Once Upon a Sketch - January Challenge

While away on my holidays I got some time to create while everyone was having chill time on various stops we did along the way.  I fell in love with this sketch and while Once Upon a Sketch is a challenge site I have admired for all the amazing and beautiful layouts created by the design team and participants in the challenges - not to mention the awesome sketches, I just hadn't found the time last year.  Well this all changed and I got to have a play and take part this month.  This is my take on the sketch challenge for January:

The theme for inspiration was 'lesson learnt' and I guess it stuck in my mind that I'm learning to accept that my youngest little man is growing up too, becoming less of a toddler every day.

This is the sketch for this month's challenge.  You can see loads of more inspiration from the amazing design team as well as all the details to play along here.

For those that don't really understand sketches, they are basically like a map of where the elements of the layout go.  Some use them more as an inspiration starting point or others a way of having fun following a design getting creative with the elements on their own layout while trying to stick to the sketch.  The latter would be me... I love that they push me to try a different placement, add something extra somewhere where I wouldn't have thought to or sometimes trying to come up with something creative to represent an element in the sketch picture.  

So if you ever have a creative block or simply want to be pushed creatively I think giving these types of challenges a go.  They are also fantastic for beginners not knowing where to start as often trying to copy a layout can be very overwhelming at times.  

I had fun creating this layout with texture paste, paper from Fancy Pants Designs, Pink Paislee, Echo park, Carta Bella™ and Bazzill®; Craft Queen™ twine, The Crafters Workshop stencil, Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft® Lemon, Mint and Mango Gelatos® and PITT® Pastel Pencil 1122-140 some My Mind's Eye™ enamel dots, Heidi Swapp & Basic Grey® alphas and of course the following Spellbinders™ dies:

WOW that is a mix of products lol - almost deceiving how many different brands I used on this one to achieve the look I wanted!  Maybe a little because I was challenged by only the supplies I had taken with me in the caravan on our holiday!

Here are some detail pics so you can see all the texture and fun I had while changing the elements up a little.  

Hope you enjoyed having a look at my take on Once Upon a Sketch's challenge for January and think about taking part too!

Oh and just an update Scrapbook and Papercraft expo in Melbourne where I will be teaching two classes isn't open until WEDNESDAY 29th January at noon. 

Sorry in my previous post I said it was the 23rd as that is what the website had (incorrectly) I have updated my post but thought people might not know... Click here for post and links to the website :)