Challenge 113

What a week! Just when I was starting to feel like a passenger on a runaway train, life took a surprising turn and started looking very organized, calm and what previously looked like chaos now looks a lot more like mellow and peaceful. Right ON!! So my to-do list is gradually getting shorter which means there's more room for scrapping & creativity. This just keeps getting better and better.

This is the final week that Marianne is creating with us. Her pages have brought so much inspo to everyone, but don't forget to upload the link to your scraplift of her 3 favorite layouts in the comments section of the post found here. You have until Saturday night to do so. Your links need to be uploaded before we introduce our next Guest Designer. If you have created a layout and added it to our Flickr Group or another online gallery, just make sure we get the link to include you in what is currently an easy race to win. Don't leave it too long though...we'd hate for you to miss out!

Share your interpretation of this week's challenge with us in our Flickr Group. Read "What We're All About" on the sidebar to find out what you need to do in order to have a shot at winning this month's prize pack.

The challenge this week is not a sketch, rather it will motivate you to dust off some of those great art supplies that are sometimes prone to being ignored...loosen up and give yourself permission to make a mess!

**use doodle circles**

check out what the team got up to with this week's challenge...

Vanessa

Tania

Zoe

Kirsten

Christi

Carol

Marianne
Oh Marianne, it has been such a joy to have you join us this month. Your layouts are inspiring, creative and super unique! Thank you so much for sharing your talent with us and we all hope that you come back often to participate in our future challenges!

Scrap at the Farm

If you live in the Whitehorse area and aren't doing anything on Sunday, I'm hosting a casual scrap day/potluck lunch at my place. Join our Facebook Group to find out the details or email me if you don't "do" Facebook!.

Also, if you are a resident or regular visitor of the Yukon, I have started a new blog & accompanying Facebook Group. The Yukon Photography :: Image Quest will feature weekly challenges that encourage you to flex your photographic muscle. The prizes include fame and notoriety! We will vote once a month from a list of finalists and the winner of that voting process will have their winning photo as the group page on Facebook. Second and third place winners will receive an honorable mention and a hi-five!

FMI, visit the Facebook Groups and the new Yukon Photography :: Image Quest blog.

And the winner is...

Zkmom! YAY! Everyone has (hopefully) had time to cast their vote and the poll shows that the majority of the vote went to Zkmom. Her page "have tree,will climb" was the public's favorite so Zkmom, email me at info@lotuspaperie.com so with your shipping information and I'll get your prize pack out in the mail for you right away!

To get your name into the final 3 in the Poll on the sidebar, all you have to do is upload layouts to our Flickr Group made from our weekly challenges. You are welcome to participate as often as you like! When uploading you page to the group, we ask you to tag your photo so that we can find it to consider it for the final 3. Please do so with one word "challenge112" or whatever that week's number is. Please make sure it's all one word with no spaces.

Our last challenge for the month goes up tomorrow and you have until the end of the last day of the month to upload your scraplift of Marianne's layouts to the comments section of this post.

If you have already won a prize pack and have not yet received it, please be patient. Personal reasons have caused this delay. Your prizes will arrive shortly.

Challenge 112

We have been having the most amazing weather here lately, nothing but blue skies. Chilly, but gorgeous!

Another week, another challenge. This week is based on a sketch. Have fun with it and don't forget to upload it to the flickr gallery for a chance to win some scrap goodies!

Also help us out and vote for your favourite layout of last month (upper right hand side), there are only five days left to vote!

One last thing... click on this link and lift Marianne for an extra chance to win some scrap goodies!

And the beautiful pages the ladies came up with for this week...

Tania
Vanessa

Christi

Kirsten

Carol

Zoe

Marianne

Challenge 111

Happy Friday the 13th!!

We've been keeping busy figuring out upcoming schedules for dance competitions coming up. Also ready for Valentine's celebrations at the school as well as family time on the real Valentine's day, and finally getting things put together for my daughter's birthday, busy, busy times. :)

There are also a few things going on here, isn't there always? :). We have the scraplift challenge happening right now with Marianne, check out this post for a chance to win a RAK. We also need your votes on your favourite layout so we can give out a RAK, upper right hand side. And finally, if you would like a chance to win a RAK participate in the challenges and post them on flickr, the more challenges you do in a month, the higher your chances of winning! :)

SO, the challenge this week??

Hand cut circles

Here are the girls layouts :)

Vanessa

Tania

Christi

Kirsten

Carol

Zoe

Marianne

Time to choose your favorite!

So now that January is well over and I probably should have posted this a little sooner, now's a good time to look at our three finalists for January's Flickr Submissions! There were a lot to choose from and the pages were hard to narrow down to just three! You have until the 26th to cast your vote on the sidebar so don't delay and be sure to spread the word!

Double Happiness
Sandravanbrenk

Have tree will climb
Zkmom

My Grandma is the best giver
Mommamany

Challenge 110

Say what? It's Friday already?! Wow. That sure happens fast, doesn't it? It's crazy how this day sneaks up on me every single week. Sheesh! Well, luckily we're all prepared and scrapped up for this week's challenge. We're using a sketch (and who doesn't love a good sketch!) and the team has really given us their top-notch work - like usual- and I for one had a great time pushing my personal comfort zone...and that would be to use more than one photo. Always feels a little weird!

So of course we wanna see what you can do with this one! If you haven't already joined our Flickr Group, please do so and upload your work there so we can consider your pages in our upcoming poll (which is a monthly occurrence that you don't want to miss!) Lucky winners receive RAKs that would make your mouth water! When you share your layouts with the pool, please remember to indicate which weekly challenge your page is for so it doesn't get missed.

