Thanks to everyone who is participating, this is so energizing to see how you talented ladies interpret Donna's sketches and I know she finds it inspiring.

One of the benefits of sketches is how each pages is so different depending on style, products, orientation, etc.
These first two winning layouts illustrate how the diverse the approach on the sketch can be.

Thanks Jennifer Larsen for sharing this layout that showcases family outings
(click on the photo to see layout enlarged)

Don't you just get cold looking at this simple layout by Lisa Olsen? Great job!

and this last winning layout caused me to do a double take, not just because of the cute toddler, but because I thought it was digital, and upon reading more, discovered that it isn't, how cool from reader lbpost
(read more on her blog to learn about how she created the page)

The winner of the CHA giveaway will be posted tomorrow, Sunday. These three winners will receive a coupon code for a free eBook. And after all the entries from every week of the contest have been gathered, we'll draw one random winner who will receive a Cricut Expression (a value of $349)! Important note: grand prize winner will pay shipping, whether domestic or international. If grand prize winner chooses to decline the prize, we'll pick another random winner to win the Cricut Expression. And we hope the winner will agree to create a project or two with the Cricut to be featured on our blog!

For this week I’ve simplified the design a bit.  The sketch features three photos:  one 4x6 and two 4x4’s.  Ideally the 4x4’s would be crops of 4x6 prints.  I wanted to share a sketch that didn’t require any photo editing.

In the 11x8.5 version, I’ve kept the main photo a 4x6 and I reduced the smaller photos to 3.5x3.5.  You can either crop your 4x6’s to this size, or you can crop a 3.5x5 to a square.  I realize that this may require some photo editing, but it is a fairly standard size print and I know it is one that a lot of 8.5x11 scrapbookers use often.  I really was trying to make this easier this week, but I think when you convert a 12x12 sketch to a smaller size something has to give (which gives me an idea for next week.  Hmmm, stay tuned). 

Here is my take on the sketch:

I wanted to share the journaling on this page since it’s the only way that the title will make sense.

Journaling reads:  We were at the doctor’s office because I had a suspicion that you might have a UTI.  We needed to collect a urine sample but you were absolutely terrified of the collection cup (who knows why).  I didn’t really know what to do… We were going to give you this crane anyway so I promised you this toy as a reward.  Truth is, I was so proud of you for peeing in that cup.  You were really and truly scared but you did it anyway.  I think you were proud of yourself too.

My dad made fun of me when I told him this story.  But you know, you can’t make a child use the restroom.  I was truly proud of Gabe for confronting his fear and doing what I was asking of him even though he didn’t want to do it (and he did it without crying).  Was it a bribe?  I don’t like to think of it that way.  Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures… I certainly wouldn’t offer him a special toy for eating his vegetables - thank goodness he does that anyway!

Remember that we are half-way through our challenge; just three more weeks to go. 

What do you all think so far? 

Do you like the sketches? 

Do you have any requests?

Post a link to your layout in the comments of this post by Thursday, February 11 to enter this week's contest! Three winners will each receive a free eBook. And everyone who participates this week will get another entry into our grand-prize drawing for a Cricut Expression (a $349 value)!

The company we are highlighting in this product showcase is called, KIKI Art. They are a new company based in Montreal (Canada), and are proudly influenced by the many cultures, languages and stories inhabiting the city.  One of their goals is to transfer the multicultural perspective they experience everyday into the creation of their products, so they can serve in the making of unique projects and layouts for people from around the world.


Two of our Ella Friends, Barb and Katie, played with their products and produced these cheery projects.

Barb created some cards and a layout:





Supplies: cardstock (Bazzill) + chipboard shape (KiKi Art) + chipboard letters (American Crafts) + brads (American Crafts) + decorative tape (KiKi Art) + photo corner punch (EK Success) + ink pad (Tsukineko) + pen (Signo Uniball)

I trimmed the chipboard shape, originally 12 inches wide, to fit on my 8.5x11 page, and I added the black brads under the swirl to accentuate the shape. I used the decorative tape with the zigzag stitching to pull the whole page together, by repeating of the colour black and anchoring the entire design to the bottom of the page.

Katie made a few layouts:

Supplies: October Afternoon; KiKi Art; Cosmo Cricket.

I made this by pairing colors that don't normally go together, and I love how it turned out


Supplies: KiKi ARt; Heidi Grace; October Afternoon; and Miss Elizabeth.

