Masculine Merriment with the Jingle Belles

The lovely Jingle Belles AKA Lauren and Stepanie are my current elves over at The Christmas Kickstart Challenge. Back at their own site they have a brand new challenge 'Masuline Merriment' on offer and I wanted to play along as I so rarely make masculine cards and welcome the push in that direction. (I may have had a wee heads up about the theme! 😉)

I've made a very simple card using Layered Boxes Die from Waffle Flower. I'm quite pleased with the colour combo - the green really makes it work for me.

I'd love to tell you which dies I've used for the lettering, but they've vanished! I'm hoping they've not fallen over the front of my desk as it'll mean climbing under or over said desk to find them. It's happened before, people, and it was tricky! Wish me luck.

You'll love Stephanie and Lauren's cards for their challenge, so why not head on over and play along with them!

The Card Chain Challenge Reveal - February 2026

Anyone else happily waving goodbye to January AKA the longest month of the year? 

Hi there, Cardfans, we've made it into February and as it's already the second day of the new month we have a Card Chain Challenge Reveal to enjoy!

We had 26 participants who exchanged cards across the globe in January, bringing the total number of cards exchanged thus far by Card Chain Challenge participants to 4,881.

 

All the cards exchanged used at least one of the following options:

Colour Palette Option

(Exact matching is not required.)

Sketch Option

(Orient as desired.)

 

Theme Options: Feet / Doily / Friendship

Product / Technique Options: All I Got For Christmas Was..... / Layers

My recipient for this month was the lovely Gundi in Germany. I decided to go for a little 'Dorothy-inspired' fun and used a very old Waffle Flower die to create those famous ruby slippers. 

My sender this month is Gail in Norway. Isn't this just so much fun? Thanks, Gail, it's perfect! 

As always, it's lovely Reveal for a lovely challenge. 

Want to join the fun????

If you want to join in the fun you can sign up for the Card Chain Challenge.  All sign ups run in advance, from the 7th of the preceding month to the 6th of the exchange month.  All reveals happen on the 2nd of the month after the exchange is complete.

The Card Chain Challenge Reveal - April 2025

Hello and welcome! It's time for the April 2025 Card Chain Challenge Reveal!

 

All the cards exchanged this month used at least one of the following options:

 

Colour Palette Option

(Exact matching is not required.)

Sketch Option

(Orient as desired.)

Theme Options: Hats / Rabbit / Friendship

Product / Technique Options: Fabric / Vintage

Here's what I sent to Gail in Canada, and, yes, I had oodles of fun making this one to play our theme options of hats and rabbits.

I hope Gail doesn't feel 'short-changed' by the simplicity of this card, but I wanted a really CAS look so didn't add any embellishments. The stamp is Hoppy from Waffle Flower. The stencil is from Funky Fossil, and I have to warn you that I LOVE it and will be using it again and again and again! 

My sender was Daja in Germany and she sent me this stunning step card:

Thanks so much, Daja, I love it. 

If you want to join in the fun you can sign up for the Card Chain Challenge.  All sign ups run in advance, from the 7th of the preceding month to the 6th of the exchange month.  All reveals happen on the 2nd of the month after the exchange is complete.

Hope to 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 over at The Christmas Kickstart and she's created another gorgeous bauble-themed card for our Reminder post... Please head over and take a look. 

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

As regular visitors will be aware I like to make an Inspired by card for the Reminder post and attempt not to shamelessly CASE my guest's original creation. I love Julia's cute Christmas pudding bauble, but really struggled to get my head around which elements to include for my card. I love the sweet, playful nature of Julia's beautiful card and so here's what I came up: 

A single bauble, patterned paper and a little gentle humour! This card was made in these colours as a reminder of my sweet girl cat, Cleo. Once the tree was up and decorated she would quietly eye up a bauble, check whether we were watching and then extend a paw, bat the bauble from the tree and expertly dribble it across the floor!

I combined a few different dies and images for this card: Paws Up Die from Waffle Flower, Wreath Tag Sentiments from Avery Elle, and Funky Baubles from Sizzix.

My second card for this challenge is inspired by my boy cat Custard. He just used to look blankly at the tree and take no notice of all the sparkly, dangly stuff. He always wore a look of 'Oh, that thing again.' whenever the tree appeared. 

The cat is from Globeland Stamps and the Sentiment is from a fun Whimsy Stamps set I've just opened called Merry Stressmas. 

I'm linking-up over at The Jingle Belles as they are looking for Something Old, Something New for their first challenge of the year. The cat and the sentiment are new, but I've had the bauble stamps for years and have lost the backing sheet and everything! Still stamps well though. 

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

 

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!

Now where's my cake?

 Another day, another card...I know, it surprised me too. 

Just look at this little cross-patch from Visible Image - so cute! I paired him with a sentiment from Purrfect Sentiments by Waffle Flower plus a stenciled and splattered background so I could play a few different challenges. 

