Christmas Kickstart Challenge #91 - Reminder

Welcome back, Kickstarters, are you ready for more Christmas card creativity and inspiration?

This month we are in the company of the lovely Faith from Daffodil Cards. She's a total sweetheart and I'm loving getting to know her as the month progresses. 

 

Faith chose a colour theme for us to play with and I'm sure you'll all agree the colours are gorgeous. We'd really like to see our theme colours reflected in your cards, please. Exact matching of the shades and tones is not essential - I couldn't quite manage it myself, and faith and I are both happy to see black, white and neutrals come to the party. However, we've had a few entries that are beautifully made, but a little wide of the mark colour-wise, so please double-check our palette before entering.

Faith has made a second card for our challenge, and here it is:

I bet you'll all be singing that Chris Rea song in your heads for the rest of the day! Thanks, Faith, I love your cute card.

Here's the card Faith made for our challenge launch:

I really love how she played with our colour palette and decided that I'd break-out the same gnome set (a magazine freebie?) for my 'Inspired by' card. This is what I made:

I had so much fun creating this, and you can find all the details over on my blog. Don't forget to drop by over at Faith's blog too and leave her some love!

Rudolph's Random Raffle Prize for October is adorable:

 

Anyone correctly following the Challenge Guidelines will go into the draw for this sweet stamp set. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Let's trim the Tree for Challenge #90

Let's see if we can brighten up Monday for a few folks as we Trim the Tree for Challenge #90!

We were joined by the lovely and very talented, Jenny Martin from My Paper Epiphany as our elf and she did us proud with a fabulous creation as we played:

Embossing Folder Fun!

Thanks so much for sharing your creativity with us, Jenny, and thanks also for all the chat behind the scenes - it's been fun getting to know you! 

Both Jenny and I loved seeing your beautiful creations for this challenge, and we loved how many different techniques you guys used to demonstrate the versatility of the not so humble embossing folder!

Our Top Picks for this challenge are:

#3 - Dawn

Just look at the way Dawn used Colour Burst Powders with her Embossing folder.

The white wording really 'pops' against that luscious background. 

#28 - Denise B

We love how Denise enhanced the embossing with white ink.

#31 - Helen

A cute pup, and a gorgeous background with beautiful blending and 

sanding of the embossing.

This Challenge was just so difficult to call for a single Star, so sharing Top Spot for this month we have two fabulous cards from two very talented makers.

Our Winners and Stars on the Tree for this week are:

#11 - Leslie M

and

#12 - Arlene Rose

Congratulations to you all, I hope you'll enjoy flaunting your blog badges 

for all the world to see!

Finally, here's Rudolph to announce the WINNER of his September Random Raffle:  

 

#17 - Julia A... It's you!

Congratulations, Julia, please email me a dottypudding (at) aol.com with your snail mail address so I can connect you with your prize. 

Once again, a very big thank you to Julia, and a big thank you to everyone who played along with this challenge - you guys always bring the fun and totally make Christmas Kickstart what it is! 

There's a new challenge underway and a lovely, shiny new elf in the form of Faith from Daffodil Cards! We'd love it if you'd come and play along! 

Christmas Kickstart Challenge #91 - Colourful Christmas!

 

Welcome to The Christmas Kickstart Challenge! I'm delighted to welcome Faith from Daffodil Cards as our elf for the new month.

"Hello, I'm Faith here from Daffodil Cards, why Daffodil? Because I'm Welsh and it's our National flower. I started making cards many, many years ago. I started with digital cards for family and friends, then tried stamping, which I was awful at, then stamping platforms came in, and I got to grips, sort of, with stamping, I'm still learning, but love it. It got me into colouring which is a much harder learning curve, but, I'm mostly satisfied with the result. I'm also love my Silhouette, that's another story. I hope you will join me in either starting or continuing making your Christmas cards with the lovely colours chosen this month."

This month we're inviting you to join us for a COLOUR Challenge as we play:

Challenge #91 - Colourful Christmas

Exact matching isn't necessary, but we'd like to see our palette reflected in your card, please. If you'd like to you can also take inspiration from the picture; I love the reindeer with it's gingham bow against the frosty blues of the background. 

Here's what Faith created using these colours:  

Just look at the sweet little scene she's made. I love the positioning of her gnome in the landscape so everything looks perfectly to scale. And don't get me started on the gnome guy with his super-cute hat: totally adorable. Thanks so much, Faith.

Here's my card. Unfortunately, the photo-editing process has taken all the beige/pinky tones out of the picture, but trust me they are there on the reindeer's belly!

Rudolph was delighted I used one of his kin for my card, and so has provided an extra lovely prize for our October Random Raffle:

Faith and I both hope you'll come and play along!

Don't forget to read the Challenge Guidelines before linking-up. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Christmas Kickstart Challenge #90 - Reminder

It never fails to amaze me how quickly the middle of the month rushes to greet us. How can we possibly be half-way through September??? It'll be Christmas before we know it!

This month we're in great company with Jenny from My Paper Epiphany as our elf.

 

Jenny created a stunning card to inspire us all and picked a theme which has really got you guys rocking our challenge as we play:

Embossing Folder Fun!

I, for one was blown away by Jenny's card and knew I wanted to attempt the same technique for myself. I decided to go with a non-traditional colour palette, but I'm not really that thrilled with the result.

Jenny made a tricky technique look so easy and got a great result. You can see my other card for this challenge by heading here. 

Rudolph has a lovely Random Raffle prize on offer for this challenge:

 

I very much hope you'll came and join Jenny and me as we invite you to give your festive embossing folders a workout!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Let's Trim the Tree for Challenge #89

Hi guys, I'm a little behind with the Tree Trimming post for this challenge after a glorious week in Tuscany with the hubby. 

Our elfin muse for August was the lovely Gundi! 

Gundi picked a lovely theme for us and it was obvious from your entries how much you all enjoyed created cards on the theme of Animal Antics. 

A big thank you to everyone who played along - your card were all fabulous and choosing a few to showcase was so, so tricky!

Our Top Picks for this challenge are:

#21 - Linda W

Just look at this cute crew - what a sweet scene, 

and just look at the lovely line of trees in the background. 

#24 - Marcia

Such a lovely colour palette, and we both love how Marcia 

inked the embossing folder pattern.

#30 - Di

I NEED this stamp so much! Great use of that background too.

#32 - Marianne

Isn't this a beauty! Such beautiful colouring and Marianne's sky is wonderful.

Our Winner and Star on the Tree for this week is:

#6 - Lynne

Isn't this just the sweetest! We both loved Lynne's cute card

and that dainty stitch work.

Congratulations to you all, I hope you'll enjoy flaunting your blog badges for all the world to see!

Finally, here's our favourite reindeer guy to announce the winner of his Random Raffle... 

 

# 2 Arlene Rose... It's you!

Congratulations, Arlene, please email me a dottypudding (at) aol.com with your snail mail address so I can connect you with your prize. 

Many thanks again to Gundi for being our elf, and for being my buddy too! We always have fun 'backstage' when we partner up. Thanks also to all of you who played along. Our current challenge is well under way, so why not drop by and join the Embossing Folder Fun!