The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #107 - Reminder

 

We're in the very talented company of  Carol Mayne for the whole of February over at The Christmas Kickstart Challenge.

 

Carol picked a fun theme and and I'm delighted to say that thus far plenty of you have joined our festive sing-along challenge.

The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #107

 - A Christmas Sing-Along!

Being a kindly elf, Carol has made a second card for our challenge, and you can see it over at Kickstart Central. 

As part of the fun I like to make an 'Inspired by' card for each challenge where I try not to shamelessly CaSE my guest's creation. I always hop my guests don't mind my doing this and I have to say I've learned so much about cardmaking styles and techniques as a result. 

Here's a reminder of Carol's first card for our challenge together. 

I just fell in card-love when I saw this 'pop up' as I opened Carol's email. The colours and that design - just perfect! I loved the bold background too, and hunted through my background stamps for something with a similar feel. 

Rather than sit my partridge in a bauble, I opted for this gorgeous wreath die. I wasn't sure how to colour the wreath and then remembered some embossing powder from The English Stamp Company. The colour is verdigris and it's completely stunning... And impossible to photograph! The very cute partridge is from Jane's Doodles and the Layered Wreath is an oldie by Pinkfresh.

You can find all the details about Carol's cards on her blog here, so please head over and leave her some love.

Let's say 'Hi' to once again our favourite reindeer with his cute February Random Raffle Prize. 

Carol and I can't wait to see what you guys come up with for this fun challenge!

The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers Challenge #271 - B is for Black, Black Heart

We're having far, far too much fun over at The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers with Challenge #271 as we play B is for Black, Black Heart. Doesn't Edna look the bizz? 

We'd like to see anti-valentines or black on your cards, or even a combination of the two - whatever floats your crazy little love boat. 

Here's what I made using one of my most favourite stamps from Rubber Moon designed by Mary Engelbreit. I don't know why this lil gal makes me laugh so much, but she does! 

BTW, you may be relieved to know I'm not sending the card above to my hubby. He's getting this one instead!

The XOXOXOXO background is from Simon Says Stamp and I cannot stop playing with it. Seriously, I. Just. Can't. 

I'm linking this little chameleon card over at Inkspirational because their word prompt of XOXO just seems to fit perfectly! 

The current AAA Colourful Challenge also seems like a good place for my cards to go and play. 

And I'm also linking to Lost Coast Design as rightly, or wrongly, I think my chameleon card fits in here too... sort of!

The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #107 - A Christmas Sing-Along

 

It's time for the February Challenge over at The Christmas Kickstart!! I'm so happy to welcome back a returning elf - it's Carol from Just Me: c. Carol is as talented as she is lovely, and I urge you to go take a look at her wonderful blog. Prepare to be 'wowed'. Thanks so much for leading the fun, Carol, it's great to be crafting with you once again!

Carol has chosen a brilliant theme for our February Challenge, and we're inviting you to play...

The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #107 

- A Christmas Sing-Along!

We'd love to see your cards on the theme of singing, and the songs, hymns and carols we might sing during the festive season. Head on over to The Christmas Kickstart to see Carol's first card for our challenge together - you'll love it! 

Here's one of the cards I've made to play this theme. I had so much fun putting this one together!

This is a total CASE of a card I saw featuring these Whimsy Reindeer. I really loved the idea of recycling a Christmas card as a background. Isn't that clever, and so quick to make too! 

My second card is also a stolen idea, and one that was a lot of fun to create!

The cute cows are from the much missed My Favorite Things and the words were printed on my PC. The background paper was hiding in my stash and features sheet music for a variety of carols. Perfect! 

Here's our favourite reindeer with his rather cute February Random Raffle Prize. 

 

Carol and I can't wait to see what you guys come up with for this fun challenge!

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 Christmas Kickstart Challenge #106 - Reminder

Over at The Christmas Kickstart Challenge we're playing with Guest elf Chris Lawlor, and she's picked a perfect theme to start a new year of Christmas cardmaking for us.

Challenge #106 - Dreaming of a Pink Christmas

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

 

And, as always, I've created a card inspired by our guest's original card. There was so much to be 'wowed' by with Chris's card and it took me a while to decide where to head with my card, but this is how things ended-up.

I like how Chris paired the pink inked patterns with the white card. I did try it for my card, but it looked a little stark so I stamped on pink cardstock and liked the warmer look. I noticed Chris had used gold thread for her baubles (such a nice detail) so decided to add some gold to my card too. A few darker pink gems finished the clean, simple look I was trying to achieve. The Christmas tree images are from this lovely Simon Says Stamp set. 

My second card playing this theme is this one:

IRL, this card looks so full of sparkle, but just won't photograph to show the WOW glitter embossing at all. I'm sure you'll all recognise this Big and Bold Snowflake from Colorado Craft Company. It doesn't look as if this is available these days, but they do have other lovely snowflakes for sale here. 

Rudolph has picked a fabby prize for his first Random Raffle of the new year.

Santa, Baby!

Bless Lauren and Steph, AKA The Jingle Belles - they always have such fun Christmas challenges on offer over at their gorgeous blog! Congrats to them both as this will be their sixteenth year of challenges. 

Their current challenge has the prompt No Time Like the Presents and they'd like to see us use wrapping paper on our cards or tags. I had some gorgeous pieces of retro-ish Santa paper, then I began eyeing a chocolate box sleeve with a huge red snowflake and here's what happened!

I'm not sure if this will stay as a tag or become a card, so I've not punched a ribbon slot. I think either could be fun. The red hologram card is so pretty and a few snippets have found their way into my stash with a view to making a Valentines appearance. 

Here's the original paper and would you just look at that - I still have a few jolly Santa's left to play with!

Happy crafting, everyone!