~January Sketch Challenge~

So how about kick-starting your 2014 creativity by creating a page with our sketch, plus be in with a chance of winning a £20 voucher for the shop while you're at it?!

This month's sketch has been designed by Natalie. Will you see it as the opportunity for a multi-photo layout, or choose to interpret the squares in another way?:=

 Here's how some of the DT interpreted it to make some lovely pages:

Jen G stuck closely to the sketch to whip up the funky multi-photo page of her boys rocking out in an unusual location!

Tracie also stuck closely to the sketch for her soft-coloured page, choosing to scrap just one photo and filling the other two squares with frames and journalling.

Lou replaced the two squares behind the photo with patterned overlays, and the three strips with the feathers in this lovely girlie layout:

Natalie also used a round element in place of the top square, and dived into her scraps box to chose a number of different strips to lay together to represent the bottom square, bringing them together as a block using faux stitching:

We'd love for you to join in our challenge - don't forget to add your link here by the 31st of January to be in with a chance of winning the prize.

It's also time to announce our December Sketch Challenge winner....the prize goes to Nancy; the DT loved her layering and clustering!  Nancy please drop Lianne an email so she can arrange your prize (she and Sarah are currently at CHA and return on Monday 20th, so bare with them!). Nancy's winning page can be found here.

***September Sketch Challenge***

It's September already - who can believe that we've said goodbye to Summer (hmmm, what Summer?!) and are facing Autumn already? But the good news is that a new month of course brings a new challenge here at Sarah's Cards, and a fresh opportunity for you to be in with the chance to win a £20 e-voucher to spend in the shop!

All you have to do is create a page based on our sketch below, and add a link to your creation to our inlinkz collection at the end of this post by the 30th of September.

To ease you in to your Autumn scrapping, the sketch is deliberately straight forward this month, giving you an idea of photo and title placement......but the rest is open to your complete interpretation!

Here's what the Design Team came up with:

I decided to make a focal point of the circles along the horizontal strip by creating a negative space with a large punch, which became frames for little clusters of embellishments:

Helen flipped the sketch horizontally, and used the arrows in the sketch as inspiration for a fun band of colourful hexagons underneath her photo mats.

Ifa cleverly added a second picture into her design to add more details to her story:

Jen G went to town with banner shapes for her fun layout with an epic picture and journalling to match:

The arrows in the sketch provided the perfect spot for journalling on Jen N's sun-shiney summery page:

Vanessa rotated the sketch 90 degrees for her autumnal-toned design:

Tracy added some negative space along her horizontal strip, adding texture and interest whilst guiding your eye around the layout:

Tracie's used the sketch to scrap a feathered friend:

We look forward to seeing what you create!!

November Challenge

It's time for a new challenge here at the Sarah's Cards blog - and an opportunity for you to win a £20 e-voucher to spend in the shop!

This month we would like you to try something that you are probably usually told to stop doing, but for November, us meanies on the Sarahs Cards team want you all to:

THINK NEGATIVE!!

This really is open to interpretation and we would leave to see what your take on that statement would be! 

To get your creative juices flowing, here's how members of the design team got on with thinking negatively!

Ifa chose to document something which really could have been a negative experience - her son injuring his arm during his first week back to school. However, they were able to turn that negative thinking around and were thankful that it was his left shoulder he fell on.

 

Gems also used the challenge to inspire the theme for her page - her beautiful little girl has been feeling negative about her height, so Gems took the opportunity to remind her that she may be short, but she is most definitely sweet, inside and out.

Helen used mists and masks to create her interpretation of negativity. Using the Studio Calico '&' mask, she firstly misted with cream and then moved the mask slightly and remisted with brown, creating a cream shadow, which she then roughly outlined with a black pen. Helen also punched out some small hearts from one of the patterned paper strips, leaving the hole, or negative shape.

Lou gave her fun Halloween layout a funky twist by turning the negative space inside her Thickers title into a pair of eyes!!

For my page I used a circle cutter to cut various sized circles in to a piece of card stock, and rather than using the circles as masks for misting I used the resulting negative piece of card stock as an overlay. I placed a misted sheet of card stock underneath, creating the effect of coloured soapy bubbles. I also used a punch to remove star shapes from some mini banner shapes cut from misted card.

Jen's beautiful page used Studio Calico masks & Maya mists to create the butterflies fluttering across the page, before embellishing the resulting negative spaces left on the page by threading twine and dotting liquid enamel around the edges.

So if you fancy the chance of making that £20 e-voucher yours - leave us a link here to your take on "Thinking Negatively" by the 30th of November! Winner will be announced on the blog on the 8th of December!

Happy creating :)