monday's mentions 3 march 2014 ...

Our new friend Leanne Kroschel was a winner for Sketch 108 at Sketchabilities!!! Gorgeous layout, Leanne, and congratulations!!!

1 march prompt challenge ...

Time for our prompt challenge.  You have until the last day of the month at 9 PM EST to play along.  Our prompt is:

Scrap or art journal about a favourite song in from your teens.  You can scrap some of the lyrics, or the title, or a photo of the band …

Our sponsor is Scrapbook Fantasies, owned by design team member Alicia Redshaw, who will give a beautiful pack of ribbons to a randomly drawn participant.  We will feature our favourite layouts from both of our March challenges early in April on the blog.  We are always looking for guest designers, and often choose from amongst participants.

Alicia Redshaw

Busy creating!!!

Anne Pennington

Catie

Donna O'Leary

Eli Colavero 

Libeeti

 

Margaret Walz (Mar) 

Mary Bennetts

Mieke Nagtegaal

Mitra Pratt

Can't wait to see what you create!!!! 

Come back on the 15th of the month for our sketch challenge!!

fave fridays 21 february 2014 ...

I saw this cool tutorial by our former design team member Kim Price while surfing the net last weekend:

http://thescrapbookstore.com.au/blog/step-by-step-tutorial-pink-paislee-color-wash-by-kim-price/

If you've been anywhere on the net that you think we'd be interested in - send along the link to me, or make a comment to this posting !!!

new page on the blog - freaking cool challenge sites ...

Hope you had a chance to read our Monday's Mentions today to see what some of our friends are up to.

We have a new page on the website that lists some freaking cool challenge sites - use it for your convenience to find scrapbooking and art journalling challlenge websites!

If you have some faves that are not there, please send them along.  If they look of interest to others I will gladly post them!!

monday's mentions 17 february 2014

I got a chance to get out and about in blog land this week and Facebook to see a few bits of news:

So happy for out design team member Libeeti - she is on the guest design team for Dinamites!  Congratulations Libeeti!!!

Past design team member Wilma Voermans is guest designing at 13 Arts for the next three months!!!

Was excited to see that former design team member Sandi Taloumis was the winner at SODAlicious blog - a blog about art journalling that I'm excited to see for the first time through Sandi's link on her blog. 

Keep on posting links to the blogs you play along with - that's how we all find out about new ones, and how we encourage others to come play with us!!!

15 february 2014 sketch challenge

More excitement - our first sketch challenge since we've re-opened!!!  We hope you'll  come visit and play along. No theme required - just interpret the sketch as you like, let others know about us and link back to our blog. You are welcome to combine our sketch with other non-sketch challenges.  You're not restricted to a scrapbook layout in your interpretation of the sketch - you may art journal, make a card, or make a mixed media canvas.

Our sponsor is Scrapbook Fantasies, owned by design team member Alicia Redshaw, who will give a beautiful pack of ribbons to a randomly drawn participant.  We will feature our favourite layouts early in March on the blog.  We are always looking for guest designers, and often choose from amongst participants.

Fun fact: Two of our designers are mother and daughter!! Margaret Walz is the mother of Alicia Redshaw - we are so proud to have mother and daughter designers on our team!! Be sure to click their links and visit their work on their blogs!

Here is our sketch for this month.  You have until the end of February to upload your interpretation of it.

Alicia Redshaw

Anne Pennington

Catie

Donna O'Leary

Eli Colavero 

Libeeti

 

Margaret Walz (Mar) 

Mary Bennetts

Mieke Nagtegaal

Mitra Pratt

Can't wait to see what you create!!!!

monday's mentions 10 february 2014

Wow - had some time to go around to some other blogs this week. Wish I had some more time to cruise the net and see what everyone is doing.

Proud that some more of our former team has had a chance to be recognized in some prestigious company :

Wilma Voermans and Wiosanka are now on the design team at Once Upon a Sketch. One of our favourite girls who played along here is there too - Lizzy Hill as the social coordinator and design team member !!

I can't even begin to count where Sara Groen is these days - visit her blog to find out where she is.

I do want to give you all the credit you are due - so please don't be shy to send me info so that we can recognize you and visit where you are!!!  Send info to:  anne.pennington@xplornet.com   .

... our new design team!!!

So excited to announce the new design team!!! Awesome ladies whose work will inspire you !!  We are so pleased to have a couple of girls from past design teams - so happy to see them again!! Please click on the links on our team's names to peek at their own blogs and see their gorgeous work !!  

