Out of the Dark, Into the Light - Introducing the Sketches Oz Design Team

So, without further ado, I would like to welcome the very talented Sketches Oz blog design team! Stay tuned in the next 24 hours, paper and digi scrappers alike, for your chance become part of this fabulous team.

Sarah Mulder

Sarah is 32 years old, partner of 10 years to her best friend James. They have two children Rebekah, 6 and Harrison, 3. She works part time in a baby shop and loves all the inspiration that she get from working there. Sarah is also an ambassador for Fiskars Australia.

Sarah has been into craft for as long as she can remember, stitching, candle making, card making and stamping. It wasn't until she was pregnant with Rebekah that she ran into scrapbooking through creative memories. She became addicted - hook, line and sinker - and has not looked back. Not long after finding scrapbooking she told James that they had to build a house just so to get HER scrap room.

Sarah’s family and friends are the main subjects of her pages. She loves to record the little things, the milestones, the everyday. Through scrapbooking she has made many life long friends that just GET it. She says ‘they understand me taking the camera everywhere, taking photos through dinner at a restaurant, running after my kids at a playground arms flapping in the air just to get the perfect shot. The circle of friends i now have through scrapbooking i am eternally grateful for’.

Sarah likes to try anything and everything. She inks everything and loves patterned papers and, like many, they are her addiction. Her favorite manufacturers are Heidi Swapp, SEI, Heidi Grace Design and a little bit of Basic Grey thrown in. She is addicted to sketches.
Sarah says ‘I am excited by this opportunity and i hope that through this blog we inspire you to scrapbook your everyday and lifetime moments....’

Deirdre Heath

Dee has 2 gorgeous children Aodhan, 2 and Ciara who has just turned 1. She is married to Glenn and lives west of Melbourne. She is a full time Mum, but also a nurse and does some casual work in a endoscopy centre.

Dee has been scrapping for about 2 years now, and feels that she has been very lucky with where her love of the craft has taken her. She has been published in two of the Australian magazines, and also has also had a few pages picked up for publication in the US. This year she made it into the top 50 of the Making Memories Idol competition, an achievement she is very proud of. She is on the design team at Scrap 'N Crazy and has recently started up the Aussie Scrapjacked blog, which is proving to be a lot of fun.

Dee loves working from a sketches, although she finds that the end result turns out completely different.

Danielle Quarmby

Danielle is a 26-year-old mum of 2. Daughter Sienna, age 3, and son Ash who is just over 1 1/2. She has been married to Ben, who is a computer programmer, for 8 years.

Danielle works part time as a website production assistant and is also self-employed casually as a photographer (babies, children, couples, families) as well as being a stay-at-home-most-of-the-time mum!

Danielle has been into photography since she was 12 and painting since she was 13. She started scrapbooking at 22 when she was pregnant with Sienna. Her sister Kelly had started and Danielle thought that it would be nice to share the hobby with her and it has since evolved into a passion and an art for her and a business for her sister.

Danielle is on the design team at 'Kiti Q Fresh and Funky scrapbooking' and has been published in For Keeps, Scrapbook Creations (SC) and Scrapbooking Memories (SM). She has some articles coming up in SC that she is really excited to be seeing in print!

Danielle has rarely used sketches in the past and is looking forward to taking up the Sketches Oz challenge and putting her creative and interpretive skills to the test.

Kathie Link

Kathie is wife to Phil and Mama to Jamie. A few years back she was a hard working, stressed out Human Resources Manager and had been working for ten years in a big company where it seemed that she spent more and more of her time managing staff terminations, performance problems and investigating "issues" - lots of not-so-fun stuff. She was in need of some light relief, had just gotten married and decided to give scrapbooking a try. After all, she had a wedding album to make! So marked the start of her little hobby.

Since then Kathie has gone on to have the majority of her pages published in scrapping magazines, has been invited to work on fantastic design teams, and has met a bunch of lively and creative women who she now calls friends. She has also had a seachange - at first she went back to her original career as an occupational health and safety adviser, but more recently she became a full-time mum, her favourite career to date. She is due to go back to work two days a week in May.

