The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #95 - Fold it Fancy!

It's the second of the month and so it must be time to launch a new challenge here at Christmas Kickstart...

We're in good company for February as our elf is the lovely Leslie from Love to Scrap 2.

Hi, I’m Leslie! Hubby and I have four grown kids and six grandkids, and we live in beautiful Colorado. We care for 15 rescued cats and added a little Forkie (Frenchie + Yorkie) girl to our tribe about a year ago. I began scrapbooking nearly 50 years ago – so long ago that all the fun papers and embellishments we use today hadn’t even been thought of. I’m a crafting junkie and really enjoy creating all things paper – handmade cards, 3-D projects, mini albums, gift bags, and paper shoes. I'm delighted to be Jo's 'Guest Elf' this month at the Christmas Kickstart Challenge! 

Thanks so much for agreeing to wear the elf hat this month, Leslie, it's great to have you here!

Our theme, chosen by Leslie, is:

Challenge #95 - Fold it Fancy!

We'd love to see your choice of fancy fold on a Christmas/Holiday card. 

Here's what Leslie has created to get your mojo movin', movin'! Somehow that sounded much better in my head, but hopefully you get the drift.

A stylish outside...

And just look at the folding MAGIC on the inside!

If you'd like to read all the details of how Leslie made her stunning card, please head over here and leave her some love. Leslie gives a great little tutorial on how she made her card. 

If someone says 'Fancy Fold' to me I immediately see it as a great opportunity to create an easel card. If you're like me and are more than a little fold-a-phobic, easel cards are a great way to start. Just do a quick Google search and pick a tutorial you like. I used Ardyth's easy to follow instructions here. 

You have to feel some sympathy for this guy. 

You can find all the details for this card and see my other fancy fold creation over on my blog.

Rudolph has such a fun prize for his Random Raffle this month...

Please remember to read the Guidelines before signing-up in the Linky Gallery to ensure that you are eligible to go into the random draw for this prize.

Leslie and I can't wait to see your fabulous fancy folds and look forward to you playing along in our challenge.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Let's trim the Tree for Challenge #94

Hi there card fans, I've just found a little time in my jam-packed schedule (😁😁😁) to write this post!

A big thank you to Julia for being our January elf and for creating two adorable cards to inspire us... And boy, were you guys inspired this month!

Julia summed it up in an email when she said there could have been at least ten winners for this challenge as the entries were all amazing. Thank you to you all.

You'll recall that we were playing

Bring the Baubles

Our Top Picks for this challenge are:

#1 Vesna

Just look at all the work that's gone into Vesna's beautiful creation.

#18 Fabiola

We both love the sweetness of Fabiola's snowman bauble.

 

#31 Helen

Sweet and simple and totally stunning!

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

#8  Robyn O

You must head on over and read Robyn's post about how she created this beautiful card.

Turns out her granddaughters have inherited Nanna's creativity too!

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

The result of Rudolph's Random Raffle makes this a very good day for the maker of our lovely Star on the Tree card...

 

#8 Robyn - It's you!

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

Thanks again to Julia, and to everyone who played along with this challenge. I'm always amazed and grateful to see just how many of you are ready to play in January. Thanks so much for making this challenge what it is!

A brand new challenge opens tomorrow... See you there!

Christmas Kickstart Challenge #94 - Reminder

 

Welcome back, card friends! We have the very talented Julia Aston as our first elf of the New Year, and she's created another gorgeous card to inspire us all.

Our theme is:

Challenge #94 - Bring the Baubles

Isn't it just the cutest! I love that background paper to give the 

effect of the bauble being on a tree.

You can find all the details of how Julia made her card by visiting her blog. 

Please drop over and leave her some love.

Here's a reminder of the gorgeous card Julia made to get the party started!

I'd love to know how she did the gloopy custard!

As regular visitors will be aware I like to make an Inspired by card for the Reminder post. I love Julia's cute Christmas pudding bauble but really struggled to get my head around which elements to include for my card as I didn't want to do a straight CASE. I love the sweet, playful nature of Julia's beautiful card and so here's what I came up with! 

You can find all the details of how I made my card over on my blog.

Rudolph has a beautiful bauble as the prize for our first challenge of 2025!

 

Please don't forget that to be eligible to win Rudolph's Random Raffle prize you need to make sure you read the Challenge Guidelines.

There's still plenty of time to play along, so please come and join Julia and me... and don't forget to Bring the Baubles!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Challenge #94 - Bring the Baubles!

 

Happy New Year to all you Kickstarters! It's so good to have you here for another year of Christmas Card Making and fun. 

I'm delighted to say we're kicking-off 2025 in style as we have the very talented Julia Aston as our first elf of the New Year! 

"I am so thrilled to have been asked to Guest DT for the first challenge of Christmas Kickstart in 2025.  I live in Massachusetts in the US.  I have a grown son and lovely daughter-in-law who live 9 hours from us in Maryland.   I have loved doing many kinds of crafts all of my life, with stamping becoming my most favorite after I attended a Stampin' Up home party many many years ago and found out I could create beautiful cards without being good at drawing!   I am happily retired for the past 7 years so now I can stamp during the day as well as late into the night!  I LOVE the friendliness of the stamping community and have been on many design teams over the years making crafting friends all over the world!"  

Our theme is:

Challenge #94 - Bring the Baubles

We want to see baubles/ornaments on your cards for the whole of January!

Here's what Julia made to get the party started!

You can read all about her card over on her blog. 

And what could be better than a sweet Christmas pudding bauble. Love it!

Here's what I made:

You can read about my card here.

Rudolph has a gorgeous Sizzix 3-D Impresslits Cut and Emboss bauble as his prize for our first challenge of 2025!

 

Please don't forget that to be eligible to win Rudolph's Random Raffle prize you need to make sure you read the Challenge Guidelines.

Julia and I can't wait to see what you create!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Let's Trim the Tree for Challenge #93

Happy New Year!

I hope that 2025 is being gentle with everyone thus far!

Thanks so much to everyone who played along in the final Christmas Kickstart Challenge of 2024 - it was amazing to see just how many of you linked-up for this challenge. The gallery was chock full of stunning cards and it was very, very tricky to pick just a few to showcase.

My Top Picks for this challenge are:

#26 Pauline

Isn't this a beautiful card - 

so much layered detail and a stunning colour palette too. 

# 69 - Trina

So cute and witty!

#93 - Gundi

I love all the detail on this pretty card. 

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

#141 - Birgit

Hop on over and see the full set of these cards. Birgit's attention to detail is perfect.

A huge thank you to everyone who entered this challenge. There were some amazing cards in the gallery and I loved looking through them all. Congratulations to our winners, I hope you'll enjoy flaunting your blog badges for all the world to see!

And finally, here's Rudolph to announce the winner of his Random Raffle for this challenge: 

 

#102 Carol L... It's you!

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

The first challenge for 2025 will start next Tuesday and I can't wait for us to start a whole new year of making Christmas/Holiday cards - please come and join the fun!