Let's Trim the Tree for Challenge #114

Welcome back, Kickstarters, its Tree Trimming Time for Challenge #114, where we were joined by the lovely Loll from Stamping With Loll. Thanks for bringing the inspiration this month, Loll, it's been great fun having you wear the elf hat once again! 

Loll and I want to say a HUGE 'thank you' to everyone who played along with our reindeer themed challenge. We had great fun seeing all your lovely cards in the gallery and found choosing our favourites very, very tricky. 

Our Top Picks for this challenge are:

#4 Helen

Isn't Helen's card utterly charming! The framing of Santa and Rudolph is perfect.

#5 - Brenda

Isn't this magical! 

The limited colour palette and framing give this card a real 'wow' factor.

#17 - Robyn

Robyn's thoughtful positioning of sentiment and image

 and beautiful pencil colouring make this card very special.

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

#7 - Joanne

#3 - Linda

We love Joanne and Linda's cards so much.  Both cards show thoughtful design and colouring plus considerable attention to detail. Well done, ladies.

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

Here's the wonderful Mr R. Reindeer to announce the Winner of his September Random Raffle ...

 

#1 - Lynne,  It's you!

Congratulations, Lynne, 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 entered this challenge. Thanks also to Loll for being a fabulous elf again. 

There's a new challenge in progress, but, sadly, we've not had a big response to Gothic Christmas thus far. I admit creating gothic themed cards dragged me waaaaaaay out of my comfort zone, but once I'd got my head into gear it turned out to be great fun! Don't forget you have until October 31st to come and join the fun!

Challenge #115 - Reminder

 

Hi there Christmas Kickstarters, welcome back to what seems to be a slightly tricky challenge! We are so lucky to have the rather wonderful Carol from Just Me:c making a return visit as our elf this month.

 

Challenge #115 - Gothic Christmas

The linky gallery is now beginning to fill with stunning entries... I think it took you guys a few days to think this one through! It took us a while too! If you're still unsure about how to play this challenge here are some thoughts to hopefully spark your creativity.

You'll remember how Carol focused her creative thoughts on "darker colours, ornate images, a degree of ‘elegance’"  as she felt "Gothic Christmas doesn’t ‘have to’ equate to being sort of ‘creepy’ or gaudy or whatever people may ‘typically’ associate gothic as being."  

We've included this inspiration picture to help. Nothing creepy about this beautiful tree, just pure class, sumptuous decoration and wonderful colours.

For Carol, going gothic is all about the colour palette.  Just look at her stunning second card, and how the poinsettia 'pops' against that black embossed background. The touch of gold taken from the star on the tree is just so elegant. Please drop by at Carol's blog and leave her some love.

Here's a reminder of Carol's first card for our challenge. You can see how she used the inspiration picture, yet kept to a traditional colour combo for the baubles and fabulous plaid trim. 

I love Carol's take on the theme, and for my Inspired by piece I wanted to go completely OTT with as much glitter card as I could muster from my stash. I was tickled pink to discover a ready-cut black glitter card bauble in the same shape as Carol used hiding in my goody box of off-cuts.

Here's what I made, and believe me it is very, very sparkly! 

Rudolph is here once again with his Random Raffle Prize and has dressed for the occasion. 

 

Carol and I both hope you'll get your gothic on to play along... Rather fittingly, you have until the witching hour on Halloween to join the fun.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #115 - Gothic Christmas

Hi there Christmas Kickstarters, and welcome to a brand new challenge!

We have the rather wonderful Carol from Just Me:c making a return visit as our elf. 

 

You'll recall that Carol was last here in February when we played Christmas Sing-Along. While chatting and passing ideas back-and-forth for Sing-Along cards, we began to wonder if it might be interesting to play a Christmas Challenge with some kind of Halloweeny twist. 

Good people of cardland, I bring you...

Challenge #115 - Gothic Christmas

Following a spree of Halowwen cardmaking, my workspace is covered in black glitter card and witches, bats and ghosties - all the perfect potential ingrediants for a Gothic Christmas! But how to pull these things together to make a Gothic Christmas card? Pinterest to the rescue! Honestly, take a look... So much inspiration and fun. 