This layout uses one of the hot colors of 2009, orange. I used just a touch of orange product to work with my daughters photos.





Here my daughter is again, wearing orange. Notice I used just a little bit of orange to complement her photos. My new favorite color combination may just be, orange and purple, who knew?

To learn more about KIKI ART visit their website, sign up for their newsletter, or stop by their blog. Thanks KIKI for joining this awesome industry.

Yes, you read that correctly. We have some goodies to give away for the next three weeks. The first giveaway includes:

• new release from Studio Calico
• tote and apron from Making Memories
• class kit from Quick and Easy Quizzes class that Angie and I taught at CHA

Sound fun?
To enter, visit one of our Ella friends blogs (listed below) and leave a comment, then come back and leave a comment with a link and you are entered automatically.

Noel
Moon
Barb
Katie
Tami
Katrina
Monica
Jodie

Contest ends @ midnight MST Feb 5.

(Oh, don't hate us but we have to limit this to U.S. and Canada residents only.)

Thanks for playing!

You've seen the likes of Jennifer Barksdale, Barb Wong, Katie Scott, Moon Ko, and Aly Dosdall on the cover of the Scrapbook Ellaments eZine. How would you like to add your name to this illustrious list?

Announcing our March Scrapbook Ellaments cover contest!

To enter, email a scan or a photograph of your layout to submissions@ellapublishing.com
with "March cover" in the subject line. The winning designer will mail
the layout in to be photographed, be profiled on our website, and will
win a free Ella eBook. Here's what we're looking for:

DEADLINE:
February 7, 2010, midnight EST

Wow, what an awesome batch of layouts. We have people participating from all over the world. Even kids have joined in. Check out the weekly winners below:

Bright colors and cheery circle accents draw the eye right in. We wanted to pull out the play doh to play with after we saw this layout by Ann Costen.

This is a digital layout that Mandy whipped up in no time; can't you just feel the sand between your toes? 

This 8.5 x 11 version is delightful, and how about that creative tree? So fun Tiffany!
We can't wait to see what you do next week.

These three winners will receive a coupon code for a free eBook. And after all the entries from every week of the contest have been gathered, we'll draw one random winner who will receive a Cricut Expression (a value of $349)! Important note: grand prize winner will pay shipping, whether domestic or international. If grand prize winner chooses to decline the prize, we'll pick another random winner to win the Cricut Expression. And we hope the winner will agree to create a project or two with the Cricut to be featured on our blog!

Hi Everyone! I have really enjoyed reading through the comments on the challenge posts and seeing that you have been inspired by Ella’s sketch challenge. It has been a lot of fun for me too and I can’t believe we are already at week three! Oh, and talk about an amazing grand prize –
a Cricut Expression! I wish I were eligible to win! Unfortunately I’m not, but what I can do is present you with this week’s sketch.

As for the 8.5 x11 version of this sketch, it pretty closely resembles the original design. I decided to adapt it to the landscape orientation (so it’s actually 11x8.5) and the photo sizes have been decreased in order to maintain the overall feel of the 12x12 sketch. Sometimes when converting sketches that have a lot of photos I like to break them up into two pages but since this design is asymmetric I decided to keep it to one page.

(By the way, you can see examples of how to convert a one page design into two pages in Angie’s article Stretch your Sketches in this month’s issue of Scrapbook Ellaments.)

Finally, here is the layout I made using this sketch. I documented one of our family’s weekly activities – our visit to Trader Joe’s. Usually I go by myself with Gabe and Nathan, but sometimes we all go as a family. What can I say? We really do love TJ’s! I kept my page fairly simple since I had a lot of photos on my page. And, notice the wording on the top left-hand corner? In the sketch, I included a space for additional journaling in that spot but you can always place some word stickers or an embellishment there instead.

Have fun with these, can't wait to see what you do. Post a link to your layout in the comments of this post by Thursday, February 4 to enter this week's contest! Three winners will each receive a free eBook. And everyone who participates this week will get another entry into our grand-prize drawing for a Cricut Expression (a $349 value)!

(And remember to check out my new eBook, Stretch your Sketches)

I don't make many holiday or birthday layouts. It's not that I won't--I just don't. I prefer to record ordinary observations and minor milestones in my family's life. I enjoy annual celebrations and take a lot of photos at these events, but I care more about preserving the little behaviors, silly stories, routine activities, and everyday events that fill up my life. And I'm sure I'm not the only scrapbooker who feels this way.