AAA Birthday are playing Background Focus for Game #65.

Time Out Challenges are getting Snarky! 

And the lovely folk over at The Lost Coast Portal to Creativity would like to see Animals.

BTW, there are some fabulous new Animal images at Lost Coast - you can find them here.

Here's hoping your Thursday is going well and like mine, includes some crafting time.
 

Christmas Kickstart Challenge #86 - Reminder

 

Over at The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #86 we're currently 

Playing with Plaid

with Gail from Crafty Nomad, who very kindly jumped in to cover for Jen when she went down with Covid. You'll be glad to hear that Jen is now on the mend and recovering well. 

Here's what Gail created for our challenge... Isn't this just simply adorable? Do you love that bear, the tree and the fabulous drapes as much as I do? 

I decided to steal Gail's easel card format and her use of die cuts for my 'Inspired by...' card.

I do love Merry Moose from Sizzix and die cut him from a Gelli Press print I created ages ago. 

The fretwork die is from Sizzix and is called Holiday Cut Outs, sadly I can't find a useful link to any currently for sale. 

Here's my second card for this challenge using Waffle Flower Print and Script Merry Christmas and Stockings from Paper Smooches. 

Rudolph's Random Raffle Prize is a gorgeous two-fer this challenge...

Gail and I both hope you'll come and join the fun!

The Cat Lovers Christmas Challenge - Reminder

 

During October over at The Christmas Kickstart we're remembering our friend and fellow crafter Janis Woolbright who, for 8 years, ran the Cat Lovers Hop on her blog. This was a 'must play' event for all Cardland cat lovers and a real red letter day on our crafting calendar. Sadly, Janis passed away at the start of this year, so myself and some of her helpers from her Hops are paying tribute to her with The Cat Lovers Christmas Challenge.

We're already half way through our challenge and as I'm typing this there are 73 entries in our Linky Gallery. If you're not already playing, please take a look at the Day #1 post and come and join the fun!

Today, I'm sharing two cards made for this challenge...

If I can, I do love to do a little storytelling with my cards and so I really enjoyed using Jane's Doodles set O Christmas Tree she's created for Creative Expressions. In my head these two are called Morgan and Murphy! No, I have no idea why, but aren't they adorable.

I also made this tag-shaped card for Gail's Tic-Tac-Toe using the same set. 

The dies are from Waffle Flower Print and Script Merry Christmas. They're a great size for cards and I'm so glad I bought them.

Here are some fun memes to finish off with...

Have a happy day, peeps...

Cat Lovers Christmas Challenge - Day #11

 

I'm back today with two more cards featuring images from our sponsors and made for the tribute challenge for Janis over at The Cat Lovers Christmas Challenge. 

Card #1 features a gorgeous kitty and sentiment from Jane's Doodles at Creative Expressions. Isn't this a lovely image? 

For my second card today I used Waffle Flower Flora Cat Play and a real oldie (now unavailable) from Craft Asylum called I love the Snow and You.

I used a non-Christmas image, but went for a traditional Christmas palette for this card. I think it works ok. I do love to use red on my Christmas cards.

I very much hope you're playing along with this challenge to remember our friend and fellow card maker. There are so many lovely cards to see and some great prizes too, so please come on over and take a look.

I'm going to link my first card to Gail's Tic-Tac-Toe which you can find here on Day #8 of our challenge. I loved revisiting some of Janis's gorgeous cards on Gail's inspiration board for this challenge and am so grateful she put this together for us!

Someone should make a stamp of this!

The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #78 - Chillin' with my Snowmies!

 

This month at Christmas Kickstart I'm thrilled to welcome the amazing Kimberly Wiener as our elf! This gals colouring is awesome - I wish I had even a quarter of her talent.

Our theme for this month is:

Challenge #78 - Chillin' with my Snowmies

You will LOVE what Kimberley has created for our challenge together! 

Here's what I whipped-up for my offering...

As you can see, I was in the mood for something very CAS. I'm still enjoying playing with new-to-me set Christmas sELFies from MFT. Aren't they cute!

My second card for this challenge is also on the CAS side. I do like this sweetie from Paper Smooches Swanky Snowdudes. Sadly, I can't find any links to this sweet set, but I guess it has been around a long, long time. It's such a pity Paper Smooches shut up shop.

The embossing folder background is Tim Holtz Simple Snowflakes and is still available from Sizzix. The sentiment is Waffle Flower Label Maker Holiday Sentiments. This is a great set and has a lovely selection of sentiments which you cut all at the same time and can then keep for future cards. I added some little black gems for his eyes and buttons.

Rudolph has chosen an adorable prize for his Random Raffle...

  

Kimberley and I both hope that you'll all be packing the linky gallery with your snow folk this month!