Don't forget - we will have our first sketch challenge since we've re-opened on the 15th of February.  We hope you'll  come visit and play along.  In the meantime, come back this week for other regular features ...

Alicia Redshaw

Hi my name is Alicia Redshaw and I live in Gladstone, Queensland (Australia). I am married to the most amazing man (Quentin), and we recently celebrated 21 years of love, happiness and being together. We share three beautiful and talented children (Milton 16, Naomi-Jon 13 and Noah 7), 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 scrapbooking for over 11 years, and teaching Scrapbooking and Cardmaking for nearly as long.  I now also teach Copic colouring and Mixed Media Art Classes too.  I create a range of projects and styles from simple cards to grungy scrapbook layouts to mixed media art canvas’ and almost everything in-between.  

I am thankful everyday for the blessings of my family and my creativity.

www.aliciaredshaw.com.au

Catie

Hi, I'm Catie.  I'm a mum of 4 little cherubs who keep me very busy. I love scrapping, making cards and recently starting delving into the world of mixed media canvasses and other OTP projects.  I have been scrapping for a few years now and love constantly learning and experimenting with new techniques. Some of my favourites include stamping, water colour, mixed media and anything gelato! 

I have a real passion for capturing memories and preserving the stories to accompany the images from life for my children. It's always so enjoyable looking back at photos with them. In addition to this, creativity is an essential outlet for me in this busy, busy lifestyle.  It allows my imagination to be active and I find that so comforting.

Donna O'Leary

Hello my name is Donna O'leary (aka midnightscrapper).  

Some of you ladies may remember my face from when Another freaking Scrappy Challenge blog first started, I'm glad to be back and look forward to seeing what you all create in 2014 :-)

I have been scrapbooking for a few years now and I love it more and more everyday.

I love to play and explore with new products, seeing what they can do and then applying what I have discovered to my projects.   My focus in my pages are normally my children (7) and I love to create altered projects. Thank you Anne for welcoming me back to the team, if you ladies want to see more of what I do you can find my blog here

http://midnightscrapper.wordpress.com/  

and I have a facepage to if you would like to pop on over and say hello https://www.facebook.com/midnightscrapperdo?ref=hl .

Eli Colavero 

Hello everyone, for me it is a pleasure to be here and I hope to do a good job. My name is Elisabetta Colavero (Eli) and I live in the North of Italy.

I have a wonderful love story and a daughter, Noemi, 10 years old, who is the favorite subject of my projects. I started scrapbooking about 7 years ago, and I prefer layouts and sometimes minialbums. The cards, instead, simply hates me! 

I'm graduated in Agriculture, and I work for the Province of Cremona, Agricultural department. But I'm so lucky: I can work at home 3 days a week, I can manage freely my working hours, so I have always time to devote to my hobbies: reading, sporting, gardening, and of course, scrapbooking. For me it's like a drug... It allows me to express my artistic side and at the same time create something that preserves forever my fondest memories.

I also love summer, nature, animals (I have two old cats), pizza and ice cream. I like cooking but otherwise I am a bad housewife. 

http://scrap-colors.blogspot.com/

Libeeti

 

I'm Libeeti, from Israel. I'm a mom of two supper energetic boys, who are the main subject and inspiration of my layouts. 

I'm a working woman by days and an addicted scrapper by nights and weekends.

I can't definde my style as it evolves and changes, but usually I use many layers and distressing on my layouts. Lately I started using mixed media and I enjoy it very much.

You can see my work on my blog, creation with love. 

I'm so happy that Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge is back! Thank you, Anne, for taking me to the team once again :).

Margaret Walz (Mar) 

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 blog name is “Messymarmar” for good reason as I love to experiment and mess-up my pages with ink, mist, paint and whatever else I can get my hands on.

www.messymarmar.blogspot.com

Mary Bennetts

Hello my name is Mary Bennetts .I live in a town called Orange, about four hours from Sydney. I am married with three grown up Children, two boys and a girl and I have a Grand daughter and Grandson. I also have a little dog called Scruffy who has been part of our family for over 15 years. 

Scrapbooking is my passion and I do something scrap related almost everyday.  I don't believe I have a particular style as I like to try different styles depending on the story I am telling and the photo I am scrapping. I do enjoy getting messy though and playing with gesso, paint and mists, I also love vintage laces and embellishments.