In fact, in Ella's popular eBook 20 Simple Secrets of Happy Scrapbookers, authors Stacy Julian and Lain Ehmann offer scientific proof that enjoying the ordinary is one of 20 behaviors that make scrapbookers some of the happiest people around. If you need someone else to remind you that scrapbooking is good for your soul--or if you just want 20 fresh page ideas to jump-start your creativity--then download this eBook. Stacy and Lain's words inspired me to create this simple page celebrating the mini milestones that transformed my baby into a little girl. And there are a dozen other ideas still rolling around in my head. I can't wait to get started, and neither should you!

supplies patterned papers (BasicGrey) + chipboard letters, letter stickers (October Afternoon) + felt butterflies (Heidi Swapp) + American Typewriter font + 11 x 8.5 page by Rachel Gainer

(Note from Ella: Today's guest blogger, Rachel Gainer, is also Ella Publishing Co.'s talented copy editor. We'd like to thank Rachel for helping out while Wendy & Angie are at CHA!)

Congrats and thanks for participating. Check out the weekly winners below:

The innovative use of the journaling block caught our eye, and we like the decorative elements behind the photos. Great job Maya from Wisconsin!

This was a great way to customize the sketch to work for the designer's photos, since she had one horizontal and four square pics. Congratulations to Valerie from New Jersey!

And this happy yellow layout caught our eye with the minimal products and innovative use of paper. Designed by Donna H., Perth, Australia.

Each of these winners will receive a coupon code for a free eBook! Many thanks for participating; we can't wait to see what the next five weeks have in store.

(Click on each layout to view where it was originally posted.)

The sketch for week 2 of our sketch challenge features three photos:  one 4 x 6 and two 3 x 4s. I often like to make layouts that feature one prominent photograph with other smaller detail photos.  I also like to mix-up sizes and orientations. So, for example you'll notice that one of the photographs is a different orientation from the other two.

This week, and in the weeks that follow I will also present an 8.5 x 11 version of the sketch. For this week's sketch, I chose to adapt the design in the portrait orientation. I cropped the photos so that the white space surrounding the trio of photos is maintained. You could however adapt the sketch in the landscape orientation and keep the main photo in the 4 x 6 size. You would lose that cushion of white space from the original sketch, but I think it would make a great adaptation!

 
In the layout that I made based off of this sketch I actually substituted the 4 x 6 with a 3.5 x 5. I wanted a lot of white space on this layout because part of the inspiration for making the layout was to document one of our family's fall traditions. (Mmm, yummy pumpkin scones.  Say, is it fall yet?) But the other was to pay a little homage to one of my favorite (but sadly no longer in business) scrapbooking companies. As I said last week, I like to keep my sketches very simple. I almost never sketch the background elements or the embellishments into my designs. So while the sketch for this layout is very basic I did layer a lot of patterned papers to create the backdrop for my photos (patterned paper is my favorite scrapbooking supply). And in order to make sure my photos stood out I matted them on white cardstock (you can also have them printed with a white border from the photo printer, but I'm sure you all already knew that).
 

 
Feel free to alter or change this sketch to fit your needs. Or, if you want to use it just as it is, that's great too!  There is no wrong or right when using sketches. They are meant to be starting points for your creativity. Keep up the good work this week; I loved seeing all your submissions from last week.
 
Just leave me a comment with a link to your layout, and we'll pick three winners by Thursday, January 28, who will each receive a coupon code for a free eBook. Winners will be posted on Friday or Saturday (January 28-29). If you don't have a blog, just post your layout to our Flickr group. Everyone who participates this week will also get an entry into our Grand Prize drawing five weeks from
now. For every week you post a layout, you get one more entry in the
drawing.

WE'RE READY TO ANNOUNCE OUR GRAND PRIZE!!!

After all the entries from every week of the contest have been gathered, we'll draw one random winner who will receive a Cricut Expression (MSRP around $300)! Important note: grand prize winner will pay shipping, whether domestic or international. If grand prize winner chooses to decline the prize, we'll pick another random winner to win the Cricut Expression. And we'll expect the winner to create a project or two with the Cricut to be featured on our blog.

Note: The three winning layouts for week 1 will be posted later today or tomorrow (Saturday), because the whole Ella staff is busy at CHA! Each weekly winner will get a coupon code for a free eBook.