Festive Fir

 Challenge #303 at Time Out has just gone live and this fortnight we have another

Photo Inspiration Challenge

Our lovely team member Ishani shared this photo with us of a family celebration and we thought it might inspire you - here's a closer look!

Challenge 299 is being sponsored by Birch Press and they are very kindly offering our top pick as chosen by the design team a $20 store credit!

The Top Pick will also be invited to join Time Out as a guest designer in a future challenge and speaking of guest designers, our guest designer this fortnight is Trina Pham of Phamtastic Designs - our winner from Challenge #298!  

You can see how Trina was inspired by our photo as well as my talented team mates over on the Time Out Blog!  I do hope you can take some Time Out and come play cards with us this fortnight!

There was so much inspiration in this photo it was hard to know where to start but eventually I decided on the left dress and made up a Christmas tree (Gummiapan Divided Fir) using a patterned paper that was as close to the colour of that first dress as I could find!  I draped a sentiment banner (inspired by the wrap) across the middle in green and added some green baubles and a star.

And of course by swapping out alternate segments of the fir with plain white I get a twofer!  

Then I thought I'd try the same with dress 2 and after an exhaustive hunt through Christmas papers, found this lovely paper and made up another two trees with some snippets of copper mirror card stock.

I am grateful for and would like to enter the following challenges

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - It's Die-cember so use those dies!

Make My Monday Challenge #266 - Christmas Tree;

Die Traumfabrik Challenge #145 - The Movie is Candy Cane Lane (Anything Christmas Goes);

Peace On Earth December Challenge - Anything Christmas Goes;

Fab 'n' Funky Challenge #627 - Christmas;

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and how to find you!

Kate

Butterfly among the Poinsettias

Sparkles Christmas Challenge 179 has just gone live and Melissa has chosen Poinsettia as our theme for the month of December.

To add interest I thought I'd make a spinning poinsettia card - well it seemed like a good idea at the time!

I found this cute poinsettia paper among my (many) Christmas paper pads and cut a background panel and cut a channel in this for the spinning mechanism to work.  I then cut and layered a poinsettia for my spinning element (Spellbinders Floral Stag, Spellbinders Delivering Joy, Spellbinders Layered Poinsettia) from some special glossy, red glitter card stock I've been saving for years now.  

I was underwhelmed to say the least - the poinsettia was a bit lost on the background paper!  I tried cutting a few more poinsettias (I only had enough of that glossy card stock for 1 more poinsettia so I used plain red and winked them) and randomly added them to the panel.  I was a little happier but still not loving it!  Here it is in motion!

And then I thought ... wouldn't a Butterfly (Justine Hovey Butterfly Mix) make more sense flitting about among those poinsettias and I already had a few of these left over from an earlier project!  Much happier!

Here it is in action

I am grateful for and would like to enter the following challenges

Snippets Playground Challenge #520 - Snippets of that red glossy glitter cardstock and gold below;

Simons Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Simon Says Anything Goes;

A Cut Above December Challenge - Anything Goes with a Die Cut;

ABC Christmas Challenge - W is for Wings;

Merry Little Christmas Challenge Blog - Anything Christmas Goes;

Ellibelle's Crafty Wednesday Challenge for December - Anything Goes;

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and how to find you!

Kate

You Have (Christmas) Mail

 

Time Out Challenge #302 has just gone live and it's our last Pick 2 Challenge for 2025!  

The concept of a Pick 2 Challenge is obvious - we give you 6 word prompts to choose from and you use at least 2 to inspire your creation!  To be clear, you can pick more than 2 if you like - all 6 if you really want a challenge but just make sure to pick at least 2!

The Word Prompts for this challenge are

Emboss, Movie, Nature, Corner, White, Sparkle

You can interpret these words any way you like but please explain if it isn't obvious and please remember we only allow a total of 5 challenges - ours plus 4 others!  I hope you enjoy our challenge and that you can take a little Time Out and join us for some fun!  

Challenge #302 is generously being sponsored by Poppystamps and they are offering our Top Pick as chosen by the design teams a $20 credit to their store!  