I am thrilled to be part of the DT and l am looking forward to working with the other DT members and feeling excited for lots of amazing entries at  Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge.

http://www.mbennetts.blogspot.com.au/

Mieke Nagtegaal

My name is Mieke Nagtegaal and I live in the middle of the Netherlands, a small village called Ermelo. Married to Ger and we have two beautiful teenagers, a boy of 17 and a girl of 14. Working from home in my beauty salon where I give massages, Reiki treatments and do lashes and brows.

I started scrapping 11 years ago, one workshop and I was hooked. After 9 years I took a break from scrapping but now I'm back..... completely hooked again!

Love working with paints, inks, gesso and sprays. Also I found a new love in metal.

I hope to inspire you to be creative, it's so much fun! Love to see you on Facebook and on my blog http://mickeyspicsandscraps.blogspot.nl/

Mitra Pratt

Why hello there from Upstate New York where it’s cold quite often, but also very sunny! I just recently turned 40 which seems to me to be the best age of all. I am married to THE MAN who often plays a hand in my craft stunts. Or at least provides tools and a warm garage for spray painting. Yes he wears glitter quite often and by accident. 

We are raising our two kids to the best our abilities to be smart, technologically savvy, and ready for whatever comes next. The oldest is 13, which corresponds to the length of time I have been scrapbooking. At times I have found her arranging items on a scrapbook page I have laid out, so she has the paper bug too! The youngest is 11 and is not into paper at all. He’d rather ask difficult questions having to do with space and physics which boggle my brain. 

I have been blogging for three years which is taking the whole craft to another level. Connecting with bloggers all over the blog-o-sphere is just amazing. Both activities are polar opposites of my day job, which is working as a project manager for an engineering firm.

My first ever Design Team was Another Freaking Scrappy, so I am delighted Anne is getting her started back up!

monday`s mentions 2 february 2014

Our past design team member Leila Cardosa is a featured designer for Sketch 107 at Sketchabilities! Congratulations Leila!!

Wilma Voermans was a winner over at Scrap Africa for December - so happy to hear this Wilma.

Amy Voorthuis' work from the December challenge was featured at Scrap Around the World.

Blog participants and DT - Please let me know when your work has been recognized - I will be very happy to feature your success in our Monday`s Mentions feature!!!

Design team call ...

Hello all!  So happy to be coming back to this space to play along again, now that life has settled down again and I have time to devote to playing along with you!

I am looking for a design team to inspire us with your work.

We have two challenges a month - one is a prompt, and the other is a sketch.  I send out the prompts/sketches well ahead, and I ask that you participate in as many challenges as you can, and that you provide me with your sample a full 2 days ahead of the blog reveal so that I can post them to the blog by 6 am EST the morning of the reveal.

I ask also that you also visit as many of the participant's blogs as you can every challenge.

We always have a friendly bunch here, design team and players. We have a "Monday's Mentions" feature where we post about any good things we see about our team and players, a "Fave Fridays" feature where we post interesting links, and a "Shining Stars on the Seventh" where we feature work from the children of our friends who play along or design with us.

Please send me a link to your blog, a bit of your design team or publication experience (if you have any), and any other information that you think would be interesting.  My e-mail address is anne.pennington@xplornet.com

Deadline 6 February, 2014.

Happy New Year - and watch this space!!!

Happy New Year all.  I've been missing you all, and have found life somewhat calmed down.  I'd like to re-open here to play some more with you all.

I miss posting "monday's mentions" - and letting everyone know all your triumphs!!  I miss sharing the happy news here with everyone whenever I see any of you featured somewhere.

I hope that you'll share what your children are designing with us all for our "shining stars on the seventh" feature.

Don't forget to share cool links to amazing designs, tutorials, and just good fun stuff with us for our "fave fridays" feature.

Most of all - I miss what you share about YOU.  It's nice to have prompts that inspire us to share our own stories - about our youth, our dreams, and our NOW.

I'll be looking for some design team members.  Send a link to your blog and a bit about your experience/design teams - or anything you think would be interesting to anne.pennington@xplornet.com

Anne xoxoxoxox

... an end of the year challenge ...

Make note, journal - or art journal if you are inclined to do so - of the best of 2013. If there is one single milestone - all the better. Describe how it made you feel - how it affected your life, and others around you. Describe the elation. Then choose the lowest point of 2013 for you - again describe how it affected your life and those around you. Describe your despair. Describe both in as much detail as you dare. Do the same for every year from now on. But - revisit both the highs and lows of all the years, every year. Record your perspective on them as the years progress. I think it will be a revealing exercise. Our perspectives change through the years - I think it will be very revealing to record how we grow emotionally.

Do you dare???????