Also, be sure to go check out an earlier post and read all about our new Guest Designer for this month, Marianne Hope. She's shared her 3 favorite pages with us and we want you to scraplift one for a shot at winning ANOTHER RAK!!!

So here we go...

Vanessa

Tania

Zoe

Kirsten

Christi

Carol

Marianne

And the winner is...

SunFrogOriginals! It was really hard to decide who to award this gorgeous hand made customized pendant to...the stories were lovely, heartwarming, inspiring (some a little sad) but SunFrogOriginals' story - one of the last we received- was so moving...

SunFrog Originals said...

"believe!
My word for this year is beleive! I believe that things will get better...my husband has lost his job, my cancer is rearing it's ugly head again, we may end up losing everything...but I BELIEVE it will all work out! God works in mysterious ways. He must, once again, be trying to get my attention...sometimes life gets in the way of the imporant blessings we all have: friends, family, faith. Ok God, I'm listening!

Mimi"

A big, giant thank you to everyone for sharing your stories. I hope your words continue to bring you warmth, inspiration and gentle reminders to stay the course and live your word. Remember, to have your very own pendant created by Lynn at OakHillDesigns, just visit her Etsy shop and follow the steps to purchase the Custom Word of the Year necklace and include your "word" selection in the "notes to seller" section and she will hook you up. I've worn my necklace every day since it arrived! It's a beautiful, stylish reminder of my word.

In the meantime, Mimi, please contact Lynn directly to have your pendant made up. Make sure you tell her that you are SunFrogOriginals. Congratulations!!

Meet Marianne!

Wow, what a creative and productive month January was! Our Guest Designer, Kathie Link gave us some dynamite pages to inspire us and it was such a pleasure to have her join us. Now that February is upon us, it's time to introduce you to our next Guest Designer. Marianne Hope is joining us this month all the way from the Netherlands! You will love her style and I know she'll charm you as much as she did me!

Oh, and don't forget that we want to see how you are inspired by Marianne's pages. You'll see three of her all-time favorite layouts below the interview. We want you to scraplift one of these pages and share the link to your layout in the comments section of this post. You have the whole month of February to add your link and who knows, you could win free scrap stuff!



Q:Tell us a bit about you and your family.

A: I am married to my sweet German, also called Till (yes, that's his real name) and proud mom to Mats, Jonas and Lotte. We moved from Norway (my home country) to the Netherlands in 2002 and enjoy it more every day. Because of our multi-cultural background, our children speak 3 languages, which can result in many funny things to scrap about.

Q: How long have you been scrapbooking and where did you get your start in this craft?

A: I think I have been scrapbooking all my life, I just didn't know it had a name before 2004. The moment I read about it in a Dutch scrapbook magazine, I knew that this was my "thing". I played around and had fun with this hobby whenever I had a spare moment, but in february 2008, on my birthday, I decided to get serious about it and started my own blog, started participating in challenges and submitting to magazines. It kind of took off from there and I am very thankful for all the opportunities I have been given, designing for 2 different magazines (one Dutch and one Norwegian) and being on different design teams (at the moment I design for Papirgleder, one of Norway's biggest scrapbook stores and ScrappeMania, a Norwegian challengeblog).

Q:What inspires your creativity when you are scrapbooking?

A: I get inspired by my photos, the story I want to tell, the challenge I am submitting to, the products I am using or committed to use, but also magazines, ads, childrens clothes, fabric ++

Q:Describe your creative style

A:Oefff, that's a hard question to answer in few words. I do like to follow the principle "less is more", but I always follow my heart, what fits my photos the best. I love to use hand cut felt, crepe paper, buttons, fabric, sewing and paint. Sometimes it's freestyle, sometimes it's clean and simple, sometimes it is vintage and sometimes it's just my own thing.

Q:What are your three favorite products/techniques right now?

A: Ops, I already mentioned them; crepe paper, sewing, painting

Q:What project(s) are you currently working on?

A:My lay-out for our next "one little word" challenge at ScrappeMania

Q:Describe your perfect day

A:A lovely sunny, but not too hot day, the kind of day where I wake up and feel the energy flow. The kind of day where the kids do everything I ask them to without hesitation and without kidding around (ha, ha, like that ever happens...). The kind of day my husband gets home before dinner time. The kind of day where I can just let my creativity work for me and end up with more than one project finished.

Q:What are your three favorite layouts of all time that you’ve created (published or not)?

A: This is my my absolute all time favorite LO. It was made for the Pencil lines sketch no. 100, (made by Kelly Crowe). I love circles, fabric, lace, buttons, stamps, hand cut felt letters, sewing and white space and I like this picture of Lotte, which is SO typical for her at the age of 2, so I guess I just have to like this LO...


This is the very first lay-out that I was really really happy with and still like. It is also the first lay-out that got me noticed in several magazines and on SIStv. I love the picture, the colors, the overall composition and the story it is telling. It's about my second son, Jonas, who at 3 years of age just wanted to be cool, not nice or good looking - just cool. He's got a "cool" hairdo on this picture, ha, ha. I also love the fact that I only used a white background, paint, a black pen and some old scraps.



This LO show all my kids how they are; happy, funny and colorful. I like the fact that I used 12 pictures on one page, and that it is low cost and simple. This is also one of the LOs that got me to the final in the Dutch "Scrapbooker of the year 2008".