Here Karen Moss shows you a complete re-do of a layout, same journalling, same title, one of the same photos... why not rise to this challenge this week?

R is for RED - I wonder how often you use this vibrant and passionate colour on your projects? I should imagine with Valentines day around the corner quite a little more will be seen of it in coming weeks within the papercraft industry! Why not show us your RED projects this week.

R is for RUB-ONS - Be they alphabet rub-ons used in your journalling or layout title or maybe some of the lovely image, flowers/scrolls rub-ons available let's see how you incorporate them in your next design.

R is for ROMANCE -Is love in the air or is that a chill?! You may choose to scrapbook a lovely-dovey photo, or an anniversary/wedding/engagement photo for this weeks challenge, or you could make a card to tell someone you love them. Karen Cole's card from January gallery illustrates this challenge mixed with the RED challenge.

R is for REVIEW - Ann shared her year in review layout here on the blog last week using Simple Stories papers. Why not use this idea to create a review of your 2011 and meet this R challenge?

As always we would love to see how you interpret the challenges this week. If you'd like to be in with a chance to win a prize from the shop this month simply link your creations using our Inlinkz tool below, or leave us a lovely comment with a link to your page and which of the Rchallenges (one or more) that you have met with your creation. This challenge runs until middnight on February 1st 2012.

Shop Offer

We have started our offers leading up to the new CHA releases. Many of the new releases can be seen here and this is updated regularly. Until the new goods arrive, we will be announcing a number of special offers to make sure the waiting doesn't become too tedious :). Some will be on UKS, some here and some on our home page. Our first blog offer will be 20% off My Little Shoebox papers. Have fun with our offers!