Day #3 The Cat Lovers Christmas Challenge - Please Post our Challenge Badge and Let's Meet Our First Sponsors!

 

Welcome to Day #3 of our Challenge, where we remember our friend Janis Woolbright, fellow blogger and founder of 

The Cat Lovers Hop!

Have you posted our challenge badge on your blog?

Please put this badge on your posts to spread the word about The Cat Lovers Christmas Challenge and also so your readers will know which projects you've created for this challenge! I understand that participants with Flickr accounts and the like won't be able to post the badge. That's fine, just grab it and add it if you can!

There will be a Random Raffle Prize for one lucky participant who has posted our badge on their blog, or social media spot. Just sign up in the comments below to let myself and Janis's Helpful Hoppers know where we'll find the badge to include you in the draw!

Got questions?

Please contact me at dottypudding (at) aol.com for any queries 

and questions, or to correct any errors you've spotted.

One question I have already been asked is why do participants need to sign in?

Here are my thoughts on this... 

Until I began putting together this challenge I'm not sure I could have answered this question, but after reading Janis's information about sign in, it all began to make more sense.

1. What country you live in.

Many of Janis's Sponsor family are small family businesses. The cost of mailing prizes across the world would prevent them being able to offer a prize for our challenge. In some cases companies will ask our lucky winner to pay shipping costs (let's face it, a $10 voucher could be wiped out paying for international shipping).  For this reason it's helpful to try and  match prize winners and sponsors who are in the same part of the world. Some sponsors are happy to mail worldwide, others have asked that their prize winner lives in Europe or the USA. 

2. Your email address (in code is fine).

It's going to be a HUGE timesaver if you give me your email address so I can contact you easily. I'd hate for someone to miss out on a great prize just because I can't get a message to them.

3. "Digis okay" or "No digis, please".

Some of our sponsors are offering digital images as prizes. I realise that not everyone uses digis or has a working printer and so might not really want one of them as a prize. This is your opportunity to let me know..."no digis please!" if you do not want to be considered for those prizes. Winners from outside America may also be offered a digital prize as a 'no shipping charge' option if they have been matched with a company across the world. I've brought in additional European sponsors to try and lessen the need to do this. 

4. Tell me how many times you participated in The Cat Lovers Hop - 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 or the last official hop in 2022? Guys, I'm just plain nosey! Old timers, newbies - all and everyone is welcome. It's great to meet up with old Hop buddies and it's great to make new friends too.

5. Alternate usernames on different platforms so I know who you are if you are a random winner there. For the last part of the sign-in I've just followed Janis's lead and drawn on her experience of running The Hops. She found this helpful and I expect I will too as so many of us have a variety of different online monikers. Just look at me and my many aliases: Dotty Pudding, Dotty Jo, Jo Bloggs, Jo in the UK etc. I'd be really grateful if you could please do this for me as I get the feeling Janis leant this by experience over eight year of running the Hops.

I hope this bit of background info is helpful. All I want is to match winners and prizes so everything goes smoothly and is as fair as possible. I'll be talking more about the prize giving process later through our challenge. Thanks for listening! 

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It's time to meet the very first of our fabulous SPONSORS....

Art Impressions is being featured today! They were the very first sponsor to come on board with The Cat Lovers Christmas Challenge, 2023 and were one of Janis's initial sponsors, generously donating prizes for The Cat Lovers Hop for all 8 years. I'm so grateful that they agreed to help out here too.  Big thanks to Bonnie and DT Leader Renee for all their help. 

Art Impressions is a rubber stamp manufacturer based in Salem, OR since 1987. The company began as designer, Bonnie Krebs, created and sold educational stamps at craft fairs around the Northwest. Soon, Bonnie was drawing whimsical images for crafting and her talent has grown over the past 30 years to become one of the major stamp illustrators in the industry today.

A unique characteristic of Art Impressions is its diversity of images and innovative techniques. Bonnie has created new and original stamping concepts, including Watercolor the Art Impressions Way, Windows to the World, Front & Backs, TryFolds, Shakers (featuring Action Wobbles™) and Spinners. These interactive techniques create beautiful and matchless ideas for special cards.

Art Impressions is also known for their funny caricatures and hilarious text. Their “funny people” began with the Golden Oldies line in the mid-90s and has grown to include new lines of Ai People and Girlfriends stamps. The entire gang continues to make people laugh everyday!

Art Impressions are offering 3 amazing prizes for this Challenge and will be part of Rudolph's Random Raffle Giveaway!

I'm a huge Art Impressions fan, and couldn't resist creating a card using an image from Crazy Cat Lady. Ever had the feeling you may be looking at your own future? What a fun Christmas morning this would be!

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BONUS:  Art Impressions is planning a special Christmas-themed challenge called Christmas Come Early to coincide with The Cat Lovers Christmas Challenge today.  So please drop over and see what they have to share!  Their post goes LIVE at noon EST and 9am PST. You can link up your kitty themed Christmas cards for this challenge.

Please take time to visit Art Impressions at these social media spots: Blog, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube. Don't forget to Like, Follow, Share, and Comment with a big "THANK YOU for sponsoring The Cat Lovers Christmas Challenge, 2023."

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While we're on the subject of Challenges I'd like to just take a moment to sign-post the way to a fabulous kitty themed site, and also to share a few thoughts about a dear friend and member of The Cat Lovers Hop family. 

Show Us Your Pussy Cats

Originally the brain child of former Cat Lovers Hop Sponsor, cat lover and talented illustrator, Ike, SUYP is now run by our very own Helpful Hopper, Fiki. 

Sadly, Ike passed away a couple of years ago. In Blogland most of us knew her as Ike, but away from Cardland her name was Sue Eisenhauer - I think this demonstrates her rather wonderful sense of humour! I remember seeing mentions of both Ike and Sue, and it took me a little while to work out that she was one person rather than two different people! Sue was from Greece, and Fiki tells me that she was a huge cat lover who was inspired by Janis' 2015 Cat Lovers Hop to begin her monthly challenge blog. Fiki keeps the SUYP challenge running and Ike's family have continued to offer her wonderful digital images from the online store: Ike's Art.

I asked Fiki to tell me a little bit about Sue and here are some of her thoughts about her dear friend

"Sue was very kind and generous and would help anybody. She had the beautiful gift of making everyone feel special and valued. She was a loyal supporter of the Cat Lovers Hops and sponsored Hops from the very beginning in 2015 and designed special sets of images especially for the Hop each year until she was too ill to do it. Sue was a dearly loved member of our Cat Lovers Hop family and it won't be the same without her."

I was touched to discover that Fiki has kept the SUYP challenge going in memory of her friend. Sue sponsored Janis' Daily Games on her Cat Lovers Hops until she passed away. I know that Sue/Ike and Janis were very good friends and so it seemed appropriate to celebrate and remember her as part of this tribute challenge. 

SUYP Challenge runs from the 1st of each month 

and is a Furrything Goes challenge. 

You can link your entries for 

The Cat Lovers Christmas Challenge over at SUYP.

Helpful Hopper, Fiki, is one special lady and she's very kindly donated a wonderful Random Raffle Prize for this Challenge...

Pear Blossom Press – $25 Gift Voucher.

Thanks, Fiki, you're a star!

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If you've just arrived you're joining the fun on Day #3 of The Cat Lovers Christmas Challenge. Please head here for the sign-in and the LINKY PARTY.