The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #106 - Dreaming of a Pink Christmas

Welcome back, I hope everyone had a very Happy Christmas and a great New Year and that we're all safe and ready to make cards again!

We have a very talented Elf to Kickstart 2026; please welcome the lovely Chris Lawlor. 

"Hi everyone! I am delighted to be a guest elf this month!

A little about me:

I work full-time in marketing, I am married and we have a 19- year old son. I have enjoyed paper crafting since I was in high school! I purchased a stamp set from Paragon Catalog and collected many wood mounted stamps from there. I took a long break while my son was young and then got back into card making 10 years ago. I was very excited to see the changes with clear polymer stamps and die cutting.

My favorite techniques are alcohol marker coloring, ink blending, stencils and die cutting. I enjoy creating cards to bring happiness to others.

For the January theme I have chosen Pink Christmas! I hope this inspires you to get a jumpstart on creating for Christmas 2026!"

Thanks so much for agreeing to be our Elfin Muse for January, Chris. You really have picked a great theme.

Join us as we play...

Challenge #106 - Dreaming of a Pink Christmas

Chris made this gorgeous gate-fold card for our challenge.

Such beautiful details, and so much work involved.

Isn't this just stunning!

Here's what I made to play our theme: 

You can find all the details over on my blog.

Rudolph had a little photo-shoot during the festive period, and here he is in all his gorgeous glory. He tells me he's been working-out!

He's picked a fabby prize for his first Random Raffle of the new year.

Please read the challenge guidelines before you enter.

Chris and I both hope you'll come and play along as it's never too early to get working on your cards for Christmas 2026.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Let's Trim the Tree for Challenge #105

Hi there, Kickstarters, we've got a brand new challenge ready to launch on Tuesday, but I thought I'd just sneak in here and tidy up our final challenge of 2025.

As is now an established December tradition we played If It's Christmassy, Link it Up! and an amazing #151 of you did just that! A huge thank you to everyone who played; what a brilliant turn out. Thanks also to the lovely Vicki for helping out with this gorgeous card for the Challenge #105 Reminder post. 

You'll be delighted to hear that Vicki's newly adopted kitties (Reggie and Alan) are getting on wonderfully well with their older siblings and that everyone had a very happy first Christmas together. 

I have to say such an amazing gallery of gorgeous festiveness made choosing Top Picks and a winner all on my own rather daunting, but the following cards really spoke to me.
 

My Top Picks for this challenge are:

#27 - Donna

Wonderful colouring, and I love how Donna let Santa take the starring role on this card.

#77 - Jenny M

Ho, ho, ho! So sweet!

#113 - Julia

Just love this card so much!

#145 - Greta

Sweet, simple, and completely adorable.

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

#21 Stephanie

A fabulous colour combo and the use of gold embossing 

clinched top spot for Stephanie's beautiful card.

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

Here's Rudolph to announce the WINNER of his final Random Raffle Draw of 2025. 

 

# 81 Fabiola -  It's you!

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

Thanks again to all of you who played this challenge, and who play so many of these challenges throughout the year! You bring the fun, and I'm so very grateful.

See you on Tuesday for a new challenge. 

Happy New Year...

 

Happy New Year

to you all!

Our first challenge of 2026 will begin on Tuesday 6th January.

See you there!

Rounding up the Year!

A big thank you to everyone who has guested here at 
Christmas Kickstart Challenge.

January

Challenge #94 - Bring the Baubles

Julia from Create With me

February

Challenge #95 - Fold it Fancy!

Leslie from Love 2 Scrap

March

Challenge #96 - Not the Norm!

Arlene from A Bit of This and That

April

Challenge #97 - Positively Poinsettias

Bobby from Bit's and Pieces

May

Challenge #98 - Winter Warmers

Becca

June

Challenge #99 - Christmas Critters

Dani from Danni Doodles

July

Challenge #100 - Merry go round

Gail from Crafty Nomad

August

Challenge #101 - Let's Wreath it Up!

Greta from GG Creations

September

Challenge #102 - Santa in September

Leslie from Running with Scissors

October

Challenge #103 - Snow Alert!

Loll from Stamping with Loll

November 
Challenge #104 - Just Add Antlers

Vicki thecraftacularcreator

And a HUGE thank you to all of you who played along with our challenges... See you in 2026!

Christmas Greetings

 

Wishing you all a very 

Merry Christmas 

and 

Happy Holidays!

Thanks for playing here at 

The Christmas Kickstart Challenge throughout the year.

The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #105 - If It's Christmasy, Link It Up!

 

Hi guys, welcome back! 

I usually have a few cards to share for the Reminder, but unfortunately I'm struggling with back pain again and it seems to have scared away my mojo! Never fear though, as we have a stunning card made especially for this post by our very good friend Vicki Ruta, who was elf for Challenge #104. 

Isn't this card just sooooo much fun! And you'll love the happy little story behind this card because Vicki made it to celebrate the fact that she's adopting two tuxedo boy cats in time for Christmas. Isn't that great! Thanks so much, Vicki, and I hope you all have a wonderful first furry Christmas together.

If you remember I mentioned that the Cat Rescue where I volunteer had booked a stall at a local craft fayre. The weather was truly awful that day, but between the Tombola and the craft sale the team still managed to raise £150. 

Here's another of the cards I made for the sale.

I've been trying to work on a few ideas over the last few days, but nothing seems to be turning out quite how I'd like it to. I'm currently playing with some gorgeous Darla Horse dies from this lovely store, but my concentration is poor and I think I'll just create a few simple tags and tidy my craft room until I begin to feel better. 

I'm loving all the cards in the gallery right now. You guys are totally in the Christmas groove and we have #84 cards linked-up thus far. Will we make #100? Let's keep our fingers crossed and see what happens!

Hugs to you all and happy Christmas!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Let's Trim the Tree for Challenge #104

Yes, it's Tree Trimming time again here at The Christmas Kickstart Challenge. 

A huge thank you to the very lovely Vicki for being our elfin muse for November. It was such fun teaming-up with you, Vicki, and I loved the card you made to Kickstart our challenge together!

Vicki picked a fun theme for our challenge and sixty cards made it into our gallery. Many thanks to everyone who joined the fun - it was so lovely to see all your antler-adorned creations. 

Our Top Picks for this challenge are:

#8 Laurel S

What a fun design!

#18 Margaret

This one rated high on the cute-ometer and no mistake!

#36 Meghan

We both fell hard for Meghan's reindeer! 

Guess who couldn't stop herself from clicking 'add to cart' for this set.😉

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

#46 Linda

Neither of us could resist Linda's reindeer slippers and festive PJs. If you take a peek over on Linda's blog you'll see she also made a unicorn version of this card!

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

Here's Rudolph with his Random Raffle Draw WINNER...

 

#27 - Marina, It's you!

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

Once again, very many thanks to Vicki and to everyone who played our challenge. A new challenge is currently in progress and it's our traditional no frills, easy-peasy, Anything Goes for December!