The Top Pick will also be invited to join Time Out as a guest designer in a future challenge!  Speaking of guest designers, our guest designer this fortnight is Margreet Burger of Margreet's Scrapcards our winner of Challenge #297!  Be sure to check out the Time Out Blog to see how how Margreet and my talented team mates were inspired by these six words!

Since this is the last Pick 2 Challenge of the Year, I wanted to use all 6 prompts but I wanted to make it a Christmas card and movie had me stumped - all the Christmas movies I could think of (Elf, the Santa Chronicles, The Santa Clause) all seemed to require red and/or green and I wanted to keep it white on white!  In hindsight I could just as easily have made a white elf (these words are only meant to inspire not restrict) but that didn't occur to me (blame it on a MIA mojo)!  In the end I changed tactic and tried to think about any movie (I started with ones I own on DVD and enjoy watching again and again) and finally You Have Mail popped into my head ... which was perfect because I have loads of NBUS Mail stash!  So now I had my movie, it was just as a matter of how the other 5 prompts could work!

I began with a dry embossed background panel (Cuttlebug Snowflakes) to add some background interest and use that word emboss!   

I made up an envelope (NBUS Poppystamps Large Stitched Envelope and Postage) then cut a deckle edged note to slip inside it and tried the word "joy" (Sizzix Holiday Words Script By Tim Holtz) cut from white glitter card stock for some sparkle!

I wasn't happy with it (way too plain) so embossed the notelet with some background text using an NBUS stamp (Kaisercraft Script Texture) with Weiße Diamenten embossing Powder) - more emboss and sparkle!   

It still needed something more and as I wanted some nature I added a flower spray from another NBUS set (Spellbinders Sitting Pretty) cut from white and glitter card stock.  

To finish it all off, I added a "25" to the smaller of the 2 postage stamps (from the envelope set) and added it in the top right corner!

Then the design seemed a bit unbalanced so I added a "Sending" sentiment (Simon Says Stamp) cut from more white glitter card stock (yet more sparkle).  I should have stacked it as it's lost on this embossed background but it was very late, I was tired and TBH I couldn't be bothered (I almost always regret these decisions the next morning)!  Still, overall I was pleased with this card (and lately that's not often been the case) and I managed to use all 6 word prompts!

I am grateful for and would like to enter the following challenges

NBUS Challenge #80 - NBUS Envelope, Text Stamp, Flowers;

Triple B November Challenge - Blooms (no Birds or Butterflies);

Cut it Up Challenge #343 - Favourite Colour (I love white esp the challenge of only using white);

Ellibelle's Crafty Wednesday Challenge for November - Anything Goes;

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and how to find you!

Kate

On Your Guard

Another fun challenge has just gone live at Time Out Challenges - we would like to see how you are inspired by Your Favourite Holiday to Celebrate!

Challenge #301 is generously being sponsored by Angie Blom and they are offering our Top Pick as chosen by the design teams a $20 credit to their store!  

The Top Pick will also be invited to join Time Out as a guest designer in a future challenge!  Speaking of guest designers, our guest designer this fortnight is Stef Perry our winner from Challenge #296!   You can check out how Stef and my talented team mates were inspired by their favourite holiday celebrations over on the Time Out Blog!

I do get inspired by the Christmas season and I find myself buying a lot of Christmas stash - usually at a rate faster than I can possibly use it!  This cute little Danische Garde set from Charlie & Paulchen fell into my shopping basket about a year ago and I finally got around to using it!  It reminded me of the tin soldier from the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale - which makes me think of Christmas for some reason ... and the set came with this "God Jul" sentiment so I guess I'm not alone in that!

The die cuts can be snipped apart and layered up - the soldier was a fiddly because of his size but I was able to build up the guardhouse easily - giving the little soldier a comfortable nook to stand in!  I used a brick embossing folder (Tim Holtz brickwork) for the whitewashed castle wall behind the guardhouse.  

Of course I couldn't resist adding glossy accents to his shoes and bearskin hat!