Here's what Carol said in a recent email about our theme...

"Yes, [it's] a challenging theme but fun to do some thinking/crafting out-of-the-box, so to speak. Because Gothic Christmas doesn’t ‘have to’ equate to being sort of ‘creepy’ or gaudy or whatever people may ‘typically’ associate gothic as being." 

Carol focused her creative thoughts on "darker colours, ornate images, a degree of ‘elegance’" and once we found this gorgeous image things really began to fall into place for both of us. 

To join this challenge Carol and I suggest you either go full-on The Nightmare Before Christmas or draw your inspiration from this fabulous tree image... The choice is yours and we can't wait to see what you create! 

Here's Carol's first card for our challenge taking her cue from the inspiration picture, but leaning into a traditional colour combo for the baubles and fabulous plaid trim. I'm sure you'll agree she nailed the brief!

Here's what I made. Again, I pulled inspiration from the picture, but added a side-order of crazy with a sweet bat in a Santa hat. You can find all the details about my card over on my blog.

Two very different creations, but we think they fit the bill.

Rudolph is here once again with his Random Raffle Prize and, as you can see, he's entered into the spirit of this challenge perfectly. 

 

Carol and I both hope you'll get your gothic on to play along... Rather fittingly, you have until the witching hour on Halloween to join the fun.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Let's Trim the Tree for Challenge #113

There really was only one theme to play when Jingle Belles Stephanie and Lauren dropped-by as guests for Challenge #113 and that was...

A Friend is for Life and not just Christmas

A huge thank you to these lovely ladies for bringing the inspiration and fun. It was a blast to hang out with you both. 

We had thirty-two fabulous entires in the linky gallery and this theme obviously sparked everyone's creativity! Thank you so much to all of you wonderful people for playing along. 

Choosing cards to showcase was especially tough this month, but here come the 'RESULTS'...

Our Top Picks for this challenge are:

#29 - Becca

Just so sweet and cute, and perfect for the theme. 

#24 - Helen

What a gorgeous card, and so beautifully pencil coloured too.

#14 - Michele

A knock-out colour palette and a sweet scene inside the letter 'O'.

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

#26 Julia

A stunning piece of design work and a fabulous use of colour.

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

Rudolph had an adorable penguin set on offer for his August Random Raffle. I wonder who is our lucky winner?

#4 - 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. 

Thanks again to everyone who played this challenge, and to our dynamic duo The Jingle Belles aka Stephanie and Lauren for their elfin undertakings. BTW, the gals have a super fun challenge on-the-go right now as they invite us to CASE(Copy and Selectively Edit) past cards they've made for Jingle Belles since 2011. I may have to play that one as I am a huge fan of their creations.

Over here at The Christmas Kickstart Challenge we're playing Reindeer Games with your friend and mine the lovely Loll. I've just checked and it appears that we have about 3.5 months or about 15 weeks or 106 days until Christmas. So, however you slice it, it's time to get crafting those Christmas cards! Join us, please do!  

The Christmas Kickstart Chalenge #114 - Reminder

 

Hi folks, I'm so happy to be joined again this month by the very lovely Loll from Stamping With Loll. We are playing:

Challenge #114 - Reindeer Games

And just look at what Loll has created for our Reminder post! 

Isn't this just so much fun! Please head on over and take a peek at how Loll put this together! Thanks so much, Loll. 

Loll created this fabby little number for our launch post...

I was inspired to make this little piece of fun. 

I just had to use Loll's gorgeous sketch, but decided to place my reindeer topper at a jaunty angle! I also added some torn white card as snow - I picked this up from when Loll was our elf last time and was tickled to see she'd use the same technique on her second card. Thanks for the inspiration, Loll. 

Rudolph is especially pleased with the theme this month, and is offering a fun prize for his Random Raffle!

Loll and I can't wait to see what you guys get up to when you play those Reindeer Games!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter