June Mojo Madness Winners

Hi Mojo friends! What a wonderful two week celebration this final sketch has been! I've loved peeking in at each and every card and reading your memories and the wonderfully sweet words of support you've shared. Thanks so much for 9 years and 10 months of making Mondays fun! It's been an incredible ride. But a look at these incredibly sweet little faces reminds me exactly why I'm making this decision. Watching them learn and grow has turned into the greatest blessing of my life. And as I'm watching them hit each milestone side by side, one day I know I'll wake up and all at once this house will be so very quiet and lonely. I hope I can say at that time that I did all I could to be present when these little souls needed me most.

Photo credit: Heidi Hagman Photography

There have been lots of questions as to whether or not the sketches will remain available. The answer is slightly complicated. The blog will still remain here with sketches as part of the blog posts as long as Blogger continues to offer free blog service.  I will be turning commenting off after the winners have claimed their prizes, so I don't have to continually monitor comments for bots.

The archive files of the monthly pdf's and quick reference sketches are stored on the Mojo Monday server. The domain and hosting package is paid through mid-January 2018, but I won't be renewing, since the out of pocket cost is a couple hundred dollars a year. That means that as of January 2018 those files and images will no longer be available. Our Pinterest board will still be there for an easy look through of all the sketches, though.

Okay, on with the winners! Thanks to everyone who played along. As always, I was inspired by your amazingly unique and creative takes on the sketch. Our randomly picked winners are:

June Mojo Madness Winners:

19.  Marie Halstead

89.  Cynthia O

125.  Mary Marsh

173.  Kathy Schweinfurth

 Winners receive one stamp set of their choosing from our sponsor, Verve Stamps. 

If you're a June winner, congrats! To claim your prize, please send an email to contests@vervestamps.com with your choice of Verve stamp set and your shipping address and we'll get your prize in the mail!

Well, that's a wrap on Mojo Monday! As I say to my boys each night...thank you with all my heart. From the top of my head to the tips of my toes, to infinity and beyond!

Mojo Monday 500 Contest and Farewell

My dear Mojo Monday friends,

It is with bittersweet emotion I type these words to announce that this week will be our final Mojo Monday challenge. I have loved bringing you these 500 weekly inspirational sketches over the last close to 10 years. It's been an incredible ride to see so many amazingly unique cards from the same sketch, to get to know you through your blog posts, to watch your grow as artists, and to see so many cards in publications inspired by these sketches. These things have made my heart swell with joy. Thank you so much for your participation and for letting me do what I've felt called to do... inspire. One of the things I love most about sketches is that they give the freedom to discover your own style and uniqueness without worrying about creating a balanced layout as well. They're the jumping off point for a new creative  journey and I hope you have found joy in creating from them. 

And while I have loved these challenges for so many big and small reasons, the landscape of my life has dramatically shifted over the course of these 9.75 years. As a full-time company owner and Mama to two curious, incredibly intelligent, and busy 5 year olds, I'm finding myself heartsick by the precious little moments that are slipping through my fingers while I spend time prepping for this challenge each week. Echoes of "WHEN will you be done, Mama?" haunt me and I find myself wanting to spend less time stamping, commenting and creating new sketches and more time with my boys. So here's to new adventures, to joyful creating, and to precious times. I'll still be blogging over at Poetic Artistry and running Verve, so come see me there!

Much love,
- Julee

PS. I'd love to read YOUR story of what Mojo has meant to you - feel free to add it to your blog post if you play along or in the comments below.

It's also time for one last contest!  Since this is our final challenge. and it's a busy time of year I thought we'd extend the deadline to two weeks, so everyone can have a chance to play.

How to play: Upload a creation using this week's sketch to your online blog or gallery. Then leave a direct link to your project in the InLinkz widget at the bottom of this post. If you upload to online galleries, please tag them with MOJO500. Our challenge is open to everyone, Verve stamps are NOT required to participate, and you can enter as many times as you want. If you don't have a particular shape, feel free to substitute.

The Prizes: We'll have one winner for every 50 entries! Winners will receive the Verve Stamps set of their choice. You can play as often as you like, and the more entries the more winners!

Deadline: The InLinkz entry widget will close at 8PM MT {Click here for time conversion} on Sunday, June 18; so all entries need to be in before then to be eligible for our prize drawing. Winners will be announced on Wednesday, June 21. 

I'd like to give a ginormous THANK YOU to the incredible Mojo Makers design team! These incredible artists never cease to amaze me with their creations, faithfully providing samples week after week, lately with very little advance notice on the sketch! And the deepest heartfelt thanks to Teresa Kline, who has been typing up many of the blog posts for the past 5+ years since the twins were born. I could not have done it without her. Big puffy heart hugs!

For this last challenge, I thought I'd add each DT member's card to the post, like we did in the past. I hope you will stop by and give a shout out to each of these amazing crafters.

Julee Tilman

Justin Krieger

Lori Tecler

Marisa Ritzen

Sarah Bigelow

Teresa Kline

Wanda Cullen

An InLinkz Link-up