As you may have already read on
Tuesday's post, the December '09 issue of
SheetLoad of Cards will be the last.
It is a very bitter sweet time for me. While
SheetLoad of Cards was a
HUGE JOY in my life, it was also adding to my heaping pile of 'to-dos'. Something had to give, and it couldn't be my family. The decision was made to close down
ShortCuts and finish out the year at
SheetLoad.
When the first issue of
SheetLoad of Cards was posted on my personal blog,
Call Me {Crafty} Al, I had no idea that 2 years later it would have grown to what it is today.
I always enjoyed using sketches and once I found one I liked, I usually stuck with it for (quite) a few cards. When I found my first One Sheet Wonders template on SCS, I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. The first issue of
SheetLoad of Cards was a combination of both of these.
Debuting in August of 2007, the
first issue featured a sketch by
Carla Peicheff. I had met Carla on a
(now-defunct) card-making magazine message board and was thrilled when she allowed me to use her sketch for my little experiment. This issue included four total samples photos - all created by me.
It wasn't long before I was recruiting family and friends to join me in creating samples. What had originally been thrown together 'for fun', was now being 'published' monthly and more than just a few crafters were downloading it.
January '08 brought a NEW look and a NEW home to
SheetLoad of Cards. Our readership and design team had both grown by this time, so I decided to make it 'official' by spiffing up the layout and starting a dedicated blog. This issue included six total samples, from the same amount of artists, and an Advertiser Directory!
I really didn't think things could get any better/bigger with the magazine. We had a design team, a blog and paying advertisers. Was I ever wrong...
SheetLoad continued to grow and in
March of 2008 we had our
first sponsored issue and a
celebrity sketch!!!
Not only were we thrilled to work with
gg designs' stamps, but we got to create cards based upon a card sketch provided to us by
THE Becky Fleck - of PageMaps fame. To this day it is one of our most downloaded issues ever!
SheetLoad's design team and readership have grown consistenly since the beginning. We were thrilled each month when new readers found us and previous readers returned for the new issue. We were honored to be able to use products from so many great sponsors.
Along the way we changed our look, and the faces on our design team, but our main goal was always the same...
To help you build your on-hand card stash using one great sketch, a few sheets of paper and a little bit of time.
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I TRULY could not have done this alone. Over the years I have worked with some amazing people and would like to send out a
HUGE THANKS to the wonderful artists below. Without their time and talent
SheetLoad would not be what it is today.
Current Artists:
Past Artists:
Guest Artists:
Each of the artists above helped us spread the word about SheetLoad. Without their hard work, time and promotion, we would have never been blessed with so many sponsored issues. Thanks to the following companies for allowing us to showcase your product in our eZine...
Sponsored Issues:
And last, but definitely not least, thank you to all of you, our wonderful readers!! Without each of you, there wouldn't have been such a great audience for our eZine each month!!
All is not lost, though,
the archive of all past issues will be available until at least May 2010. This will give you plenty of time to download any missing issues and if some new readers find their way here, they will still be available.
I look forward to finishing out the year strong, here on the blog. We have some challenges coming up, our monthly
Simple Special Stunning and a 'spotlight' on our last sponsor -
Doodle Palace.
(If you made it through the whole post - thanks. It was a long one...)