Kathie is glad that I discovered scrapbooking before she became a mother as she loves capturing the everyday. ‘You know, those little moments that I'd forget about otherwise. I steer away from "milestone" pages. I guess they'll get done later. But at the moment those aren't the things that are important to me, my topics are far more mundane.’

Kathie’s style tends towards vintage but really, for her, the look of each page is inspired by the photos and the story. The one thing that is consistent across her pages is journaling - she always has a story to capture. Kathie rarely uses sketches and when she does, you'd usually never know by the end, as her layouts end up completely different to when she started.

Tammy Templeton

Tammy is 37 and lives in Morphett Vale, SA, with husband Jason and 3 kids, Dwayne 15, Talissa 5 & Conner 2, who are the main subjects of her layouts. Everyone that knows her, knows that she is addicted to pink.

Tammy is a self confessed "craft-a-holic" and has dabbled into everything crafty since she was about 13. She have boxes full of "stuff" that she now finds quite come in handy with scrapbooking, which is now her main hobby. She has been scrapbooking for about 5 years and is self taught, never having had any lessons. She is very excited with how her scrapbooking has developed over the last 12 months, and feels that she has finally discovered "her style". She describes her style as 'cartoonish/eclectic, I love doodling and mixing it up'. Her favourite products are chipboard, ribbons and flowers and she likes to scrap in a variety of sizes, including 8.5 X 11, 8 X 8 and has just started with 9 X 9.

Tammy enjoys all aspects of scrapbooking whether it is chatting online with friends, sharing, trying out new ideas with photography or online shopping and is soon to be published in For Keeps and Scrapbooking Memories.

Mardi Winen

Mardi is married to her big sweetie Ian (for over 20 years now) and has three teenagers; two boys Brent, 18 and Mitch, 16 and her gorgeous girl Briony 13. They live in the Riverland region of SA and love to camp and take the boat out on the River.

Mardi is a fulltime Paramedic which means her days are varied some days are exciting and others she’d rather forget. She finds that scrapbooking is her release tool, her de-stresser. She is also lucky to have the advantage of shift work giving her day time, child free scrap time.
Although she has always been into craft she is relatively new to Scrapbooking, beginning about 2 1/2 years ago. Mardi couldnt believe that this whole new world was out there and was instantly hooked. If she’s not scrapping she is annoying the kids with my camera, pouring through magazines or glued to the internet.

Mardi has been published many times in the various magazines including commissioned layouts as well as some Design team and Guest Design Team spots. She is grateful for all of the opportunities scrapbooking has given her and particularly grateful for the wonderful friends she has made online.

Mardi loves to use colour and a mix of patterned papers, she usually stitches and loves both quirkiness and ‘white space’. Mardi finds that her style continually evolves and is always looking to try different ideas.

Lately Mardi has been scrapping the everyday things more often, using more than one photo to a page and also using those 'not so hot' photos. She also loves to journal sometimes its hidden, but it is always there, because every layout needs to be a story told.

Tatum Woodroffe

I am Tatum Woodroffe, mum to Charlotte (10/8/02); Lillian (26/1/04) and Sebastian (4/12/06). My husband is Steven, married on 16/12/2000.

We have been living in Mount Isa, Queensland since December 1999 and are originally from Adelaide, we are both mining engineers and I am a Senior Mining Engineer for Xstrata copper in that professional side of my life. I have been scrapbooking in earnest since mid 2005 when I was really inspired by Emily Falconbridge’s work in Scrapbooking Creations. Although my work looks nothing like Emily’s I love the philosophy behind her work which to me is creating art and documenting both family and self. Most of my layouts feature my kiddies but I do try and scrap myself, my husband and our friends too.

My style is still developing and I don’t expect it will ever rest in a single area because I love to challenge myself and try new things. I love colour…I am not someone who has a favourite colour, I love them all (except purple)…and it features strongly in my LO’s. I never feel that my LO’s are finished until I have journalled something!

I started this blog because I love to work with sketches, I use them often as a starting point for my layouts, although like the others my layouts usually end up quite different to the original sketch. I thought that it would be a great way to provide inspiration to others and showcase Australian talent, whilst having a bit of fun. I would love for it to become a resource that people come back to for inspiration, ideas and a bit of fun!