What is your favourite holiday celebration and how does it inspire you?  We hope you can take some Time Out and come play cards with us - we'd love to see your creations in our gallery!

I am grateful for and would like to enter the following challenges

NBUS Challenge 80 - NBUS Charlie & Paulchen Danische Garde;

ABC Christmas Challenge October - U for Uncluttered and V for Vertical;

Shopping Our Stash Challenge #560 - A few of My Favourite Things are die cutting, embossing folders and glossy accents;

Ellibelle's Corner Wednesday Challenge for November - Anything Goes;

A Cut Above November Challenge - Anything Goes with a Die Cut;

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and how to find you!

Kate

Snow Business

 

Sparkles Christmas Challenge 178 has just gone live and it was my turn to choose the theme and I chose Festive Wear for the month of November - mostly because I was itching to use this NBUS die set (Papertrey Ink Build-A-Hat)!

I found this sheet of grey plaid among my many Christmas paper pads and teamed it with some snippets of greys left over from cutting card bases.  

I used the smaller snowflake from the Build-A-Hat set to spell out "SNOW" (MB Vintage Varsity Alphabet) and a Craft Emotions Lower Case Alphabet die to spell out "business"!

I do hope you are inspired by the rest of the Design Team at the Sparkles Christmas Challenge and can join us with some festive wear of your own - not long now till Christmas!

I am grateful for and would like to enter the following challenges

NBUS Challenge #80 - NBUS "Christmas" sentiment;

Snippets Playground Challenge #518 (see below);

Jingle Belles - Dashing Through the Snow;

Merry Little Christmas #65 - Anything Christmas Goes;

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes;

Kraft Chicks Challenge Week 5 October - Anything Goes;

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and should be able to find you!

Kate

Pumpkin with Personality

Challenge #300 has just gone live at Time Out Challenges and this fortnight we have the theme

Autumn Celebrations Around the World

Challenge 300 is being sponsored by doodlebugsWA and they are very kindly offering our top pick as chosen by the design team a $25 store credit and the Top Pick will also be invited to join Time Out as a guest designer in a future challenge!  

Speaking of guest designers, our guest designer this fortnight is Jaydee of Stamping with Jaydee - our winner from Challenge 293!  Be sure to check out her gorgeous creation inspired by our photo as well as those of my talented team mates over on the Time Out Blog!

I'd been havering for days about which direction to go for this challenge - I was thinking of the Vizfest celebration (apple pressing) we have here in Luxembourg in Mid October or possibly Oktoberfest which is also popular here!   But yesterday I received a lovely surprise in the post - a stamp set from Donna Walls of Inspiration Station which included Halloween elements so I decided to go with a Halloween theme and use the new stamp set for tone on tone interest behind this very old but still NBUS pumpkin die (Sizzix Movers and Shapers Pumpkin Jack by Tim Holtz).  I also bought the matching Movers and Shapers Mini Scary Jack-o-Lantern Set all those years ago (2014) and both have been overlooked.

I cut the pumpkin with the face from yellow card stock and shaded with some Carved Pumpkin DI, then backed it with a black pumpkin without the face.  The mouth and eyes looked a little dull, so I went over them with Wink of Stella, added the stalk and arranged the new stamps on my stamping platform and stamped with Versamark for a subtle effect behind the pumpkin.  Here's a closeup!

I did have to make a larger than normal card base to accommodate this pumpkin - these Bigz dies are just that!  It measures 12.5 x 17cm (just under 5" x just under 6.75") so should fit in a 5 x 7" envelope.  The larger size is probably why it's sat unloved for so many years.  How many dies have we bought that were much larger (or smaller) than anticipated when they were bought online???

I am grateful for and would like to enter the following challenges

NBUS Challenge #79 - NBUS Pumpkin Jack, Jack o'Lantern, Bloody Good Halloween;

Four Seasons October Challenge;

Two Old Bats October Challenge;

Traumfabrik Challenge #144 - Coco Day of the Dead (Halloween Theme);

Inspiration Station Challenge #78 - See below (I was inspired by the pumpkins);

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and how to find you!

Kate